You have bought your dream classic car, but it requires restoration and you are not a real handy type of person. Well, there are warning signs out there to help guide you away from the bad actor shops.
If you go into a restoration shop and cannot find a paint booth. Warning signs you might not be in a real restoration shop
Paint and bodywork represent 50 to 60 percent of the total hours spent on an entire restoration. Therefore, a customer’s car will spend as much, or more, time in the paint and body shop as it does in the restoration shop. A typical restoration consumes 1,000-plus hours, which means the paint and bodywork amount to 500 to 600 hours at a minimum, more if the body needs major work.
Without a paint booth in the restoration shop, you might find your car has been sent out to Joe Blow’s paint shop in a bad part of town and for a very-long time. How can a restoration shop make any money if they farm out more than half the work to another paint shop? How high can they jack up the cost of another shop’s paintjob? A fair person might assume the markup will not be that high, but some restoration shops earn more money with a pencil than a paint gun.
Plus, the question of liability arises. Who is responsible for issues like repayment of losses if, for instance, Joe Blow’s paint shop burns down? Is the car covered with that shop’s insurance? What if somebody steals your car from the paint shop? Having the entire restoration done by a single shop eliminates those types of problems.
If you go into a restoration shop and it is doing mostly assembly work. Warning signs that you might not be in a real restoration shop
This is like the first warning sign. When a restoration shop farms out more and more restoration work, including engine building, upholstery, suspension and more, that shop becomes more of a contractor and assembly shop than a restoration shop. The car owner might just as well save $75 to $200 an hour and farm-out his own restoration, eliminating the expensive middleman.
If you go into a restoration shop and find employees randomly working throughout the shop without a designated work area. Warning signs that you might not be in a real restoration shop
You cannot control quality and work planning if employees work all over the shop. This results in lost time (customer pays for) as well as lost parts and even duplicated work. Most quality shops have designated areas for disassembly, body work, paint, engine, and mechanical as well as specialty areas for interiors or custom modifications.
If you go into a restoration shop and find employees on their cell phones calling for help. Warning signs that you might not be in a restoration shop
Several years ago, a restoration shop employee told us how much research he did while restoring a car. And yes, he charged the typical hourly rate to do that research. Why should the customer pay for the shop’s learning curve?
Some restoration shops charge from $75 to $200 per hour for an employee to sit down in an office and call up different experts for restoration information or to hunt parts. Those phone calls, at $100 per hour, add up to some very-expensive toll charges.
If you go into a restoration shop and find the shop with cars, and equipment scattered around without an organization and no defined place to store each customer's parts. Warning signs that you might not be in the right place
Restoration is an intensive exercise. Time is money and if the employees are searching for parts or moving cars and equipment to work, then work is not getting done or being done correctly. At the end of the day the customer always pays. Serious restoration shops are restoring the cars they love, and enthusiasts who love cars also love the parts that make them up. Restoration shops hang on to their original parts, especially NOS parts, which they buy primarily for future restorations. They also treat the customer’s cars and parts with care to ensure all the parts go with the correct car and any that can be salvaged are.
Factory assembly manuals are also extremely helpful, with the one caveat, the restoration shop does not depend on solely this one source. Restoration shops realize restoring cars is not cut and dry and assembly manuals are not the absolute authority thanks to running changes in production. They are a great guide, but not the final word on the way things were done.
If you go into a restoration shop and find cars started but none finished. Warning sing that you might not be in the right place
Most likely, this shop has charged down-payment money on each car and started on its restorations. You might see several cars that are started, but nothing close to being finished (such as, six cars in primer that do not look like they are getting past primer). You may come back to the shop and hear stories of about the restorations.
If you go into a restoration shop and they cannot provide a written contract and estimate. Warning sign that you might not be in the right place
This is a business, and a professional shop should be able to document their services as well as deal with the customer’s expectations. Costs for restoration can run well in the 100s of thousands of dollars and getting the scope, timing, documentation, and payment expectations is a key to a successful build. We will discuss the “Contract” in the future.
If you go into a restoration shop and they get your car in right away and take a deposit. Warning signs that you might not be in the right place
Shops with six cars in primer might be good at taking a deposit and stripping a car to bare metal. These shops have you on a big hook with your car partially disassembled and undrivable—in other words—stuck. These same shops eagerly consent to do whatever you request without question. The customer asks for a concours restoration. “Yes, sir we do those.” A driver restoration for cruise night? “Of course, we can.” Base coat, clear coat? “Yes, we will.” Factory single-stage paint with orange peel? “Yes, we can. Rocker panels rusted out? “No problem.”
These shops are apt to make promises they cannot keep. They also tend to accept rougher cars that are beyond the capabilities that the paint and body shop can handle.
Shops with lesser credentials and expertise, and those shops that need work, take on rustier and rougher cars as starting points. This can easily put a customer upside down, meaning putting far more money into the car than it is worth.
Regardless of the car’s ultimate value, though, some cars have great sentimental value. For instance, a parent or grandparent who bought the car new and price is no object when it comes to restoring the car.
Good restoration shops go over these good and bad points with customers, whereas a lesser shop’s major concern is cashing your check.
The top restoration shops are busy for a reason. As a result, customers usually have to wait one to two years to make it into the restoration rotation. In this case, when you go into the shop you will see cars waiting to be restored, in various stages of restoration, and several finished cars. The cars are in these various stages because the shop is using all its facilities. Having two or three cars on the rotisserie at the same time would not be efficient. But, one undergoing disassembly, one on the rotisserie, one ready for paint, and one in final assembly, shows a progression of completion, and is a sign of a real restoration shop. It should almost look like an assembly line.
If you go into a restoration shop and they quick talk or a vague on what they can and cannot do. Warning signs that you might not be in the right place
Real restoration shops specialize; they know how to do restorations a specific way. They will refuse to do anything that is not stock in their restorations. Slick talking salespeople are quick to give a “yes” to anything the customer wants, but the reality may be that the shop is not capable of delivering. That is not the goal of the sales pitch; it is just to get you in the door and get a deposit. Money is secondary with quality restorers who are car enthusiasts like their customers.
If you go into a restoration shop and find that most of the employees have not been there very long. Warning sign that you might not be in the right place
The key to any shop is the team that has been put together to work on these cars. It takes a special talent and patience to achieve quality results. If a shop has high turnover and cannot keep quality people, then there is more going on behind the scenes. The result is that numerous people may work on the same car duplicating efforts or lose time and parts in the transition. It may also mean a loss in the quality of the work that has been expected from the onset of the contract. Again, at the end of the day, the customer ends up paying anyway.
Bonus sign: If you go into a restoration shop and find that most of the cars outside have the front ends removed or the body has been partially disassembled. Again you might not be in the right place
These shops quickly take in projects with deposits, and then make the cars immobile to sit outside with no place to go. The owners are stuck with their cars sitting for years without any progress being made.
Most people who end up having to deal with nightmare restoration projects miss the tell-tale signs that they were headed into a bad place right from the start.
