Yeeeouch!

Jay Laifman (Jay_Laifman(at)countrywide.com)
Tue, 18 Aug 1998 15:23:06 -0700


I just went and saw my SIII at the body shop. It looked really really cool. All the paint was stripped on the car and the hard top. So there was sitting this shiny silver Alpine, straight as can be (well, more on that later). There were no hidden accidents under the paint. There were a couple strange spots that appears as though holes that were filled in at one point. There were two that everyone noticed just behind the headlights which appeared to have been for side lights. The antenna hole was filled in and a new one put in the back. There were also what appeared to be two holes on each side almost just below the back points of the hard top - I can't imagine what those were for, unless they were factory holes for something. There were also two holes on the "deck" just below the bottom of the truck. It seems there might have been extra brake lights or back up lights there coming up above the bumper. (why do people do this?) There were also two holes on the bonnet to the right of the badge holes. It almost looks like someone put in the Mark II Tiger "Sunbeam" script there at one time.

Despite all of these holes (and most were already filled in, except for on antenna hole), on the plus side, there were no dents that required a hammer. The spots I thought had rust must have just been surface rust.

On the negative side is the bill. The guy said to do my car "right" would require covering the entire car in a type of bondo/primer and sanding it flat. This is because if you slide your hand over the surface of the car you do feel waves and bumps here and there which would show once painted, especially with the dark color I want to use. He also felt there would need to be a bit of time to make sure the hood, doors and trunk all lined up perfectly. So, he put in 95 hours for this work. At $25 per hour, that hit my estimate up $3,000! That's almost as much as I figured I'd pay in the first place.

I told him that I have the money from the insurance company and that's it, and that I do not require perfection. Either he figures out how to do it for what I've received from the insurance company, or I take the car home (and to somewhere else). I spoke to another shop which told me that $8,000 is not out of line, and quality paint jobs can go well above $10,000. The shop told me I would not be happy with the results if he did less than a full job. I told him it didn't matter. I won't do an $8,000 paint job on an Alpine - especially since it took all my efforts to get the insurance company to value it at $6,500.

Ugh.

Jay