86TpiTransAm

I recently bought a '91 Firebird with an excellent paint job on it. I bought the car from the original owner and it was mostly garaged during it's life. The reason I got the car is because the lady that owned it hit a deer on the corner of the front passenger side. Very little damage, for a deer hit, but I need to replace the fender and my friend is giving me a TA hood for it. The body shop will be painting the fender, hood, and both headlight covers. When they quoted me a price, the quote has listed that they need to blend the paint from the fender onto the door (this I understand) and also mentions that they need to blend the paint from the hood onto the drivers side fender. What the quote DOESN'T mention is anything about blending the paint onto the front bumper. Is this normal? Will it be that noticeable if they don't blend onto the front bumper. Also, when they blend the paint from the hood onto the drivers side fender, is this going to cause a noticeable difference between the paint they blended onto that fender and the existing paint that's on the door (the adjoining body panel)?

The car is red, if it makes any difference. I have been told that it does.

Any input on this would be greatly appreciated.

TIA!

beady

when they blend those areas it is to apply the new paint a
little further than what was repainted like the fender they blend into the door about 5 or 6 inches and then they reclear it. They can get pretty close with the color for the bumper, hence no blend needed there...When it is all done it will look perfect and the colors all match as they do it every day to perfection....

86TpiTransAm

That's all fine and dandy. I'm sure they do it everyday and it will look fine but what I'm not wanting is for them to come back and say that they had to do all this extra stuff that was listed on the estimate and the $1,000 job that they quoted me end up being $1500, know what I mean?

Anybody else have any opinions or input on this matter?

KEVIN G.

What I try to do, is to keep it to the estimate. I would hope any good shop would... On a customer pay repair, the only major reason to go over, is for saftey issues.
A couple weeks ago, we did a rear bumper for a customer, minor damages to the cover, y'know? We got the cover off, and the absorber was damaged. Because it was a customer pay repair, we called them, explained that we had to replace the absorber, (It was a saftey issue.), but I dropped the price per labor hour, and charged them extra for the part only. The part was like 105 bucks, but because I dropped my labor pricing, it really only cost them around 75 above the original estimate.
They sound like they have themselves covered pretty good, and are probably avoiding refinishing the cover. (for whatever reason...) Fade of the old finish could be an issue, but if it was garaged, it should be fine. Any quality paint company should have a decent match for 8774, or 9075, whichever your red is.

~87Bird~2.8~

...we do the same thing all the time at my shop...as long as they mix the paint rite u should have no prob!

86TpiTransAm

Ok, thanks guys! It is an 8774 paint job and the paint they use is DuPont and PPG paint. They buy it all from O'Reilly Auto Parts, which is who I work for, and I'm sure that DuPont makes good quality paint as does PPG. I just hope the paint department at whatever O'Reilly they go to mixes it right.

After the car is fixed and repainted (2 to 3 months after) I'm going to have the entire car detailed which includes a hand washing and Ming mirror finish. The Ming process is a patented process and the company that does the detailing, guarantees the wax to last for 3 years and says that red cars look about 15 times better when they're done with them. So hopefully if there is any mismatch at all due to color fading, the Ming process will help.

Here's a link to a Ming Q&A. The company from this website isn't the one doing the job on my car but the Ming process is the same.

Ming Auto Detail & Rustproofing Center