professional full respray. ballpark price for a good job?

[Mr Footlong]

My friend just got bent over yesterday by a paint Shop but I think in this instance it was worse that Daz's friend due to how they did it. He is in the car trade and came across this outfit that are local to me/Technick/Daveperc. They consisted of two ex painters for a certain outfit that are in Formula one and are based in Surrey, don't think I need to go in to more detail.

Anyway, after getting some bad news from the bank for his business expansion and his 3 series got reversed in to, he took 10 days off work and arranged to go work for these guys while they stripped his car down and resprayed it. He was there learning but mostly doing lots of the grunt work stripping his car down, removing the paint etc etc, all the time-intensive stuff.

They has agreed a price of £2k for the strip down and refit based on all the help he gave them. He was even going out every day and buying them lunch etc. Everything seemed fine until the job was virtually finished. He had also sent business their way while he was there.

He didn't go in there on Friday as the car was finished and was expecting to pick the car up on Friday night. They told him over the phone that they had run in to complications and the job was now £4k, on a £3k car..... He felt crushed and couldn't understand how this happened. A lot was said of course but when asked at what point did they know it was going to go above budget, they said at the beginning of priming. This was on DAY 2 of the 10 days friend was their helping. He had even asked during the job if it was all going according to plan and they said yes. They also blamed having to remove a bit of interior trim as they dropped a nut down it but that is their fault.

He hasn't got the money to pay for the job now and was at the point of just giving them the V5 yesterday. I couldn't help him financially (he didn't ask) but offered up one of my bikes as collateral for them to hold on to until he could pay it back as either would cover the 2k easily enough, on the proviso that if either of them touched or rode the bike in question I would beat them in to the ground for what they did to my friend and thoroughly enjoy it.

Anyway, the moral of this story is, life is full nasty little conmen/pieces of sh!t that think they don't need to justify themselves.

[bam_bam]

Before any work commences, agree on the price via email. Make it very clear in the email that any further work impacting price, quality or timeline will need to be confirmed by you, via email. No email, use txt, no txt, request a written quote and handwrite that any works further to the quote described requires a rewritten quote. Simplez.

[Shoppinit]

^This.

I can't help wondering whose side the judge would come down on in a case like this, with no written quotes.

[doodlebug]

Oral contract stands up in court too....

[bam_bam]

Oral contracts aren't worth the paper they are written on.

[Mr Footlong]

Don't look at me, it really was a friend, not a "friend"...

[Weiß-sechs]

Don't look at me, it really was a friend, not a "friend"...