need help in giving estimates

DKM

New User
hi I'm new to the group I went to school to go autobody and do it on my own and been very fortunate to stay busy I'm from southwest iowa and did one tractor for a guy I painted it in BC/CC and it turned out awesome it was a little ferguson and it cought on and people are wanting more done and I don't really no how to go about giving fair estimates on prices to repaint them I'm taking them down to bare metal for the most part depending how bad off the paint is that's on there and depending how bad off the sheet metal is off but any help is better than any thanks again
 
your biggest cost is in materials. you are shooting base/clear . for a tractor like an 8n, or farmall h, you will easily have 800-900 in materials. consider your abrasives too, ie sandpapers, wire wheels, scotchbrites, blasting abrasives and any other consumables. estimating labor is tough without seeing the tractor, but figure anywhere from 40 to 80 hours to do it right. i am not talking about scrubbing it down with comet cleanser and mopping a couple coats of tisco alkyd enamel. to get a good reputation, use quality materials and quality equipment. i dont do cheapie paint jobs here at the shop, as once the unit leaves the shop, its out there for public view. if its a sub par job, everybody knows, and it will reflect on your future work. the last tractor i painted here at shop was a farmall m, job ran about 3850.00. single stage urethane.
 
The cost of materials is way easy to underestimate. I bought 2 rolls of masking tape at a house paint store in a bind == 19 bucks. Awhile back I posted some Ford truck tailgate letters I sprayed. I charged 20 a letter, 80 bucks. After masking paper [ already had just adding in ] obtaining wrong color , sending wife to get more red, hardener, .keeping wrong white for future job blah blah, I probably spent 84 bucks for a loss of 4 dollars . Ha I wish his tailgate said Chevrolet cause I was charging by the letter. Other materials where wax and grease remover gallon . You acquire stuff that gets used for more than one job but initially can be very expensive. Shortcuts like masking with newspaper will bite you in the end. The money on masking paper is well spent but has to be passed on to the customer. Price the materials carefully , labor is up to knowing how long it will take you times your hourly rate.
 
Ok I appreciate it alot I have been using what we Learned at school so the materials are good and I understand that when you first start off your repertation is as important as the money so I've been busting my butt in prep like sand blasting the whole thing and cleaning off with a pressure washer and wire wheels and there turning out great I'm doing a 60 John Deere right now my next question is the bccc over kill should I swich to single stage or stick with what I'm using also what do you charge by hour then thank you for your help
 
Ok thank you guys alot I'm front Northwest mo in a very small town so I'm not close enough to get a rep to get things or anything so I have to rely on Nappa and Oreillys so it can be high I use 3m masking tapes and some masking paper but I have used newspaper to mask off the back wheels on like tractors like 730's and 60's John Deeres so I don't use up what I have what do you guys normally charge by hour and how much do you charge for the supplys like sand paper and masking paper and gun cleaners and stuff like that per job
 
I'm not an auto body professional. I am a pinstriper and letterer. Each task has a price ; front hood stripe design 80 dollars . Door handle 20 dollars etc. I think I would be so afraid of losing money on a tractor paint job I would price too high and the guy would go somewhere else. In pinstriping and lettering once you have some paint the material cost is really less than 5%. Keep your brushes well oiled and your good to go.
 
currently our hourly rate is 50/hr. keep in mind this is an actual business. we do collision and restoration. we have a downdraft spray booth and are 100% epa compliant, along with all the licenses and insurance. also have an in house mixing system for our refinishing.
 
You need to decide just what you as a college degreed skilled laborer running a business should be worth per hr and THEN ADD another 30% to it to cover income taxes/SS etc and another 10% min. for overhead. Assuming that you should be worth $ 30 per hr net, that would make your shop labor rate at or around $ 45 per hr. Don't underestimate yourself. You are not just a skilled degreed laborer but you are the secretary , parts department , estimator , quality control ,bookeeper , cashier and outside sales associate all rolled into one. Most people with a degree in anything can start out doing just their assigned "job" for an employer at $ 20hr. min. If you don't figure you are worth $ 30 hr net then you will have a hard row to hoe so to speak. If you work cheap you will always have more work than money. Materials should be anywhere from a min. of $15 per labor hr on up to $25 per hr for top drawer products. Remember that electric bill and heat bill have to be paid out of this somewhere too. Run a 220v air compressor all day and watch out. Lot of people go under because they ignored a lot of actual expenses when giving estimates. They are coming to you for a reason, they are welcome to do it themselves any time. You aren't there to "fit" their budget. If you feel you are getting cut short, then you will start to cut corners. Don't go there. Good luck.
 
Thank you so much you have been a big help I've tried to get some pointers from a few shops but I didn't get much help from them you guys are great thank you Randy
 
OK awesome I will def keep that in mind I will charge by hour and settle on a fair hourly rate
 
I would bill double what you want to get paid for labor and 25% markup on materials. My dad figured that when he was in business 50 years ago, and I use the same multiples in my business. It is different if a part time extra money thing, but it costs a lot more to run a business than you think. The 1.5 markup on labor is too cheap if you are running a business.
 
Glennster,

It is amazing how expensive things are now, people get shocked when you tell them it will be at least a couple to five thousand, but it really does take that much to a tractor and make a living doing it. I do automation for a living, just bid a small job at local distillery that was looking at going from manual to automatic operation. The materials were a hundred thousand and the labor 20K, the customer was shocked and decided to keep doing it manually. This was just for a small portion of their operation.
 
Ok great it started out as a part time thing but I keep getting more people interested so I just want to be fare and do a good job to get my name out there
 
Experience will let you be a better estimator. If you can do it on a time and material basis this will allow you to get a feel for what actual cost is. I'm part of a family business my brother is an engineer and I'm in the out in the field. My brother is mostly in the office and does the estimating😳. Sometimes in estimating you loose. For example 2 weeks I asked him where the number was for a certain job. After we sat down at the office and we went through it I doubled it and still ended up getting the job. Rule of thumb is you should make more profit estimating jobs than time and material but without experience in business you can go backwards. Lots of hidden cost in business and to the general public business owners "make a lot of money", but all in all they take on risk and headaches.
 
I paint tractors with single stage acrylic enamel. I figure my labor at $50 an hour which is cheap. It will take 30 to 40 hrs on the average to do a good job. Unless it is very rough. Using quality materials will be $800 to $1000. I don't do enough to stay busy full time, but I buy some to fix and resell, and can't part with most of them. I can get all I want. I do have a barn full now.
 
Years ago I attended a business class taught by a veteran employee of a large (largest) telephone company. He was a very well educated and experienced businessman who taught business to technical folks who where being promoted out of doing to planning and supervising.

One thing stuck with me to this day. He said, don't ever set a price because it is 'fair'. Good advice. You are in business to make money, not just a wage, you can get that without the headaches of managing a business. Your customer cars not a bit about being fair to you. Just strike a balance between pricing yourself out of jobs and pricing so that all your jobs make money.

IMO, breaking down estimates in a lot of detail is not going to work well. If the customer thinks you're making all the charged hourly rate, they'll think you're robbing them. If they see a charge for tape, thinner etc, they'll think you're nickle and dimeing them to death.

I like lump sum pricing and progress payments by stages. Like, rough prep, repair of discovered flaws, final prep, paint. the second allows you to charge for hidden problems. and the overall process gets you some cash flow during long restoration.
 
Even back in the 1980's most businesses charged around 3X hourly pay for labor. You will not be able to bill out 100 percent of an employees paid time.
 
Keep good track of how much time and materials you spend on each job, WRITE it down, we tend to forget the truth.
 
In a productive body shop, One that grosses 2 or 3 million a year, the rule of thumb is your materials will never be more than 5% of your gross. Do some math and grasp that. A average material bill on a small tractor is about $1,500.00. Do the math on that one. I worked at that shop for over 10 years. Numbers don't lie.
 

We sell tractor parts! We have the parts you need to repair your tractor - the right parts. Our low prices and years of research make us your best choice when you need parts. Shop Online Today.

Back
Top