I went down to my local paint store last night and picked up some supplies. One of the items I picked up was black epoxy primer with the activator. I am starting to redo a hood for my 72. I was shocked when I got home and looked at the receipt. That primer and activator was over $50.00 for a quart of primer and a pint of the activator. Is this even close to what it should be. I remember 15 to 20 years ago buying red oxide primer for next to nothing. If this is close in price no wonder it costs so much to paint a car these days. I always thought is was the high labor rates. ANY comments appreciated? Mike
Sounds about right. The stuff ain't cheap. We use PPG K2 Epoxy Primer. One gallon of primer is around $85.00 and one quart of activator is around $65.00. That is OUR cost! Our customers can't understand why it cost so much for materials. The cost of paint supplies seems to go up at least 5% every month. The sad part is that there is not a darn thing we can do about it.
That is exactly the primer I am using. It is amazing how expensive it is. But it does lay down & cover very Nice. Mike
WHOA!!!! I just hunted up the invoice for my paint, One gallon of Epoxy Primer, One gallon of sealer, One gallon of paint and half a gallon of the trim paint, all the reducers, hardeners...blah blah.... 500.00 bucks I was thinking, if I hadn't looked at this thread I coulda gone the rest of the month without knowing this Someone is making a killing at this and something tells me it aint the folks like Jean
You got that right. It's not at all unusual to go to the parts store to pick a list of supplies that may only be 5 or 6 items long and end up spending $400 or $500. It really is a gigantic ripoff. We have threatened to take our business to another parts store only to find out thier prices are the same as the store we deal with. When we tell our customers how much materials cost, they all but have a heart attack. I honestly believe the constant price increases are an attempt to get small shops like ours out of business and force the backyard do-it-yourselfers to have to take thier cars to the high production shops instead. That is a raw deal too, because the high production shops want nothing to do with old cars or restorations. There's no money in it for them and it ties thier shops up too long. So that leaves us, trying to keep up with the price increases and keep our heads above water. Yep, someone IS making a killing at this stuff, and it sure ain't us.
I dont care what it cost, I'll always paint my own cars. I probably spent close to $800 in material to paint my Sprint.
Geez, you guys don't EVEN want to know how much I spend at the paint store each month. If I get by with less than 10 grand I feel good. But Jean is right, these manufactures (PPG & Dupont) are steady going up. Dupont told me they raise their prices 15% every year. We are able to raise our rates only once about every 3 years due to the control the insurance companies have over us just to try to get some of our profit back. Our profits have dropped so much by the third year we have no choice. And we have to fight like hell to get it from the ins companies. Of course, they in turn just charge more for our insurance to get it back. It's a never ending cycle. You know, about 6-7 years ago, I felt kinda bad if I had to charge someone $1000 for a complete paint job. Well, I now feel that way about the $2000 job but that's what it takes for me to make a decent profit for one simple friggin paint job with nothing special and you better be able to do it within one week or you're still not gonna make anything. It's all about the greed from the big guys...guess it's just inflation at it's best.
paint Same thing here, the paint store I use sells PPG too. a gallon of gray primer, sealer, a gallon of bright yellow gold poly metallic with reducer and a gallon of clear with reducer plus the other small stuff almost $600.00...it never ends...Jim
Hello, I run a production paint shop and see the price increasing here also. If you look at the price of paint it is way out of line in the aftermarket buisness. We do not use a base/clear system (Imron 6000) we use IMRON 5000 or a like product from different suppliers (PPG,VALSPAR,S/W,etc). This is the same type paint that Kenworth and Freightliner use. The primer we use here is a urethane and it runs around $30-40 per gallon. You can also get an epoxy for about the same amount. You might want to experiment with some of these "Industrial Coatings" they perform very well and are much more economical. Dave
Imron IS nasty stuff. Way back when I worked for a production bodyshop that shall rename nameless, we started selling paint jobs with Imron finishes. All our painter had for protection was a regular respirator and a standard work uniform. He sprayed two cars with Imron in one day and spent the next few days sick as a dog. The shop owner refused to believe that the paint fumes were to blame for the painter being sick. The next time the painter sprayed that crap he got sick again and he told the shop owner he would NEVER spray Imron again without an air-supplied respirator. If the owner did'nt like it he could fire his a**. Soon after we stopped using Imron all together.
