3 Traits To Look For When You Need A Body Shop To Fix Your Vehicle
When your vehicle sustains body damage, you want to make sure that you hire a qualified body shop to fix your vehicle up for you. You want your vehicle to be fixed properly, so that it looks good. You also want your vehicle to be fixed so that the body damage does not interfere with the mechanical damage to the vehicle. When choosing an auto body shop to fix your vehicle, you need to find out what their labor costs are per hour, how they calculate their labor costs, and if they back-up their work.
Find Out About Labor Charges
The first thing that you should ask about when you call an auto shop is the labor charges. Every shop sets their labor charges on a per-hour basis. Some auto body shops charge a different hourly rate for painting your vehicle and for all other work done on your vehicle. Base rates for most auto shops run around forty to sixty dollars an hour. If a shop is charging more than that per hour, find out if their mechanics have special qualifications or are using special equipment to justify the extra cost-per hour.
Find Out How They Calculate Hourly Rates
Second, you need to find out how the body shops that you are interested in working in calculate their hour rates. When giving you an estimate, most auto body shops use reference guides that provide them with the number of hours that it will take to complete a repair.
Some shops may figure out how long it takes to do a repair based on personal experience. Some shops use the recommended hours, and then make adjustments to those hours based on their experience with these issues. Any quality shop should be able to explain to you how they arrive at the hours that it will take them to fix your vehicle.
You want to know the formula they use for calculating labor costs, and if they will stick to their quote or if they will charge you for the additional time if the repair takes longer than anticipated.
Find Out If They Offer a Warranty
Finally, find out if an auto body shop will back up their work. If they install new parts, each part that they install should come with a warranty from the manufacture. If you have ever had body work done before, you probably know thought that the labor hours for doing body work can cost as much or more than the parts to fix up your vehicle. That is why you want to make sure that the auto body shop that you work with will back up the labor that they do on your vehicle with a warranty. At the very least, you are going to want to get a one-year warranty for the work done on your vehicle. A one to three-year warranty is common in the auto body repair industry.
When searching for an auto body shop to fix up your vehicle, find out about the labor charges and how they calculate them, and make sure that they back up their labor and work with a warranty. Contact a shop, like Sam's Automotive Reconditioning Center, to get started.