Contract restoration work

[IMPI]

Hi all
I am lucky in the sense that I don't have to make a living out of the work I do for others in the aircooled world and I have some sympathy for those seemingly burned by restoration people.
Some facts: I have not met or seen a rich restorer.
They all have their own projects on hold sometimes indefinitely
I have not met a customer who doesn't feel it is his prerogative to change the scope of work partway through the project ( a good friend told me that a customer changed wifes and the new one didn't like the colour...... He was expected to repaint at the previous discussed price.
Some parts are impossible to source and if the car has been dismantled by an inexperienced person......... Lets just say not good.

I have found the best policy is to find that customer that accepts what you do and how you do it. that said If I were to make a living out of it and I plan to do it someday so I am speaking to myself here you need to do a few things and accept a few truths.

Commercial restoration is a fairly new endeavour in south Africa.
South Africa does not have the resources to supply a thriving restoration community yet and very few people have the knowledge.
suppliers buy the cheapest they can find overseas and sell it at inflated prices.
cleaning and inspecting parts takes about 60 percent of the time spent during the actual restoration
Painting takes one day but the prep takes ages to do right.
Rust removal is never straight forward.

In my opinion the only way to keep a customer happy is to give daily updates photos and share your frustrations. Placing impossible deadlines will only get you shoddy work (shows like overhauling skews the picture> Who can afford to pay the amount of labour (skilled artisans) in those shows the parts get delivered and the cars are chosen for parts availability. I also like the customer to put his wants and needs on paper and will rather loose a customer because we couldn't agree on things than supply bad work.

I have also found that it is extremely difficult to price work according to actual time spent Eg My Puma had 13layers of paint which had to be removed by hand as fiberglass is easily damaged by more aggressive means. This took me almost a year of afternoons to accomplish (who would pay me for these hours as the same on the silwer beetle took only two weeks during the same hours worked.
installing those pesky trims on a beetle door can easily eat a whole day I can go on.

Hope this puts some perspective on recent posts.
Armand

[splitbusahollic]

Well written Impi !
I must be Honest, it's so nice to read a fresh post written by someone that knows what they are talking about, rather than some self opinionated forum Members that have never restored anything in their lives before , but have all the right answers from bits and pieces of literature they pick out of someone else's issues and then act as if they are professionals themselves with years of experience and all the answers.

People are all different, and some clients love what you do for them whilst others expect a lot more than what they pay for. in the end , if you are a perfectionist of sorts i suggest you take 5 years, buy all the parts yourself and give it a shot....the best advice i can offer is not to keep an account of your expenses cause then you will be shocked at what it costs to have your "Perfect dream toy" !
Its amazing how the opinions vary between Guy's who have actually done some restoration work in relation the those who haven't.

in the end , the true passion is VW aircooled cars, that is why i do it.If it was for the Human element, i would have left long ago...

[jmvv]

IMPI, I cannot agree with you more.

I have just finished work on a customer's car (large American classic) that spent a year with me. This was the third successive comparable project, so I have some history to fall back on.

The car came to me with the engine and suspension fitted and the body painted. As for the rest there was nothing. No steering, no brakes, no wiring, no interior, no glass, no trim. The original seats and door cards were so water damaged that they could not be used. I had to make new door cards from scratch and strip the seats down to the metal bits and rebuild all the components required from scratch. Over the course of the past year, I built a complete vehicle with all systems functioning. Engine, brakes, steering, electrical, full interior, air conditioning, sound system. Skills that I applied were amongst others: designer, engineer, draughtsman, auto electrician, mechanic, upholsterer, carpenter and sometimes, labourer.

I have just done a calculation on my cost to the customer and of the total amount invoiced for the job, only one third was income in the form of labour recovered, the rest were for parts supplied and other costs directly relating to the project.

Roughly taken, (including holidays) there were 264 working days in the twelve months in question.
Lets say you spend 75% of those days working on the car ( I have other customers requiring my attention as well) and you work an actual 6 hours per day; that gives you 99 actual hours worked per month or or 1188 hours for the year, working mostly alone.
(Overhaulin normally has about 20 people involved with the build for 18 hours a day for 7 days for a total of 2520 hours, by comparison)

The problem now arises that I have to make a living, doing this, as my business is my only source of income.
Once you factor in all the overheads, you end up with an hourly rate that very few people are willing to accept.
This ends up on me having to rely on other income streams from my business, to subsidise the work I am doing on this project and this then upsets the customers who cannot understand that you cannot spend every possible available hour on their one particular project .