panel beater charging to quote

As a result of the weekends activities, I sustained a little panel damage, cause by rear bumper bottoming out and being hit up in to rear panel, below tail light. Anyway its about 3 mm deep and about the size of a fifty cent piece, but since the paint came off I want to get it fixed before it rusts. So the point of this rant comes when I walk into a panel beater and ask for a quote, on a small dent Is it insurance they ask? I say no, it'll be CA$H. yeah we can do a quote on wednesday, seems a bit odd, but being so close to Xmas... then the killer, its $80 bucks to get a quote!!!!!!!! WTF!!!!! I say What? They say yeah we do that to stop people from going around getting quotes!!!!!!
I don't know, maybe its an industry standard now, but the few times before I've had similar jobs the panel beater has looked at the damage for about 30 seconds and given me a price on the spot, then I've booked in and had it done. UNFKNBLVBLE

screw em go elsewhere

Yeah they don't seem interested in the job. I know that if it is a big job sometimes they have to pull them apart to find out whats buggered inside, hence the charge, but surely not on a job like that.

Sheesh that the first time I've heard of a panel beater charging for a quote. I've heard of some larger business but panel beaters. They probably get away with it when it's an insurance claim because they'd over stuff the quote but on a cash deal they know your going to go around and get a price so they figure if they can't have $500 they may as well get something. As Al said, screw em go elsewhere

Normal practice these days if you want a written quote.I paid $60 to get my quote when I took someone to court.

Heath.
Dont fuss over it. It will happen again.
The rear bar as I see it is like the rear wing on the Bugatti Veyron - it moves up and down.
I cant remember if yours is the solid black or the 2 tone - either way it is a quick fix for far less than $80.
For now, as in whilst you own it but before you sell it, mask off the surrounding area and spray it with a close as possible can of cheap spray paint to stop rust. You wont notice it and the CFO wont either.
When you want to sell it then rough it back fill it with 20c of bog and send it off for a color matched respray.

Aido, that is a very likely outcome!!! with the rear guard, I did notice the bolts weren't fully tightened. and yep they are just like the bugati

i'm going to look at a custom rear bar next year from Bolsys, Once we work it all out he would have all the measurements for future ones.

Just mask off everything outside the area and give it a quick squirt.
You pointed to mine on Sun Morning and said "Yep same as Mine".
Well after dropping off a shelf I now have a few more scrapes but not concerned. With some creative masking and a bit of bog I could make it look factory for less than $20.
Should see the front bash plate on the Nissan bar after dropping in on the front end. -----> not just the rear leaves inverted now.

or even consider getting a can of hammertone type textured paint in that colour to hide future scrapes

yup, after the weekends off road activities - the front plate between the winch bar and whatever it goes back to looks like its been pealed back like a sardine tin lid.

I am hoping that the full bash plates i ordered 2 weeks ago will arrive this week, so i can install on friday afternoon before we do the next VNOG trip together.

heata, i agree with the above comments - a quick close as can be arranged colour match on that corner of the tub. I also have to do the same thing from damage a few months ago, but i've left it too long and now have surface rust - so will need a bit more effort for me to stop it going further.

WoodyD40 said:

but i've left it too long and now have surface rust - so will need a bit more effort for me to stop it going further.

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what do you do for that sort of stuff?
I've found some on the bottom of the tub on my new d22.

Funny that the basher was actually honest about it even if he did not quite say it explicitly.

"I am charging for quotes so that you have a financial interest in the job before it even starts and will probably not go elsewhere for more quotes or the cost of quotes might add up to more than the repair, best to just have me do the work"

I would walk away myself. Just a not so subtle form of anti competitive behaviour.

I know that in my business, i wont give an 'over the phone' quote for doing design or drafting work - i expect that the potention client makes an effort to come and meet me in MY office for an obligation free meeting so i can at least get a good brief from a client - therefore i can then sit back after the meeting and clearly think about how much of my time is required so i can work out a proper and realistic fee proposal.

I think we have been used to free quotes for a long time from various people. But it does take time to work out what is required to get access to the area that needs to be fixed, work out the small amount of materials - how much each of the various people in the workshop to do their specialist area of trade, and then source prices on any 'bought in' items which may also need colour coding to the vehicle.

There are two ways of ensuring that the time taken to do all the above.
First way is add it into the price of the quote, allowing that only 1 in 4 quotes will actually result in a job for the workshop (so time x4 is added to the quote),
OR,
charge a realistic fee for the actual time to quote the job to start with - i would expect that then the end price would be slightly less because your not paying for the other time on quotes that the bloke didnt get paid for.

Please, i'm not defending the panelbeater for charging a fee for doing a quote - but i sort of understand why this might start becoming the norm.

what do you do for that sort of stuff?
I've found some on the bottom of the tub on my new d22.

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Terry, not sure yet - but i imagine it will require sanding the area back to bare metal and then treating with some 'kill rust' treatment prior to some undercoat and then some top coat.

I don't charge for quotes, doesn't matter whether the client wants a $5K webpage or they want $50K of computer gear and because I work from home I pretty much always make sure the first meeting is either at the clients site or some such place but I never charge them for the privilege of me meeting them (and it is a privilege I am sure).

In most pc fits I have to be on site anyway to get the idea of what is needed but even for a webpage quote which could easily be done by email I still make sure I meet them and do the quote free of charge, even when it takes me a week to write the damn thing up. The only client I've ever told I was charging to come on site and do a quote was a client I have in Canada but we decided an onsite visit wasn't really necessary.

when I was working, I put as much effort into the quote as the client had into the tender documents.

Telephone "How much... Me "I charge $250/hr, so exactly what <click>
(place is loaded with $20/hr people)

One paragraph letter asking for a years support quote; Ohh, 1,000 hours at $200/hour , plus 10% of hardware investment. Surprisingly one clown took 5 years to wake up that I was basically telling them to go jump.

For most of my quoting, i was actually being paid to prepare business cases for some IT dept to go upstairs/HO/OS.

I tend not to go around looking for "competitive quotes" on work, but try to suss out a good business/person first, ask for ball park figure for a generic job and decide yes or no on using this business. If so, they get the work and "we" solve the problem. If they do a good job, then I just go back to them in future.