Rip off

[jonn]

Spoke with a friend today who bought a 944 S2 off me last year, its been into local Porsche specialist to have the cambelt done plus a service £900 and they told him it would need new sills for MOT and quoted £700 per side plus parts @£250 per side . Just spoke with the PC Tewksbury and there £154+vat per side !!! that's a joke IMHO , And yes I do know what I'm talking about as apprenticeship served panel beater . And to be clear he was not complaining to me about the car as he got it cheap 91 S2 £1500 944 S2 Blue Now Sold

 

[sutters]

A well known indy for 944's ?

 

[pauljmcnulty]

50% mark-up on parts isn't unheard of, price of oil, screenwash, antifreeze at a service for instance! [&o]

 

[jonn]

ORIGINAL: sutters

A well known indy for 944's ?

As this is not my quote I don't feel I can name the Indy but I will say in Gloucestershire near the OPC

 

[pauljmcnulty]

Please don't name it, or even give obvious hints. It breaks the forum rules and ends up in the thread being deleted or locked. []

 

[jonn]

ORIGINAL: pauljmcnulty

50% mark-up on parts isn't unheard of, price of oil, screenwash, antifreeze at a service for instance! [&o]

Paul I agree mark up is a lot but not unheard of I was more shocked by the labour £700 cant be more than a day per side if fact I'm so in sensed by it that I have just ordered a sill from Porsche and will change one to see how long this actually takes

 

[pauljmcnulty]

Paul I agree mark up is a lot but not unheard of I was more shocked by the labour £700 cant be more than a day per side if fact I'm so in sensed by it that I have just ordered a sill from Porsche and will change one to see how long this actually takes

It's often quoted at least a grand a side including the sills and other materials. I guess that's the price for stripping the car, fitting the new sill, re-doing the stoneguard and painting however much is needed to blend it in?

With labour rates near me at least £65 per hour plus VAT, I guess that's around 12 hours or something. Probably not far off, as I would think you'd struggle to get it all done in under a day and a half.

Someone did list the work needed to install the replacement sills. There was more to it than I thought, if I remember correctly. Which I usually don't! []

 

[jonn]

Paul, I agree at £65 per hour (which is a lot) panel work by me is half that £35 PH and to be clear the £700 did not include paint , once i'v done one I will post step by step guide and time. I now earn my living in IT and would ecstatic at £65 Per hour [] sorry to go on but I hate people being ripped off !!! and at this rate maybe I so go back to old job[]

 

[pauljmcnulty]

It is difficult. Remember that the rate of £65 per hour includes renting premises, and all the other overheads including a load of red tape like staff pension schemes and environmental disposal, before they do the first job: I can guarantee that my local specialists don't take home £65 per hour!

Not including paint that is a lot, but I guess that's up to them. It may be they don't want or need the work, or are factoring in finding more problems underneath? Either way, I'd be getting a second quote! []

 

[Monkeythree]

Having done sills myself I can say there is more to it than meets than eye. Front wings have to come off for starters. That means wheelarch liners, ABS pump splashguard and carbon cannister all have to come off to get access to the A pillar bolts. The bolts that join the wings to the front PU will likely be rusted and siezed.

With the wings off there are approximately eleventy-eight thousand spot welds holding the sill on plus a few bits of MIG plus some braze which is tucked right up under the door hinge and requires ninja dremelling skills to get at. If the outer sills are rusty enough to be an MOT failure then you can bet your mortgage that the intermediate sills, the inner wheel arch bottoms and the rear quarter panels are rusty to some extent too. So they will likely need some patching up to give something solid to weld the new sill on to.

12 hours per side not unreasonable IMHO.

 

[944Scott]

Parts wise have the allowed for the cost of the inner panel as well?

 

[white944]

Wish mine only took 12 hours a side. An OE quality repair with full Porsche panels is worth a grand all day long.

 

[robdimond]

I agree with M3 having also done the job myself. Doing a complete sill requires removing the front wing (not as easy as you would think!) and probably fabricating a substantial repair to the inner sill and rear quarters. Not fitting a complete sill, or 'cutting it in' to avoid removing the front wing could make it substantially cheaper.

I think £1000 per side is entirely reasonable for a complete restoration with factory parts.

The reason for the huge discrepancy in prices quoted is that in many cases surgically welding in repair panels is a perfectly acceptable repair and being a substantially lower amount of work can cost a fraction of that.

I spent months of weekends lovingly restoring one side of my car, then spent nearly a grand on paint (a proper respray of one side completely stripping down the car, including blending around the rear end). I also got a mates car through an MOT in half a days work, bending the side of a fridge around a scaffold pole, welding it on and spraying with rattle cans (it actually looked quite good and sailed through the MOT).

The real rip off merchants are the ones who do the latter standard of repair but charge you the big bucks...

 

[colin944]

ORIGINAL: Monkeythree

Having done sills myself I can say there is more to it than meets than eye. Front wings have to come off for starters. That means wheelarch liners, ABS pump splashguard and carbon cannister all have to come off to get access to the A pillar bolts. The bolts that join the wings to the front PU will likely be rusted and siezed.

With the wings off there are approximately eleventy-eight thousand spot welds holding the sill on plus a few bits of MIG plus some braze which is tucked right up under the door hinge and requires ninja dremelling skills to get at. If the outer sills are rusty enough to be an MOT failure then you can bet your mortgage that the intermediate sills, the inner wheel arch bottoms and the rear quarter panels are rusty to some extent too. So they will likely need some patching up to give something solid to weld the new sill on to.

12 hours per side not unreasonable IMHO.

Having also done this I have to agree with The above. I think they are giving you a worse case senario cost. I would say it'll take a lot longer than a day to if its bad in there.

 

[robdimond]

Having also done this I have to agree with The above. I think they are giving you a worse case senario cost. I would say it'll take a lot longer than a day to if its bad in there.

I think that says it all, you've heard it now from the four guys on here (white944, colin944, M3 and myself) who've actually done the job with their own hands!

 

[colin944]

Here's how much of mine was left after i cut the worst bits out. I cut even more of this out BTW. This is what hides behind sills, and you can't see it till you cut into the car.

[/URL][/IMG]

 

[colin944]

Hers a bit more for you to look at.

[/URL][/IMG]

And this is the car a few months before I cut it open

[/URL][/IMG]

 

[pauljmcnulty]

Having done sills myself I can say there is more to it than meets than eye. Front wings have to come off for starters. That means wheelarch liners, ABS pump splashguard and carbon cannister all have to come off to get access to the A pillar bolts. The bolts that join the wings to the front PU will likely be rusted and siezed.

With the wings off there are approximately eleventy-eight thousand spot welds holding the sill on plus a few bits of MIG plus some braze which is tucked right up under the door hinge and requires ninja dremelling skills to get at.

That's what I remember! [&o]

Am I wrong, or do the doors have to come off as well? How much interior trim needs to be taken out?

 

[Monkeythree]

I suppose the job could possibly be done with the doors on but I would say doors need to come off to have a chance of getting any kind of cutting tool into the area under the door hinge. In terms of interior trim, not much needs to come out as it can mostly just be peeled back away from the hot bits. Having the seats out makes life easier, particularly if you are taking the doors off and need to lie on your back in the footwell to reach up behind the dash and prise the door loom electrical connectors apart. It all adds up!

 

[pauljmcnulty]

Having the seats out makes life easier, particularly if you are taking the doors off and need to lie on your back in the footwell to reach up behind the dash and prise the door loom electrical connectors apart. It all adds up!

This is why I struggle between recommending the Porsche specialists, and going for a local bodyshop. When you've done the sills on hundreds of 944s you will be saving hours on every job, I guess?.

Having seen a specialist who could remove a door card from a 944 in seconds, literally, I am tempted to say there's a good argument to go to someone who knows every nut and bolt and will spend less hours on the job. £65 per hour to do something in ten hours is better than £40 per hour for someone to spend a week learning his way around the car. [8|]