Question for those who've had experience/owned body shops?

John M.

This may be a stupid question, but anyhow. I'm looking at a partial resto on my DD's body this coming summer. It needs two new front quarters and a new front apron, along with a driver side heater channel.

Would it even be reasonable to go to local body shops and get quotes on this stuff? Is it necessary for them to have air-cooled specific experience? It's all metal work obviously....I have the names of a few very good collision shops...but not sure they could handle this kind of work.

Thanks!

hvw · Samba Member Joined: February 13, 2005 Posts: 276

Around here the really good body shops are too busy to handle work like you described. I expect that's true everywhere and I think fnding one willing to do the job will be your biggest problem.

Plantman · Posted: Tue Apr 10, 2007 5:46 pm Post subject:

The bodyshop I use does classics as a sort of side line. You have to be patient for him to be able to do your work. His bread and butter is insurance claims. The classics he charges by the hour or his best guesstimate. He charges less per hour than what the insurance pays by the book, but you have to be willing to let him do it in his time. You usually can't say "I need this next week.". Unless it is an emergency, then he will rearrange things to get it done. He did a fair bit of bodywork on my Ghia and repainted it for around $2,000.00, which was cheap, but it took him 6 months.
David
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takotruckin · Posted: Tue Apr 10, 2007 6:14 pm Post subject:

my dad has owned a shop since i was little, anytime something old comes in, we quote it VERY high, and say it will take forever. in any real collision shop, insurance work always comes first. you will probably be better off finding a restoration shop, or a vw guy to do it for you
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mtalley69type1 · Posted: Tue Apr 10, 2007 6:17 pm Post subject:

I took my Type 1 to a local body shop that has a good reputation for repairing wrecks. Pretty good-sized shop. I asked for an estimate to cut out the front section of my car and weld in the new front clip I recently received from CIP1.

They indicated that, due to insurance/liability concerns, they don't do cut and weld operations on entire panels. Instead, they offered to try to pull it out, straighten it the best they could and do whatever filling/metal work would be needed to straighten out the original panel. They did refer me to a couple of small shops that might be (and were) willing to cut out and replace the clip.

Thought that was interesting. However, I suspect one or both of the following were true:

1. I had my own panel, and they didn't trust using anything they didn't buy.
2. They just didn't want a small, non-insurance claim job.

John M. · Posted: Tue Apr 10, 2007 6:22 pm Post subject:

That's kind of what I figured. Tonight I actually found a local guy with tons of VW restoration experience...including sheet metal. I'm hopefully going down tomorrow to the shop.

Thanks guys.

74Type1 · Posted: Tue Apr 10, 2007 7:27 pm Post subject:

Stay with a good VW body shop. I had a body shop that did not do old Vw's. They did a bad job. Fortunately I found a vw shop that fixed a lot of mistakes the first guy did.

Bugs are not normal cars, and can get f*ed up real quick if they don't know what they are doing.

hemitheus · Posted: Thu Apr 12, 2007 8:52 am Post subject:

I also need to replace my front quarter panels and am running into the same problems. ANyone know of a good vw bodyman in AZ?
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conrad1468 · Posted: Fri Apr 13, 2007 6:20 am Post subject:

i would suggest doing it yourself. the best part is you learn how to weld and you get to find out how your bug is put together.

all of the body shops around here in PA..just laugh and say just junk it... if it's not a muscle car they won't even work on it...

i did all the same body work on my beetle. check out my photo gallery on the samba and you can see the process i did.

good luck..
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