The question here is like asking why automobile manufacturers price their cars differently for practically the same car. Maybe, we would say its for obvious reasons like technology advance, craftsmanship and quality. Why other car manufacturers don’t put in as much? The answer is affordability. It would be the same way for body and paint shops. With some, if you want quality, a more detailed job is done and top quality materials are used.

This is one of the main reasons why I learned much on automotive repairs, both mechanical and body repairs. Then, I put up my own body repair and repainting shop in 1985 and closed it in 1989, and tried my best to merge quality with affordability. As in my other articles here, I always mention my experience since 1976 having been with car dealers and operating public transportation since 1983. Price being charged has always something to do with the quality and extent of job to be done. There are different ways “to skin a cat” as it is to do body and paint jobs. From plain exterior wash-over paint job to intricate body panel damaged or rusted-out repairs, people who do these jobs practically do it differently from one another. Unless you are looking after the job being done, day-in-day-out, you can never be sure how many paint coats they applied on the paint job, would you? Would they have replaced your fender as promised, or, just did a little make up on your old one?

There are two types of laborers, those that are paid on a daily or salaried basis and those who work on contract basis. Those who get paid daily or on salary might do a better quality job with minimum use of materials for a longer working time. On the other hand, contract labor will have less quality and use more materials and finish the job as fast as they can. For vehicle owners, there are those who can wait while there are also those who want jobs done in a rush, especially if the vehicle earns income for them. It is for this reason that two types of laborers emerged. For car dealer shops or large body and paint repair shops, they are likely retaining laborer on salary basis. They get only contract labor when there is more than what their people can handle. Their charges are standard for their shop category. For medium to small body and paint shops, their work forces are mostly on contract basis. Normally, they charge lower than larger shops because they can use excess materials from previous repairs and have some sources large shops don’t have access to.

For materials used, we might say that larger shops get discounts or lower prices for their bulk orders but most of the time it is negligible because of employee benefits and taxes that they maintain. That’s aside from longer procedures, paper work and accounting concerns regarding a specific job. In short, indirect costs dictate them to make charges higher. For most of medium to smaller shops, these are not a concern. They earn or profit more from smaller and faster jobs that could be done. As for body panel replacement parts, large shops mostly have only brand new replacements. With smaller shops, the vehicle owner has the option to choose from metal working the panels, used replacement or brand new.

In the case of my auto repair shop, I closed down because it was difficult to get good quality contractual labor while jobs were pouring in. There was no way for me to sacrifice quality versus profits. It was a difficult situation because had it not been for the quality job that we did, we will not be having that much incoming job requests. On the other hand, we could not give the quality service for lack of quality work force needed to do them. That drives to my point on why body and repair shops charge differently for practically the same job. It was better to get out of the business with a good reputation than close down because of bad reputation.