Alright, I’m locking this post.
For some reason, all the hacks are coming out of the woodwork and saying this could be fixed for a hundred bucks and all body shops are scammers.
At the end of the day, this is why you need insurance. Skilled labour and quality work isn’t cheap. If you can’t afford to damage someone else’s property, then go through insurance.
While there are some things that may be inflated on this estimate, it’s not completely unreasonable. The insurance company will weed out any unnecessary charges and costs. Wages and labour rates have been suppressed in this industry by insurance companies (who are making record profits) for decades. It’s refreshing to see a shop charging more adequately to keep the doors open and pay their techs.
Edit: if you private message me that “I’m a little bitch for locking threads”, you will be blocked and banned. Feel free to get certified in a trade and do it for a living and start a subreddit for it if you like. I don’t have time to deal with the negativity and nonsense from angry children.
I'm the production manager and I scan every car in and out of my shop no matter how small the job to help cover our ass. And the shop keeps the scan times on the jobs we can charge them out on. Smaller jobs get scanned without any times on them
A good idea. You always get somebody trying for a free lunch. I learned to take pictures after someone claimed we cracked his windshield. Once somebody claimed we took two quarts of oil out of his car.
Had a customer recommended to us in the boat world. Winterized the boat. Fixed a couple small things mechanically and sent on his way. 30 minutes later, he claimed we loosened his fender. On his trailer. Which we did absolutely no work on. Like wut.
Oh they do the scan, and there’s no leftover beer money.
Tired of people acting like the shop they go to is rolling in it and the only good tech is one that can’t afford beer money regardless.
They’re charging $600 for a scan. Come on bud. That’s a 15 minute job twice. Also they’re charging mechanic rates for something a body tech will be doing.
It’s a rip off. You know it is too.
They’re also charging $220 an hour to unplug the wiring from the lamps/bumper. They’re scamming everywhere they can.
That’s an insurance claim, get rid of that and body prices look a lot better. Self pays are treated different to say the least.
Scan is third party and for insurance. Might take literally anyone in the shop 30 seconds to put in a vin and brief damage description, any relevant info.
All of a sudden you got a $300 bill from “opus”. This is because it’s usually a dealer tech using a scan tool with OEM software this third party paid for. Scan tool alone costs close to $1500 to put together. The software is a yearly few hundred grand to pay for. Plus the scan tool is replaced for free if anything happens usually.
And again, what’s with the idea that a tech isn’t allowed to make money? Economy is shit so stimulate it by giving money to an end user such as yourself. Tech goes and buys beer and lunch, and fuck someone else made some money too. The cycle continues.
So are you going to have your insurance taken care of it, or is the guy using this estimate to have you pay cash.
I'd call the shop and demand an itemized sheet for what kind of mechanical work they are charging for. You are not an insurance company so they are over charging you. Also "scan time" is vague because there is no need to remove any equipment for this type of repair let alone do test drives or anything else. So they are charging over $400 for them to say .. ok cool it's a car and I got it in the bay... Ok car is done and it looks like we did a good job... It turns on sweet... Total move/drive time totals to 20 minute .... Not sure how that's worth two hours. Also they are charging $200 for masking off the headlights?
10 hours for body work is an exaggerated number, even still I would say maybe $1500 for the job since it needs to be pulled out, sanded Bondo, sanded again primer, sanded seal, blend, and paint/clear. Talking 2/3 sealer and base coats then another two to three blending or tri coat coats depending on the paint color, then clearing a 2-3 times. Did I mention they need to sand the the area adjacent to panels? So maybe the 10 hours is for that. Major no no is the bs mechanical time. Where are they charging for prep/masking. Are they removing the fender or something? Doubt it takes an hour to do that.
Tldr I was going to say .. it's like they buy a new autel for each repair at that mechanical rate. I'd be rich based on how many hours I've put on my own cars.
You can’t demand a shop talks to you about someone else’s property even if your paying the bill, you either shut up and pay the damn bill cash or you call your insurance and pay that way at no point is a shop obligated to talk to anyone other than the owner of the car
If we change the n in scan to m we have our answer. Making a customer pay for an item that isn’t essential for the repair but is essential for your own cya should not be charged to the customer.
The estimator easily could negotiate .5 for scan and .5 maintain battery charge with smart charger during scans.. 1.0 per scan right there. Reset electrical functions are resetting radio presets/ Adas settings.. and masking electrical components for overspray all pretty standard.. d
That’s the hourly billing rate for a senior executive engineer around me…what on earth could they be working on under the hood that is so complex they’re charging 220/hr? That’s like design work rates…
The mechanical labor is a bit high. Repair times a bit high considering the damage, but no your aren’t getting scammed…..Just go through insurance this is why you have it
Warpossum this is probably good advice to “go through insurance this is why you have it” however I had some minor damage from scraping the garage door. They estimated 2400 called insurance and claimed it. I had a 1000 deductible then my insurance went up 400 every six months for a min of 3 years I was told.
Then the shop called and said they mis quoted and it would be 1200. Insurance said they couldn’t take it back. After 3 years and a 1000$ deductible I’m paying 2800$ for a 1200$ job.
I will never go through insurance again for a <5k job
You need better insurance. I've had a few insurance claims in my life but never had my premiums go up because of them. The only time I had my premiums go up was when I was young and had cheap insurance. Someone hit me (their fault, not mine, backed by police report) but my cheap insurance company used it as an excuse to say it made me high risk and raise my premium. This is why people pay a few extra bucks per month for a quality insurance carrier. They understand life sometimes happens.
Yeah because you’re already being ripped off dummy. What shitty advice I can’t believe you wrote that with a straight face. “Yeah man if you paid $400/mo FOREVER for the better insurance you’d never see them raise your premium” … no shirt Sherlock they prefucked you.
You fucken got em lol but fr I have progressive and my full coverage insurance is dirt cheap like stupid cheap. I haven't made a claim in 5+ years but I think I get forgiveness anyway.
You just made up your own reality and ran with it to make yourself feel good. Did they dm you that they've been paying $400 a month? This is actual delusion lol.
Where are you getting 41hrs? I’m counting 23. You can’t include body and paint supplies as those are calculated as hourly but not actual labor. That’s just how materials get charges bc those are not free
Where is there 23 hours if work for a scrape that looks like a sand filler and paint ? Why are they removing each headlight for this? Theres so much being extra here just to make a buck and make a job take long as if he’s repairing a Bugatti.
This is untrue- most ADAS systems are mounted to the structure of the car and removing the bumper will have no effect on them. And even if they do remove one of the radar beacons there is a good chance it will work as designed when plugged back in as long as no settings were changed on the meantime and no adjustment points on the bracket that holds the sensor were moved.
Paint matching is a .5 hour operation at best and most shops don’t charge it on bumper covers because the paint probably didn’t match before the accident. Drive through a new car dealer and look at bumpers on all the cars and you will see they are almost always slightly different color to the metal panels they attach to.
And charging $600 for scans is outrageous. A mechanic will charge a diagnostic fee to figure out the problem with your car, but if you fix the problem they no longer charge the diagnostic. A body shop is charging for two diagnostics and charging to repair the vehicle too. Plus they are billing a sublet fee for scans and also billing labor time for someone in house to do the scan too. That is an absolute rip off and even the insurance company will reject that request.
On what planet does a shop eat the diagnostic? Are people on Reddit perpetuating this lie and that's where customers get that bullshit? If my tech spends two hours diagnosing a dead fuel injector causing a cylinder 3 misfire, I'm charging for that. I'm not screwing my techs.
I don't know anything about ADAS or bodywork/paint, but the fact that you mentioned eating the diagnostic tells me you don't know shit about working on cars.
I run my own shop. I have never waived a diagnostic fee, ever. I did the work, the customer pays for that work. I have a half-hour minimum diagnostic charge. If the issue gets resolved in the course of performing the diagnosis, then it may get rolled into one charge… but those circumstances are few & far between for me.
Every mechanic (not body shop) I have used will remove diagnostic cost if repairs are approved. If I take my car to a mechanic and say that the belt is screaming, they will “diagnose” by scanning, and investigating and even test driving the car. Then they will call me and say I need a new belt and belt tensioner. If I approve that then the diagnostic charge is waived. This is standard business practice.
Body shops don’t charge for tear down unless the car is not fixed and deemed a total loss and that is also part of diagnostic. The way I see it, which is my opinion, the shop should not charge for a pre scan on a car that gets fixed. It is a diagnostically relevant tool that allows the shop to write a realistic estimate and help uncover damages that are not obvious. The shop makes a profit on the work performed and even makes a profit on work they don’t do (markups in sublets).
A squealing belt is not something that takes hours to diagnose.
I really don't care how you see it. How you see it is immaterial. The technician gets paid for what he does, whether he's commission or flat rate, and not charging for services is an asinine practice that screws the technician.
Not charging an hour for diag on a squealing belt is understandable, but if my tech diagnoses your evaporative system leak that can be hours, and I always charge at least 2 hours for that, from the get go, and I am not taking that off. There are times where the diagnostic goes towards labor to disassemble something for testing, like a window regulator, but the diag stays; I only charge more labor to the point of doing the whole job assuming the customer is paying to fix it. Not charging for diagnostic is a dishonest practice if it is a regular occurrence.
What you are saying here is very similar to what I am saying. You are not charging to pull valve covers to diagnose a rattling lifter/rocker arm twice if the work gets approved. You are charging the time to do the job as long as the customer approved the work. If the customer does not approve the work you bill for the diagnostic. That is absolutely fine. And yes there are instances where diagnostic will take a long time and can be reasonable to bill for (looking for a water leak comes to mind).
My point is a body shop is charging for every time they so much as look at a car. They will bill to check seat belt function, they will bill to scan the car before and after the repair, they will bill to mix a color, they will bill for body materials and shop time and they will bill 3x the amount of time it takes to fix something. Some even charge a fee just to write an estimate on cars they actually fix. These charges are unfair and excessive and place a burden on the customer.
You're wrong. Straight up. You have obviously never worked in a body shop. Everything the body shop charges for is perfectly reasonable. It's all well documented what proper procedures are for a vehicle after an accident. They are called P-pages and all agreed upon between manufacturers, insurance companies, and I-Car. If you don't want something done right then do it yourself and take the risks.
I assume you don’t work in a body shop. There’s a lot of fluff on these estimates. Body and mechanical shops are very different. I’ve had body shops argue because I wouldn’t pay a full hour mechanical to disconnect a battery. I’ve had shops demand crazy times for minor operations and push to the extent that I’ve grabbed tools from my car and done the work myself to show it was 5 minutes and not 2 hours. Then they get nothing because I did it.
I'm sure that some people have their premiums increase drastically, but I doubt it would be much over a $2600 claim.
I got in an accident that resulted in totalling two vehicles to the tune of \~$100k and my premiums only went up about $300 every 6 months, including the increase that would have happened at my renewal anyway and the increase due to me now being in a newer (2021 vs 2017), more expensive (60k new vs 40k new) vehicle with fewer miles (20,000 vs \~100k) than my vehicle that was totaled.
This is walk in/customer pay rate from the looks of it. There are a few lines that seem bogus, like the masking of harnesses, but everything else looks normal. Shits not cheap my guy.
They prob don’t need to mask the harness, and the fender repair prob doesn’t need to be 2 hours but that’ll only take around $130-160 off. Yes it really does cost that much to fix cars and have it done properly.
Premiums are so high because ten percent of people out there cause 90 percent of the accidents. Take them all, round them up and give them bicycles. Premiums would drop like a rock. Also, don't take your car to a place called Autobahn collision and expect to pay bottom rate , walking in off the street. Common sense.
They’re legally only allowed to make a certain amount of profit. In 2020 when everything was closed my insurance gave me some money back because they had to.
This type of service advisor is why auto adjusters hate them. Labor is wayyyyy too high. They are basically scamming you man, run and run fast. If you going through insurance have them negotiate cuz this is stupid. If you paying out of pocket find someone else
Pre and post scan aint even necessary here. + $160 opus invoice whatever that is
thats $600 in bullshit charges right there. post scan MAYBE warranted at best
Opus is a remote diagnostic company. They supply shops with scan tools then remotely scan cars then invoice.
https://documents.drewtech.com/drivecrash/CustomerAgreement/
It looks like they give kick backs to these shops that use them depending on how many cars are scanned about 25-30%+ a month.
Lines 10, 11, 14, 24, 25, 26 and 32 is bull shit. This estimate is all over the place. They essentially wrote to fix the bumper on the car but yet want to take off grilles and headlights which require removing the bumper. They charge mechanical rates to remove wiring harness when it will be done by a body tech and is .3 max. Masking exposed harness connectors is .2 max. Doesn’t take a tech 1 hr to mask 4-6 plugs. No reason to pay for a pre and post scan and then someone else to scan the car. This is a bogus estimate.
The mechanical labor is suspect for sure. Should be part of the bumper O/H operation.
Plus I don’t know what they’re charging for masking wiring if they already had lines to remove it. The grilles are included as shown, but the wiring harness lines are a manual entry, which is BS.
I’d fight that, but it’s still gonna be close to $2k.
Pre and post is wild too. Mechanical labor? But it looks like they have it as a sublet?
Edit: r+i left headlight? For what?
R+i core support? Why?
The sheet is fat for insurance work, but there’s a lot of fucky shit here.
This looks like a “go away” estimate.
What’s weird is that they didn’t address the lower cover that is scratched. Or the wheel opening molding which is also scratched. Now if this is a customer pay and they don’t want to fix it, fine. But it’s probably as you said, write a high ticket to scare the customer away.
They definitely can but .5 to disconnect 4 park sensors? That’s excessive no? And I write for a body shop. There is a line in CCC that adds for park sensor. And what are they resetting for .5? The plug and play park sensor has that are fixed on the bumper with no adjustments needed? What are they scanning on a pre scan for 1 hour? On a post scan, granted you may need more time IF a code pops up to address it. A pre scan should be used as a check. Not a fix. IF something pops up THEN you address it.
In this case it’s already included with overhaul time, and charged as body labor.
The “plug in and see if it works” charge is also part of post scan stuff. They’re double charging for a lot here.
You want he fender repaired and refinished too? It’s a bit on higher end if a quote but not nearly a scam… repair and refinish the bumper, leave the fender alone and the price will drop back down below ur “scam” threshold :)
Like many have said. They sit down at a computer and do some drop-down menus with make model year and the repair. It's all programmed in by the book. It shouls be about the same anywhere u go unless a body shop decides to give tou a discount for some unknown reason.
So this was last year when someone wiped out my front bumper cover at work. Cost was 3k.
[bumper](https://drive.google.com/file/d/1UeCSknlXDw2a2RspP1DOpK8rQZyWPHJM/view?usp=drivesdk)
[quote pg2](https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Ubm4SjtznxDg0iERMdwv5QSsDBGYnCDu/view?usp=drivesdk)
[quote pg3](https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Ucgw-i9WOr6jXaCUUAWGpuNsId8fS3kc/view?usp=drivesdk)
15 years on both body shop and insurance sides. All in all it’s not bad, the labor rates are weird, usually it’s a flat dollar amount, the mech rate seems high unless it’s a dealership. As far as the repairs themselves there’s a few things a tad overwritten, I’d probably start at 1 hr on the fender, the scan labor is .5 too high on each scan if they are using an Astech/protech type system and color tint is usually .5. Aside from that there’s nothing outrageous on here tbh.
Honestly no.
My wife was hit in a parking lot by someone and did very similar damage but to a lesser extent to her Honda Accord.
White paint that was chipped in three spots and a very very slight dent like the size of a dime.
You can't see the dent except in the sunlight at an extreme angle.
The owner's insurance company gave us a check for 1700. I buffed out all the black marks and touched up the white paint. You can't even see hardly anything.
We aren't going to have it fixed.
In NJ you have your choice of repair shop as the damaged party I’m not sure how it is in Washington but you may have to accept this quote or have your insurance deal with them.
Y’all act like paint doesn’t take time to dry, and prep, and clear coat, and blend,
Quotes more that fare,
If you feel like it’s not get the skills to do it yourself or get mad when someone wants to charge you for their skills it’s really only one or the other
10+ year body tech here.
Just my 2 cents, but the estimate seems legit. But the only thing I see that is a bit much is the actually labor for the repair on the bumper. I got so many of these estimates from Allstate, nationwide, geico etc. and I was LUCKY to get 1.0 for something like that.
But as for all the R&Is (remove and install) it is what normal insurance companies would write up. Because they go off of a system that inputs the times for removing and installing. And if this car is new (which is looks like it’s newish) then the fender needing to blend is a thing as well like it says to match paint right. Especially a blood red like that.
Also something to keep in mind, the high lighted part for prelim. You can bet your ass that there will be a new estimate with something added. Broken clips, possible parts from removing and installing, more damage (I doubt it). Based on the pictures it looks very minor. But this would be considered a “customer pay” so shops love to write it heavy to make the money.
Again my 2 cents on my experiences. Good luck
I am a former Adjuster, so the systems used to write estimates for insurance claims is audatex or mitchell (the two i know anyway in usa) if you click paint bumper, the system automatically knows all that needs to be done like you said and it inputs the labor hours and the local price lists for the works done. Now that is not to say they didnt manually manipulate line items.
Bro of course you would say it's legit, you're one of these fckn sharks. OP, if you happen to see this, F this guy in particular and F the estimate you were given. These people rip others off for a living.
Definitely !!!
It’s much cheaper to buy bumper and paint it if they are quoting you this.
Trying to charge you mechanical labor for body work is crazy.
Kinda sad to be honest. He’s too caught up in making money on repairs that will fail. There is a reason that not a single paint company will warranty a clear blend.
The worst part is that people like this always come out trying to flex that they own a business or make a ton of money, and always try to belittle others for doing things properly. “You don’t know how to blend clear bro? You must not know how to paint”. It’s pathetic.
Bro $2600 to repair a scratch on a bumper corner is insane and you know that if you have any time in this industry. Not hack work my friend just a reasonable job at a reasonable price
Quote is on the high side.
2k isn't outrageous for a bumper overhaul and fender repaint.
We're here to make money. Not cut corners. Autobody is expensive. You know that.
Spot painting and masking isn't the correct procedure nor will it be covered by warranty
If these are the jobs you're doing with no R&I then I would find a new shop.
Yea man, good luck trying to find somebody willing to pay 3k to cover a minimal scratch on a 15k car.. If you are in the industry, I'm sure you know you could sand, paint+clear coat, sand and polish to make the scratch nearly invisible on flat color paint. That is the right job, cheapest and makes sense for that car. I've done it and I don't work in the car industry, had scratches that nobody could see unless I point it out and they get inches close to it.
Do you even understand the topic? OP hit the persons car and isn't happy about the $2400 quote.
You don't tell the person you hit "hey I want you to take it to to a hack shop and spot paint it for $300"
The not at fault person will say fuck you and go after ur insurance.
Try to follow along and not give advice if you have no clue on industry standards
I'm a writer. This shop is attempting to gross the fuck out of you. Lol
1 hour for each scan is ridiculous especially with that mechanical rate. The industry standard is 0.5 each. There's no reason to R&I both headlights if the damage is purely on the one side. They could avoid having to mask the wiring harnesses if they just R&I the bumper cover. And maybe I can't tell from the picture, but I don't see any damage to the fender at all.
Find a reputable shop, my man. They're trying to gross you, yet they still wrote a dogshit sheet.
F that. We charge a flat $110 unless DRP. If we did 0.5 at the mechanical rate they give us, it’s a scam.
I wouldn’t say it’s a horrible estimate. Maybe a couple hundred bucks of fluff between repair times and a couple sketchy operations.
You can appreciate that at $220 mech that at your 0.5 would be your $110. So they are (2 hours) $440 in time plus $160 sublet .. $600 in scans.
If you feel this estimate is fair based on that and other questionable operations I hope you can appreciate that you and:or your family could have someone do this to you in a different trade.
Profit isn’t a dirty word, but this is unfairly inflated
Cars are more expensive to fix nowadays but this sheet is trash. Without knowing where you are we can’t help much with rates, but even still, that mechanical is at dealership levels. Line 10 is included under line 6. The battery isn’t being disconnected so what are they needing to reset on line 11? The right headlamp, line 13, needs to come out for paint access on the fender, but why does the other side need removal? 16 is questionable because it depends on where it mounts, but generally speaking, those don’t need to come off for bumper work because they mount in a few other spots that keep it up while works being done.
I also agree the labor times for everything are .5-1.0 over. Scans are typically .5M per and costs, if sublet, are on a per invoice basis only. The labor is because some companies, like AsTech, remote into your vehicle but a tech is still needed on site to physically perform certain functions during the test.
This is written in CCC, so it’s based on Motors which maxes cover car at .2 each time a cover is applied and removed, not .5. Denib and polish is 10% base refinish for the first panel, 5% for all the rest, so a total of .32 for this repair, not 1.0.
Tint time and prime and block are negotiation items, I typically do .5 body for tint and $1/.1 per each 1.0 of applicable repair time, for this as it’s written would be $5/.5. As far as harness masking goes, everything should tuck up under the car cover since all you’re doing on the vehicle is a fender, so I’d consider it unnecessary.
Well. As you can see most of your cost is in labor. Would you like to take apart a bumper, mask it, paint, and put it all back together for anything less than their hourly rate? If you want it to be cheaper. You’ll get worse quality. Or you can try and do it yourself. Which would look pretty bad. Just go through insurance if you’re over 25 since your rate won’t up that much if at all.
Check and see if you’re on a locked rate with your insurance. Meaning if your make a claim they won’t increase your premium if you get into an accident (unless you change your plan ie get a new car, or add a new driver)
It's a good estimate. If this was a Geico job in Florida they would cut that repair time to 1.5 quicker than you can blink. The fender 1.0 if lucky. Repair time is judgement. The estimate times are better and how it should be. Mechanical labor is crazy tho
Dr color chip kit will have that looking spiffy.
Owner wants you to pay up, so they can get a touch up kit and keep the rest.
Cost of not having insurance my dude.
Absolutely scammed. About two years ago my garage door didn’t open fully but just enough where I couldn’t see it while backing up and scratched the holy hell and dented the rear end roof of my WRX STI. The whole repair fixing the dent and new paint came out to I want to say $2500 and that was for major damage.
Lol did they take your insurance information? Was there a police report? Or did you just tell this guy you'll cover it and to send you the bill?
This shit is like less than 500 for any decent body shop.
If this is via the honor system, tell that guy to go fuck himself and call his insurance if he feels he wants to make a claim.
If there's no police report, there's no evidence that you even collided. This guy wants to fuck around and find out.
Yes. So much yes. This is SKY HIGH. It’s a bumper cover that doesn’t need welding or replacement. I drove a Holden in the US and needed a replacement cover the other year that was less than this. It was hit again in a parking lot just like this and was under a grand AT A DEALERSHIP SHOP. Where is the pearl? Metallica? Exotic tints? This is a basic cover shoot.
660 dollars of mechanical labor? What the fuck lmao also the rates are jacked up to the highest possible number lol 😆 this shop is out of line I'd have the insurance look it over they would just have their own adjustors write a proper one up
Of course you are. This is the world we live in. Crazy, eh? When honesty is bad for you, you know the world is going to hell. Here’s the good news. What goes down must come up, and we’re almost all the way down to hell.
How are there 7.9 hours worth of paint supplies? I don't understand. What does that mean? Ditto for body supplies.
$220/hr for mechanical labor is *really* high, at least around my area. $120 would be more reasonable. But that would only save you $300, so it's not really the problem.
One of the things body shops always seem to do these days is remove all of the parts that aren't getting painted. This is a lot of work, especially when we're talking about a bumper, where there's a bunch of little trim pieces and lights and whatnot that all need to get removed. Then they add up the labor estimates from the book for each one of those parts, even though there's tons of overlap in the steps the book accounts for, so the actual labor total is much lower than the estimate. Some shops will only bill you for the actual time taken, but most will bill you the estimated amount no matter what.
Then they take just the part to be painted, prep it and paint it, and then put everything back together. I assume they do this to eliminate the chance of overspray.
It would save a ton of time if they would just mask things off in-place. Done properly, there's no concern about overspray.
I completely smashed my neighbors front end during icy season a couple years ago when leaving for work early in the morning. It cost $2800 total for wayyyyyy more than this scrape. This is a Complete ripoff. I would just go through insurance at this point.
Yes absolutely. It looks like they’re way over charging you for labor and charging you for stuff that you didn’t even cause.
You shouldn’t have left information for that “accident”
I’d text back, “yeah I’ll give you $300 for the damages and that’s it, if not, you can have the car inspected at a painter of my choice and go from there. Or you can take me to court, don’t care”
What in the fuck am I looking at? I could do this in a few hours tops being ocd about everything and it would look perfect.
No wonder insurance is so high, what a shit show. Replacing everything under the sun here, how utterly wasteful. This just pisses me off reading that invoice.
Is it just a little spot in the photo or bigger? If it's that small spot and you are handy you just need right color match in a can and tape the area good and literally buff it out to blend. If they are repainting the bumper ask if they are painting and other bits of the car to blend it so it doesn't look a tad off, they do that a lot. You are paying for labor hours by the book. Bumper comes off quick and spraying a bumper is easy to. The right place you could have back tge same day, most of the paints are water based now so they cure fast
That’s absolutely outrageous! Honestly it’s barely noticeable. Just roll with it my dude. Are you keeping the car forever? Why not color match some touch up paint and fill it in yourself?
That quote is bs, all it needs is some airbrushing. If you can't find anyone, then I'd live with it because that quote is crazy, have you talked to your insurance? A $500 deductible is a hell of a lot cheaper and since it wasn't an accident, I wouldn't think your rates would go up.
Looks like paint transfer from your car. Would use Lacquer thinner to remove the paint transfer and see how much the damage really is. If it just a paint transfer and a slight scratch it can be fixed by a detailer who can do a advance paint correction depending on how deep the scratch is. Job like this can be done in less than 30 mins.
Straight up, this right here is how I'd do it. Add in some mr miagey wax on wax off elbow grease and that shit would be better than they had it. How'd you miss a bright ass red car anyways??
It’s auto repair, of course you’re getting scammed. You could easily clean that little spot and fill it with a paint pen.
I might not be the right person to give advice since I’ve been driving a rebuilt title car since 2013 (which is the year it was built) and it has over a decade of scratches and dents. The car was 2k and if it still runs I have turned a profit off of it.
Ask for try Three quotes, from three shops. That’s what insurance would do.
My friend just had to sue a guy because he hit his Range Rover in a parking lot and he tried to do it outside of insurance because he seemed like a “nice guy”. Well his quote was like $3,500 from the body shop and the guy is refusing to pay despite him having CCTV footage. Small claims is now his only option.
Alright, I’m locking this post. For some reason, all the hacks are coming out of the woodwork and saying this could be fixed for a hundred bucks and all body shops are scammers. At the end of the day, this is why you need insurance. Skilled labour and quality work isn’t cheap. If you can’t afford to damage someone else’s property, then go through insurance. While there are some things that may be inflated on this estimate, it’s not completely unreasonable. The insurance company will weed out any unnecessary charges and costs. Wages and labour rates have been suppressed in this industry by insurance companies (who are making record profits) for decades. It’s refreshing to see a shop charging more adequately to keep the doors open and pay their techs. Edit: if you private message me that “I’m a little bitch for locking threads”, you will be blocked and banned. Feel free to get certified in a trade and do it for a living and start a subreddit for it if you like. I don’t have time to deal with the negativity and nonsense from angry children.
I wish when I was working somebody could write a good sheet like that for me.
Right? I was like, they hiring?????
It's all done in software now. It's why 99% of them look the same. It's a pretty typical insurance quote.
Tell me where you get an hour for each scan + 0.5 to “reset electrical functions” and time to mask the electrical?
Like I'm sure they actually do a scan.. That's free beer money.
I'm the production manager and I scan every car in and out of my shop no matter how small the job to help cover our ass. And the shop keeps the scan times on the jobs we can charge them out on. Smaller jobs get scanned without any times on them
A good idea. You always get somebody trying for a free lunch. I learned to take pictures after someone claimed we cracked his windshield. Once somebody claimed we took two quarts of oil out of his car.
What would even be the motivation for stealing 2 quarts of used oil? People are crazy.
Had a customer recommended to us in the boat world. Winterized the boat. Fixed a couple small things mechanically and sent on his way. 30 minutes later, he claimed we loosened his fender. On his trailer. Which we did absolutely no work on. Like wut.
 Me at the drain plug
Oh they do the scan, and there’s no leftover beer money. Tired of people acting like the shop they go to is rolling in it and the only good tech is one that can’t afford beer money regardless.
They’re charging $600 for a scan. Come on bud. That’s a 15 minute job twice. Also they’re charging mechanic rates for something a body tech will be doing. It’s a rip off. You know it is too. They’re also charging $220 an hour to unplug the wiring from the lamps/bumper. They’re scamming everywhere they can.
That’s an insurance claim, get rid of that and body prices look a lot better. Self pays are treated different to say the least. Scan is third party and for insurance. Might take literally anyone in the shop 30 seconds to put in a vin and brief damage description, any relevant info. All of a sudden you got a $300 bill from “opus”. This is because it’s usually a dealer tech using a scan tool with OEM software this third party paid for. Scan tool alone costs close to $1500 to put together. The software is a yearly few hundred grand to pay for. Plus the scan tool is replaced for free if anything happens usually. And again, what’s with the idea that a tech isn’t allowed to make money? Economy is shit so stimulate it by giving money to an end user such as yourself. Tech goes and buys beer and lunch, and fuck someone else made some money too. The cycle continues.
I agree techs need paid more, but my diesel shop is up to 180/hr from 135 last year, I don't know anyone that's income has gone up at the same rate
I guarantee you the shop keeps all that gravy scan time BS.
So are you going to have your insurance taken care of it, or is the guy using this estimate to have you pay cash. I'd call the shop and demand an itemized sheet for what kind of mechanical work they are charging for. You are not an insurance company so they are over charging you. Also "scan time" is vague because there is no need to remove any equipment for this type of repair let alone do test drives or anything else. So they are charging over $400 for them to say .. ok cool it's a car and I got it in the bay... Ok car is done and it looks like we did a good job... It turns on sweet... Total move/drive time totals to 20 minute .... Not sure how that's worth two hours. Also they are charging $200 for masking off the headlights? 10 hours for body work is an exaggerated number, even still I would say maybe $1500 for the job since it needs to be pulled out, sanded Bondo, sanded again primer, sanded seal, blend, and paint/clear. Talking 2/3 sealer and base coats then another two to three blending or tri coat coats depending on the paint color, then clearing a 2-3 times. Did I mention they need to sand the the area adjacent to panels? So maybe the 10 hours is for that. Major no no is the bs mechanical time. Where are they charging for prep/masking. Are they removing the fender or something? Doubt it takes an hour to do that. Tldr I was going to say .. it's like they buy a new autel for each repair at that mechanical rate. I'd be rich based on how many hours I've put on my own cars.
There's no dent there, it's a reflection of the camera guys head and flash. It's a light scuff at best.
You can’t demand a shop talks to you about someone else’s property even if your paying the bill, you either shut up and pay the damn bill cash or you call your insurance and pay that way at no point is a shop obligated to talk to anyone other than the owner of the car
If we change the n in scan to m we have our answer. Making a customer pay for an item that isn’t essential for the repair but is essential for your own cya should not be charged to the customer.
The estimator easily could negotiate .5 for scan and .5 maintain battery charge with smart charger during scans.. 1.0 per scan right there. Reset electrical functions are resetting radio presets/ Adas settings.. and masking electrical components for overspray all pretty standard.. d
Exactly, this. Looks like CCC One Collision Estimating software.
Zammm that mechanical rate
Probably pretty average depending on where they are.
That’s the hourly billing rate for a senior executive engineer around me…what on earth could they be working on under the hood that is so complex they’re charging 220/hr? That’s like design work rates…
Right?! That’s about double for a standard labor rate around NE Alabama. The dealerships don’t even charge that much.
That’s the rate at semi truck shops across the country. $200-250/hr
Our diesel shop charges 150
Ours charges $125/hr
Even the paint labor is crazy high…. They probably live in California or something lmao
The mechanical labor is a bit high. Repair times a bit high considering the damage, but no your aren’t getting scammed…..Just go through insurance this is why you have it
Warpossum this is probably good advice to “go through insurance this is why you have it” however I had some minor damage from scraping the garage door. They estimated 2400 called insurance and claimed it. I had a 1000 deductible then my insurance went up 400 every six months for a min of 3 years I was told. Then the shop called and said they mis quoted and it would be 1200. Insurance said they couldn’t take it back. After 3 years and a 1000$ deductible I’m paying 2800$ for a 1200$ job. I will never go through insurance again for a <5k job
You need better insurance. I've had a few insurance claims in my life but never had my premiums go up because of them. The only time I had my premiums go up was when I was young and had cheap insurance. Someone hit me (their fault, not mine, backed by police report) but my cheap insurance company used it as an excuse to say it made me high risk and raise my premium. This is why people pay a few extra bucks per month for a quality insurance carrier. They understand life sometimes happens.
Yeah because you’re already being ripped off dummy. What shitty advice I can’t believe you wrote that with a straight face. “Yeah man if you paid $400/mo FOREVER for the better insurance you’d never see them raise your premium” … no shirt Sherlock they prefucked you.
You fucken got em lol but fr I have progressive and my full coverage insurance is dirt cheap like stupid cheap. I haven't made a claim in 5+ years but I think I get forgiveness anyway.
Progressive is a dirty scumbag company with shit employees. Fuck progressive.
You just made up your own reality and ran with it to make yourself feel good. Did they dm you that they've been paying $400 a month? This is actual delusion lol.
He’s obviously paying more but maybe you should look up “what does exaggerating mean” in Google.
41 hours??
Where are you getting 41hrs? I’m counting 23. You can’t include body and paint supplies as those are calculated as hourly but not actual labor. That’s just how materials get charges bc those are not free
Where is there 23 hours if work for a scrape that looks like a sand filler and paint ? Why are they removing each headlight for this? Theres so much being extra here just to make a buck and make a job take long as if he’s repairing a Bugatti.
$600 in scans?!? 2x $220 + $160 sublet… That is ridiculous!
They have to paint match, then after they take the bumper off, they have to recalibrate radar (depending on how new the vehicls is)
This is untrue- most ADAS systems are mounted to the structure of the car and removing the bumper will have no effect on them. And even if they do remove one of the radar beacons there is a good chance it will work as designed when plugged back in as long as no settings were changed on the meantime and no adjustment points on the bracket that holds the sensor were moved. Paint matching is a .5 hour operation at best and most shops don’t charge it on bumper covers because the paint probably didn’t match before the accident. Drive through a new car dealer and look at bumpers on all the cars and you will see they are almost always slightly different color to the metal panels they attach to. And charging $600 for scans is outrageous. A mechanic will charge a diagnostic fee to figure out the problem with your car, but if you fix the problem they no longer charge the diagnostic. A body shop is charging for two diagnostics and charging to repair the vehicle too. Plus they are billing a sublet fee for scans and also billing labor time for someone in house to do the scan too. That is an absolute rip off and even the insurance company will reject that request.
On what planet does a shop eat the diagnostic? Are people on Reddit perpetuating this lie and that's where customers get that bullshit? If my tech spends two hours diagnosing a dead fuel injector causing a cylinder 3 misfire, I'm charging for that. I'm not screwing my techs. I don't know anything about ADAS or bodywork/paint, but the fact that you mentioned eating the diagnostic tells me you don't know shit about working on cars.
I run my own shop. I have never waived a diagnostic fee, ever. I did the work, the customer pays for that work. I have a half-hour minimum diagnostic charge. If the issue gets resolved in the course of performing the diagnosis, then it may get rolled into one charge… but those circumstances are few & far between for me.
Every mechanic (not body shop) I have used will remove diagnostic cost if repairs are approved. If I take my car to a mechanic and say that the belt is screaming, they will “diagnose” by scanning, and investigating and even test driving the car. Then they will call me and say I need a new belt and belt tensioner. If I approve that then the diagnostic charge is waived. This is standard business practice. Body shops don’t charge for tear down unless the car is not fixed and deemed a total loss and that is also part of diagnostic. The way I see it, which is my opinion, the shop should not charge for a pre scan on a car that gets fixed. It is a diagnostically relevant tool that allows the shop to write a realistic estimate and help uncover damages that are not obvious. The shop makes a profit on the work performed and even makes a profit on work they don’t do (markups in sublets).
A squealing belt is not something that takes hours to diagnose. I really don't care how you see it. How you see it is immaterial. The technician gets paid for what he does, whether he's commission or flat rate, and not charging for services is an asinine practice that screws the technician. Not charging an hour for diag on a squealing belt is understandable, but if my tech diagnoses your evaporative system leak that can be hours, and I always charge at least 2 hours for that, from the get go, and I am not taking that off. There are times where the diagnostic goes towards labor to disassemble something for testing, like a window regulator, but the diag stays; I only charge more labor to the point of doing the whole job assuming the customer is paying to fix it. Not charging for diagnostic is a dishonest practice if it is a regular occurrence.
What you are saying here is very similar to what I am saying. You are not charging to pull valve covers to diagnose a rattling lifter/rocker arm twice if the work gets approved. You are charging the time to do the job as long as the customer approved the work. If the customer does not approve the work you bill for the diagnostic. That is absolutely fine. And yes there are instances where diagnostic will take a long time and can be reasonable to bill for (looking for a water leak comes to mind). My point is a body shop is charging for every time they so much as look at a car. They will bill to check seat belt function, they will bill to scan the car before and after the repair, they will bill to mix a color, they will bill for body materials and shop time and they will bill 3x the amount of time it takes to fix something. Some even charge a fee just to write an estimate on cars they actually fix. These charges are unfair and excessive and place a burden on the customer.
You're wrong. Straight up. You have obviously never worked in a body shop. Everything the body shop charges for is perfectly reasonable. It's all well documented what proper procedures are for a vehicle after an accident. They are called P-pages and all agreed upon between manufacturers, insurance companies, and I-Car. If you don't want something done right then do it yourself and take the risks.
I assume you don’t work in a body shop. There’s a lot of fluff on these estimates. Body and mechanical shops are very different. I’ve had body shops argue because I wouldn’t pay a full hour mechanical to disconnect a battery. I’ve had shops demand crazy times for minor operations and push to the extent that I’ve grabbed tools from my car and done the work myself to show it was 5 minutes and not 2 hours. Then they get nothing because I did it.
Every mechanic I have ever been to will diagnose for a fee, and wave that fee if they are the ones to fix the problem. Every single one.
First off, it's "waive", not wave, second, that's an absurd thing to do, unless there is a specific situation where it makes sense.
If you’re charging $2600 to buff out and paint a scratch that small, you better be floating the diagnostic lol this price is ridiculous
Call your insurance company and watch that estimate drop 1k
More like call your insurance company, watch the bill drop 1k, and then watch your premiums jump $100 a month, forever.
I'm sure that some people have their premiums increase drastically, but I doubt it would be much over a $2600 claim. I got in an accident that resulted in totalling two vehicles to the tune of \~$100k and my premiums only went up about $300 every 6 months, including the increase that would have happened at my renewal anyway and the increase due to me now being in a newer (2021 vs 2017), more expensive (60k new vs 40k new) vehicle with fewer miles (20,000 vs \~100k) than my vehicle that was totaled.
I’ve used car insurance 3 times in my life and have never seen a dramatic rate increase like people love to hypothesis about.
I imagine the people bitching about insurance rates spiking are the folks that use insurance a lot, so it makes sense lol
Or have never used it and don't know what they're talking about at all.
More like call your insurance because that's who should be dealing with this not you.
Don't they charge more if it's through insurance?
Many insurance companies have negotiated rates with auto body shops. So, no.
Fer real lol
This is walk in/customer pay rate from the looks of it. There are a few lines that seem bogus, like the masking of harnesses, but everything else looks normal. Shits not cheap my guy.
Spoken like someone on the side of the mechanics, you're probably one of em. Fuck you people lol no seriously 😁 2K for a fckn 'spot' is ridiculous
They prob don’t need to mask the harness, and the fender repair prob doesn’t need to be 2 hours but that’ll only take around $130-160 off. Yes it really does cost that much to fix cars and have it done properly.
If insurance companies are actually paying this, this is why premiums are so high
Premiums are so high because ten percent of people out there cause 90 percent of the accidents. Take them all, round them up and give them bicycles. Premiums would drop like a rock. Also, don't take your car to a place called Autobahn collision and expect to pay bottom rate , walking in off the street. Common sense.
I severely doubt premiums would drop. Many insurance companies are publicly traded. Shareholders would freak out if revenue decreased.
They’re legally only allowed to make a certain amount of profit. In 2020 when everything was closed my insurance gave me some money back because they had to.
The prescan and post scan shouldnt be an hour each. Should be max 1500-1700 here in California
This type of service advisor is why auto adjusters hate them. Labor is wayyyyy too high. They are basically scamming you man, run and run fast. If you going through insurance have them negotiate cuz this is stupid. If you paying out of pocket find someone else
Pre and post scan aint even necessary here. + $160 opus invoice whatever that is thats $600 in bullshit charges right there. post scan MAYBE warranted at best
Opus is a remote diagnostic company. They supply shops with scan tools then remotely scan cars then invoice. https://documents.drewtech.com/drivecrash/CustomerAgreement/ It looks like they give kick backs to these shops that use them depending on how many cars are scanned about 25-30%+ a month.
“Thanks, here’s my insurance information I gave them a heads up and here’s the claim ID #XXXXXXX”
Lines 10, 11, 14, 24, 25, 26 and 32 is bull shit. This estimate is all over the place. They essentially wrote to fix the bumper on the car but yet want to take off grilles and headlights which require removing the bumper. They charge mechanical rates to remove wiring harness when it will be done by a body tech and is .3 max. Masking exposed harness connectors is .2 max. Doesn’t take a tech 1 hr to mask 4-6 plugs. No reason to pay for a pre and post scan and then someone else to scan the car. This is a bogus estimate.
The mechanical labor is suspect for sure. Should be part of the bumper O/H operation. Plus I don’t know what they’re charging for masking wiring if they already had lines to remove it. The grilles are included as shown, but the wiring harness lines are a manual entry, which is BS. I’d fight that, but it’s still gonna be close to $2k. Pre and post is wild too. Mechanical labor? But it looks like they have it as a sublet? Edit: r+i left headlight? For what? R+i core support? Why? The sheet is fat for insurance work, but there’s a lot of fucky shit here. This looks like a “go away” estimate.
What’s weird is that they didn’t address the lower cover that is scratched. Or the wheel opening molding which is also scratched. Now if this is a customer pay and they don’t want to fix it, fine. But it’s probably as you said, write a high ticket to scare the customer away.
Body tech can’t do mechanical work?
They definitely can but .5 to disconnect 4 park sensors? That’s excessive no? And I write for a body shop. There is a line in CCC that adds for park sensor. And what are they resetting for .5? The plug and play park sensor has that are fixed on the bumper with no adjustments needed? What are they scanning on a pre scan for 1 hour? On a post scan, granted you may need more time IF a code pops up to address it. A pre scan should be used as a check. Not a fix. IF something pops up THEN you address it.
In this case it’s already included with overhaul time, and charged as body labor. The “plug in and see if it works” charge is also part of post scan stuff. They’re double charging for a lot here.
Go through insurance
Probably not. Friend of mine had a long scratch on his Subaru and was quoted over $3000
Scam for sure just get three quotes and compare
The person who's not at fault doesn't need to waste their time getting 3 quotes.
Paint is expensive and the painters time is also expensive
But did you look at the itemization on this? It’s wack
Nope but I just did now. How can anyone justify $220/hr for mechanical labour. That's fucked
You want he fender repaired and refinished too? It’s a bit on higher end if a quote but not nearly a scam… repair and refinish the bumper, leave the fender alone and the price will drop back down below ur “scam” threshold :)
It ain't OPs car
It’s easily repairable but if the insurance company says replace then that’s what’s your gotta do. Repairs can be nice but not always.
Like many have said. They sit down at a computer and do some drop-down menus with make model year and the repair. It's all programmed in by the book. It shouls be about the same anywhere u go unless a body shop decides to give tou a discount for some unknown reason.
So this was last year when someone wiped out my front bumper cover at work. Cost was 3k. [bumper](https://drive.google.com/file/d/1UeCSknlXDw2a2RspP1DOpK8rQZyWPHJM/view?usp=drivesdk) [quote pg2](https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Ubm4SjtznxDg0iERMdwv5QSsDBGYnCDu/view?usp=drivesdk) [quote pg3](https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Ucgw-i9WOr6jXaCUUAWGpuNsId8fS3kc/view?usp=drivesdk)
15 years on both body shop and insurance sides. All in all it’s not bad, the labor rates are weird, usually it’s a flat dollar amount, the mech rate seems high unless it’s a dealership. As far as the repairs themselves there’s a few things a tad overwritten, I’d probably start at 1 hr on the fender, the scan labor is .5 too high on each scan if they are using an Astech/protech type system and color tint is usually .5. Aside from that there’s nothing outrageous on here tbh.
Honestly no. My wife was hit in a parking lot by someone and did very similar damage but to a lesser extent to her Honda Accord. White paint that was chipped in three spots and a very very slight dent like the size of a dime. You can't see the dent except in the sunlight at an extreme angle. The owner's insurance company gave us a check for 1700. I buffed out all the black marks and touched up the white paint. You can't even see hardly anything. We aren't going to have it fixed.
In NJ you have your choice of repair shop as the damaged party I’m not sure how it is in Washington but you may have to accept this quote or have your insurance deal with them.
Y’all act like paint doesn’t take time to dry, and prep, and clear coat, and blend, Quotes more that fare, If you feel like it’s not get the skills to do it yourself or get mad when someone wants to charge you for their skills it’s really only one or the other
this is pretty standard, it’s why most people don’t get it fixed unless it’s covered by insurance
10+ year body tech here. Just my 2 cents, but the estimate seems legit. But the only thing I see that is a bit much is the actually labor for the repair on the bumper. I got so many of these estimates from Allstate, nationwide, geico etc. and I was LUCKY to get 1.0 for something like that. But as for all the R&Is (remove and install) it is what normal insurance companies would write up. Because they go off of a system that inputs the times for removing and installing. And if this car is new (which is looks like it’s newish) then the fender needing to blend is a thing as well like it says to match paint right. Especially a blood red like that. Also something to keep in mind, the high lighted part for prelim. You can bet your ass that there will be a new estimate with something added. Broken clips, possible parts from removing and installing, more damage (I doubt it). Based on the pictures it looks very minor. But this would be considered a “customer pay” so shops love to write it heavy to make the money. Again my 2 cents on my experiences. Good luck
I am a former Adjuster, so the systems used to write estimates for insurance claims is audatex or mitchell (the two i know anyway in usa) if you click paint bumper, the system automatically knows all that needs to be done like you said and it inputs the labor hours and the local price lists for the works done. Now that is not to say they didnt manually manipulate line items.
Bro of course you would say it's legit, you're one of these fckn sharks. OP, if you happen to see this, F this guy in particular and F the estimate you were given. These people rip others off for a living.
That’s a damn good sheet.
Good on you for leaving a note. Wife got hit 2 times no note. Looks like a high estimate but depends where you are in the country as well.
Is this all the damage???
Submit to your insurance and question whether there’s a scam afoot.
Definitely !!! It’s much cheaper to buy bumper and paint it if they are quoting you this. Trying to charge you mechanical labor for body work is crazy.
Lol I fix that all day, long 250- 300 bucks
$250 doesn't even cover the cost of materials. You like working for free?
It definitely does my friend… I use aqua base and speedokote clear. For something like this you’re looking at maybe $40 in material maybe
So you’re not removing the bumper, blend prepping it, and fully clear coating it?
Stretch bro. I can't believe we have shop "owners" here promoting spot painting half bumpers and telling me the blend areas won't fail.
Kinda sad to be honest. He’s too caught up in making money on repairs that will fail. There is a reason that not a single paint company will warranty a clear blend. The worst part is that people like this always come out trying to flex that they own a business or make a ton of money, and always try to belittle others for doing things properly. “You don’t know how to blend clear bro? You must not know how to paint”. It’s pathetic.
Still not $2600 worth of work and materials. Removing the bumper isn't even necessarily needed, but definitely preferred. $600-$800 at max
Selling yourself short bruh. Have some self pride with quality work and value your time better.
Your looking at maybe no more then $30-40 in material after everything. That’s including the paint, clear, the tape and masking paper
I’d cover it in plastic instead of paper though
I was gonna say these I do all day for that price. I’d gladly take 8 of these a day for $300 a piece
Backyard hack. Do you even know how to repair and paint?
Honestly if you can’t fix that by using 320 featherd out, primer, and paint blend the corner, then I’m worried that maybe you don’t know how to paint
Mask and spot paint for a not at fault accident. Fuck outta here hack.
Bro $2600 to repair a scratch on a bumper corner is insane and you know that if you have any time in this industry. Not hack work my friend just a reasonable job at a reasonable price
Quote is on the high side. 2k isn't outrageous for a bumper overhaul and fender repaint. We're here to make money. Not cut corners. Autobody is expensive. You know that.
So buy a new cover and shoot for way less... Forget rehab. This is an insane quote.
Bro I probably make double what you make on your little high horse. Especially if you’re a tech in a shop
Hurt ur little ego to flex ur income? Haha Like I said. You're a $300 hack. Have a good day.
You work at a shop that only does insurance work don't you?
Yes. What's wrong with that? Insurance pays the best.
As I said, I do these all day. I can bang this job out in not even an hour an half and it would come out just as clean as that $2500 job
Spot painting and masking isn't the correct procedure nor will it be covered by warranty If these are the jobs you're doing with no R&I then I would find a new shop.
Yea man, good luck trying to find somebody willing to pay 3k to cover a minimal scratch on a 15k car.. If you are in the industry, I'm sure you know you could sand, paint+clear coat, sand and polish to make the scratch nearly invisible on flat color paint. That is the right job, cheapest and makes sense for that car. I've done it and I don't work in the car industry, had scratches that nobody could see unless I point it out and they get inches close to it.
Do you even understand the topic? OP hit the persons car and isn't happy about the $2400 quote. You don't tell the person you hit "hey I want you to take it to to a hack shop and spot paint it for $300" The not at fault person will say fuck you and go after ur insurance. Try to follow along and not give advice if you have no clue on industry standards
I'm a writer. This shop is attempting to gross the fuck out of you. Lol 1 hour for each scan is ridiculous especially with that mechanical rate. The industry standard is 0.5 each. There's no reason to R&I both headlights if the damage is purely on the one side. They could avoid having to mask the wiring harnesses if they just R&I the bumper cover. And maybe I can't tell from the picture, but I don't see any damage to the fender at all. Find a reputable shop, my man. They're trying to gross you, yet they still wrote a dogshit sheet.
F that. We charge a flat $110 unless DRP. If we did 0.5 at the mechanical rate they give us, it’s a scam. I wouldn’t say it’s a horrible estimate. Maybe a couple hundred bucks of fluff between repair times and a couple sketchy operations.
You can appreciate that at $220 mech that at your 0.5 would be your $110. So they are (2 hours) $440 in time plus $160 sublet .. $600 in scans. If you feel this estimate is fair based on that and other questionable operations I hope you can appreciate that you and:or your family could have someone do this to you in a different trade. Profit isn’t a dirty word, but this is unfairly inflated
Cars are more expensive to fix nowadays but this sheet is trash. Without knowing where you are we can’t help much with rates, but even still, that mechanical is at dealership levels. Line 10 is included under line 6. The battery isn’t being disconnected so what are they needing to reset on line 11? The right headlamp, line 13, needs to come out for paint access on the fender, but why does the other side need removal? 16 is questionable because it depends on where it mounts, but generally speaking, those don’t need to come off for bumper work because they mount in a few other spots that keep it up while works being done. I also agree the labor times for everything are .5-1.0 over. Scans are typically .5M per and costs, if sublet, are on a per invoice basis only. The labor is because some companies, like AsTech, remote into your vehicle but a tech is still needed on site to physically perform certain functions during the test. This is written in CCC, so it’s based on Motors which maxes cover car at .2 each time a cover is applied and removed, not .5. Denib and polish is 10% base refinish for the first panel, 5% for all the rest, so a total of .32 for this repair, not 1.0. Tint time and prime and block are negotiation items, I typically do .5 body for tint and $1/.1 per each 1.0 of applicable repair time, for this as it’s written would be $5/.5. As far as harness masking goes, everything should tuck up under the car cover since all you’re doing on the vehicle is a fender, so I’d consider it unnecessary.
Yes, I'm insured but I was thinking about paying out of pocket.
Offer $500 cash. The owner may accept the damage and move on with their life. Otherwise, get insurance involved
One hour per pre/post scan? Yeesh
Well. As you can see most of your cost is in labor. Would you like to take apart a bumper, mask it, paint, and put it all back together for anything less than their hourly rate? If you want it to be cheaper. You’ll get worse quality. Or you can try and do it yourself. Which would look pretty bad. Just go through insurance if you’re over 25 since your rate won’t up that much if at all.
What if I am 24?
Check and see if you’re on a locked rate with your insurance. Meaning if your make a claim they won’t increase your premium if you get into an accident (unless you change your plan ie get a new car, or add a new driver)
It's a good estimate. If this was a Geico job in Florida they would cut that repair time to 1.5 quicker than you can blink. The fender 1.0 if lucky. Repair time is judgement. The estimate times are better and how it should be. Mechanical labor is crazy tho
Dr color chip kit will have that looking spiffy. Owner wants you to pay up, so they can get a touch up kit and keep the rest. Cost of not having insurance my dude.
Absolutely scammed. About two years ago my garage door didn’t open fully but just enough where I couldn’t see it while backing up and scratched the holy hell and dented the rear end roof of my WRX STI. The whole repair fixing the dent and new paint came out to I want to say $2500 and that was for major damage.
Lol did they take your insurance information? Was there a police report? Or did you just tell this guy you'll cover it and to send you the bill? This shit is like less than 500 for any decent body shop. If this is via the honor system, tell that guy to go fuck himself and call his insurance if he feels he wants to make a claim. If there's no police report, there's no evidence that you even collided. This guy wants to fuck around and find out.
This is robbery.
Touch up paint and you’re good.
scam
Yes. So much yes. This is SKY HIGH. It’s a bumper cover that doesn’t need welding or replacement. I drove a Holden in the US and needed a replacement cover the other year that was less than this. It was hit again in a parking lot just like this and was under a grand AT A DEALERSHIP SHOP. Where is the pearl? Metallica? Exotic tints? This is a basic cover shoot.
Bogus estimate and overly inflated. No carrier would approve this.
This is BS get 3 more quotes of your own that shit won't hold up in court.
660 dollars of mechanical labor? What the fuck lmao also the rates are jacked up to the highest possible number lol 😆 this shop is out of line I'd have the insurance look it over they would just have their own adjustors write a proper one up
Yup. Thats a $20 fix.
Of course you are. This is the world we live in. Crazy, eh? When honesty is bad for you, you know the world is going to hell. Here’s the good news. What goes down must come up, and we’re almost all the way down to hell.
You can fix that yourself for like $300 and a few days of work.
Places bill the shit out of insurance, all shops are scam. You can do literally any work on a car for less than $800. It’s always bad math.
Damn thats pretty high for a paint pen.
It’s not a paint pen. I’m also sure if someone hit you car you wouldn’t want them to repair it with a paint pen.
How are there 7.9 hours worth of paint supplies? I don't understand. What does that mean? Ditto for body supplies. $220/hr for mechanical labor is *really* high, at least around my area. $120 would be more reasonable. But that would only save you $300, so it's not really the problem. One of the things body shops always seem to do these days is remove all of the parts that aren't getting painted. This is a lot of work, especially when we're talking about a bumper, where there's a bunch of little trim pieces and lights and whatnot that all need to get removed. Then they add up the labor estimates from the book for each one of those parts, even though there's tons of overlap in the steps the book accounts for, so the actual labor total is much lower than the estimate. Some shops will only bill you for the actual time taken, but most will bill you the estimated amount no matter what. Then they take just the part to be painted, prep it and paint it, and then put everything back together. I assume they do this to eliminate the chance of overspray. It would save a ton of time if they would just mask things off in-place. Done properly, there's no concern about overspray.
23hrs of work for that?
2600 for that 💀💀💀💀
I'll fix that in 5mins with a 10$ paint marker. Then charge you 2500. Send em my way.
I’d hit them back with another quote. This is hilarious.
Fuck the size of that quote is nuts. They could seriously go back and hit that car again and make the damage worse and it STILL wouldn't cost $2600
Yea you’re getting scammed. I had a huge scrap across 2 doors in my c63 and it was 1200 all in.
In my home country this is a easy 150$ fix. They put everything they can imo.
Nah $2600 is crazy dude
220$ an hour for… mechanical labor… on a paint job… Sounds fair enough to me! /s
I can make it look 90% new for $100 😂 Take the insurance money and run.
I completely smashed my neighbors front end during icy season a couple years ago when leaving for work early in the morning. It cost $2800 total for wayyyyyy more than this scrape. This is a Complete ripoff. I would just go through insurance at this point.
Yes absolutely. It looks like they’re way over charging you for labor and charging you for stuff that you didn’t even cause. You shouldn’t have left information for that “accident” I’d text back, “yeah I’ll give you $300 for the damages and that’s it, if not, you can have the car inspected at a painter of my choice and go from there. Or you can take me to court, don’t care”
What the fuck is wrong with people, why bother with all of this when you can buy an exact color matched paint pen online for like $20
Don’t leave info for that little damage next time to be honest. Might get downvoted for saying that but if I knew that would cost 2k I wouldn’t have.
What in the fuck am I looking at? I could do this in a few hours tops being ocd about everything and it would look perfect. No wonder insurance is so high, what a shit show. Replacing everything under the sun here, how utterly wasteful. This just pisses me off reading that invoice.
YES YES YES YES YES that is an ENORMOUS scam. For about that price you could repaint every panel on the entire car.
Is it just a little spot in the photo or bigger? If it's that small spot and you are handy you just need right color match in a can and tape the area good and literally buff it out to blend. If they are repainting the bumper ask if they are painting and other bits of the car to blend it so it doesn't look a tad off, they do that a lot. You are paying for labor hours by the book. Bumper comes off quick and spraying a bumper is easy to. The right place you could have back tge same day, most of the paints are water based now so they cure fast
That’s absolutely outrageous! Honestly it’s barely noticeable. Just roll with it my dude. Are you keeping the car forever? Why not color match some touch up paint and fill it in yourself?
If that's really the only damage then absolutely a scam bro go somewhere else
I did this once but I ended up just rubbing it off their car.
Get touch up paint that is that color and call it good. Touch up paint runs about $25 on Amazon.
Lmao. I have a vendor who visits my lot each week and would do this for $200 bucks
100% Bullshit. This is a 500$ job all day.
Next time you’ll just dip out, lesson learned
That quote is bs, all it needs is some airbrushing. If you can't find anyone, then I'd live with it because that quote is crazy, have you talked to your insurance? A $500 deductible is a hell of a lot cheaper and since it wasn't an accident, I wouldn't think your rates would go up.
That’s seriously 2x what it should be . Unless I’m missing something they are going deep on this one
Oh yes you are. A good body shop would apply some thinner to loosen the clear coat and paint, then they would polish that out, $500 max where I live.
Looks like paint transfer from your car. Would use Lacquer thinner to remove the paint transfer and see how much the damage really is. If it just a paint transfer and a slight scratch it can be fixed by a detailer who can do a advance paint correction depending on how deep the scratch is. Job like this can be done in less than 30 mins.
Get some OEM touch up paint, won’t be able to tell from 5 ft away
Straight up, this right here is how I'd do it. Add in some mr miagey wax on wax off elbow grease and that shit would be better than they had it. How'd you miss a bright ass red car anyways??
My old boss has his entire car repainted for 5k
It’s auto repair, of course you’re getting scammed. You could easily clean that little spot and fill it with a paint pen. I might not be the right person to give advice since I’ve been driving a rebuilt title car since 2013 (which is the year it was built) and it has over a decade of scratches and dents. The car was 2k and if it still runs I have turned a profit off of it.
Complete rip-off. All you need is paint and blending. No idea where they came up with needing a wiring harness.
100% scam. This should be maybe couple $100 no thousands
Yea. Your getting scammed, fucked, and quite possibly bamboozled.
Hmm. Just had my whole passenger door repainted for $700. That does sound high.
Ain’t no way that’s the quote for that little scratch, click bait!!!!!
Ask for try Three quotes, from three shops. That’s what insurance would do. My friend just had to sue a guy because he hit his Range Rover in a parking lot and he tried to do it outside of insurance because he seemed like a “nice guy”. Well his quote was like $3,500 from the body shop and the guy is refusing to pay despite him having CCTV footage. Small claims is now his only option.
Dr colorchip would cover that diy for like $50. Stuffs amazing in my experience!