Painter Inquiry

[John248]

Hello all,

I’m looking to get some input from anyone who has used Kens Custom Auto Body (Yuba City, Calif.) either in the past or presently has a car there now for bodywork/paint.

Thanks

John

[mrmustang]

Ken has an excellent reputation in the FFR circles.


Bill S.

[Tommy]

What follows is general advice unrelated to any particular business. . . Reputation based on past performance is a good place to start when picking a paint/body shop. But things can change if the business falls on hard financial times or has turnover in key personnel or the owner. Ask about these matters and ask to talk with a very recent customer. I recommend you search for previous discussions on how to deal with paint shops. For example, never give too much money up front. Don't make the last payment until you personally find the work acceptable. Discuss the timetable up front and have a plan for what you will do if it is taking longer than promised. And provide the painter with as much detailed guidance as you can (e.g., materials, work to be done, etc.) before he starts.

[John248]

Thank you Bill and Tommy. I know Kens reputation and actually researched him at length. My car is currently at his shop and I was just looking for some others who have had him work on their cars so I can compare some notes.

Thanks again for the input and as always, it is extremely valuable.

John

[mrmustang]

Originally Posted by Tommy

And provide the painter with as much detailed guidance as you can (e.g., materials, work to be done, etc.) before he starts.

The only thing you should tell the painter, or the bodyshop owner so that he can guide his painter is what the finished product is supposed to be. The last thing you should ever do is tell a painter what materials or product to use, or how to do his/her job. Anyone who gets caught up in this brand of paint vs that brand of paint line is a fool these days, as there are only 4 actual major manufacturers of base products in the northern half of the world these days. They then sell their products to others, who relabel it as their own. In some cases, they even sell to the other 3, who then relabel product for their own lines. As the retired bodyshop owner, I used to have people tell me to use "this brand, or that", I then either educated them as to why this is misguided thoughts, or advised them that my painter knows how our paint product sprays out, or showed them the door and thanked them for considering us. Very few actually had to be shown out the door, 70% of them eventually came back, as every other shop owner pretty much said the same thing to them.

Don't be "that guy".

Bill S.

[Tommy]

And don't be the guy who says "I want it red with white racing stripes" and is then disappointed with the shades of red and white, and the width of the stripes. You can provide detail without telling him how much pressure to run in his gun.

[mrmustang]

Originally Posted by Tommy

And don't be the guy who says "I want it red with white racing stripes" and is then disappointed with the shades of red and white, and the width of the stripes. You can provide detail without telling him how much pressure to run in his gun.

Telling them a shade of color, while looking at actual paint chips, or a car in a parking lot, hands on, is the only way to go. Showing someone a picture in a magazine, or on a computer, could have been "color enhanced" and will not be an actual shade that can be used for mixing paint product.



Bill S.

[patrickt]

Just go with beige; you'll be fine.

[mrmustang]

Originally Posted by patrickt

Just go with beige; you'll be fine.

Admit it, you got your color from a paint chip at Home Depot

[twobjshelbys]

Originally Posted by mrmustang

Admit it, you got your color from a paint chip at Home Depot

Navajo white? Spec house color?

[PDUB]

Originally Posted by mrmustang

Admit it, you got your color from a paint chip at Home Depot

you know he got it from Bettie!

[mrmustang]

Originally Posted by PDUB

you know he got it from Bettie!

Crocker

[hauss]

Let me know if you need some band-aids With all those cuts I am sure you are bleeding .

[patrickt]

Originally Posted by hauss

Let me know if you need some band-aids With all those cuts I am sure you are bleeding .

Naaaah, us old guys are tougher than you think.

[EZ$]

Listen to Tommy when he says to make certain that you discuss a timetable for completion and have a plan if the schedule that you agree to is not met.

Ken does spectacular work. I've seen quite a few of the cars he's done, so I took my car to him last August. I'm now at week 47 and I still do not have the body back. Was told 2-4 months up front, and I've been way too passive through the process. I know it will be stunning when I do get it, but I just hope I'm still young enough to drive it when I do!

[mrmustang]

Originally Posted by EZ$

Listen to Tommy when he says to make certain that you discuss a timetable for completion and have a plan if the schedule that you agree to is not met.

Ken does spectacular work. I've seen quite a few of the cars he's done, so I took my car to him last August. I'm now at week 47 and I still do not have the body back. Was told 2-4 months up front, and I've been way too passive through the process. I know it will be stunning when I do get it, but I just hope I'm still young enough to drive it when I do!

Commodity issues, employment issue, equipment issues, state government and local government issues can all play a part in delays. You may want to call and ask which of the above is the cause for the delay. I do know that there are quite a few base materials that are in short, or non supply right now, something as simple as 1 gram of a specific base product unavailable for your specific paint mix could be the hold up. Yes, really. I was on the opposite end of this back in 2011 and the Fukushima nuke plant disaster in Japan. Two certain "Mica" powders were only manufactured close by, as soon as the nuke plant went down, the production facility was evacuated. As such, the 4 bottles of Mica powder I had became very valuable, and I had body shops as far away as 400 miles asking me to sell them a gram here, or a gram there, and for 100 times what I paid for them so they could finish the cars they had at the shop. Think about that for a moment given the commodity issues that are world wide right now......Again, yes, really.

Bill S.

[EZ$]

Bill, I have no idea what, if any, of the items you mention may be in play here. I was a contractor for over forty years, so if he had any of those issues, and had approached it from that standpoint, I may have understood it, but it appeared that he just sat on my car for the first four months before even starting body work. I know this because I requested to get the go-kart back to complete some items before the body went back on, and I could not pick it up until the end of January this year. He keeps telling me it's issues he's having with the body. It's an FIA body from Mr. Bruce. Thing is, he did Bill Dobbins car not too long ago, same Mr. Bruce body, so all the issues he keeps mentioning should be items that he was aware of before starting, and he should have been ready to deal with them. He took about 14 months to do Bill's car, and I'm concerned that I'm headed down the same road.

[John248]

Once again thank you all for your input. Before choosing Ken I actually researched painters not only on this site but several others and used the opinions of some members in my car club they help me choose Ken. Prior to my final decision, I had actually not only talked to Ken on the phone, but also had a back-and-forth email and text message session regarding the process, cost, paint colors etc. When I dropped my car off with Ken in November 2021 I actually had the color in mind and he was able to show me that exact color. He quoted me a timeframe of three months to completion but I figured with holidays and other delays, such as Covid, it was probably closer to four or five months. We are now coming up on 9 months with no stated completion date.
What has become frustrating is that Ken does not return emails or phone calls. The few that he has replied to have been vague as to some sort of estimated time of completion or reason for the delay. I know that based on Ken‘s reputation that the paint job and bodywork will come out spectacular, that I have no doubt. I was just wanting to reach out to others that maybe you were having a similar situation with Ken and seeing if maybe he was providing some sort of explanation as to why the very long delay.

Again thank you all for your assistance and if anybody else can provide any insight it would be greatly appreciated thank you.

Oh and by the way the running joke with the guys I work with is that the reason why the car is taking so long is because Ken was having difficulty getting the magenta and white pearl paint for the body and somebody who could paint a unicorn on the trunk and a half naked cheerleader on the hood.

[John248]

EZ$…..I’m going send you a PM

[mrmustang]

Originally Posted by EZ$

It's an FIA body from Mr. Bruce. Thing is, he did Bill Dobbins car not too long ago, same Mr. Bruce body, so all the issues he keeps mentioning should be items that he was aware of before starting, and he should have been ready to deal with them. He took about 14 months to do Bill's car, and I'm concerned that I'm headed down the same road.

I like Bruce, he builds a nice product, yet he mixes and lays up each product, one body at a time, at times, not always using the exact same mix for each layer of product, couple that with the out gasing and curing of each body that Bruce does being different, and the quality of each body not being the same, and you come up with any one of a thousand different things that can cause the process to go extremely slowly. As with Ken, I would have hated to rush through a job just to make a customer happy, only to have issues down the road and have to redo the body and/or paint for free later on. The 3rd party "unknown" of the body, and the slow curing and out gasing that most likely is still occurring are most certainly to blame for the better part of the delay(s). A FFR body, pretty much a production line piece, is a known entity with it's own known quirks, and I'm certain that is why those get done much faster than the body in which you supplied the paint shop.

As for the your time as a contractor, did you ever have a time where that one single piece was needed to finish a job, but was not available anywhere in the world? If not, then you'll never understand the amount of different base materials that are in just one specific color, and how each base material to the formula gets mixed down to 1/10th of a gram, and anything over or under that formula will affect the final product/color. It really is a specialty business these days, and in California, made worse by the local and state oversight and regulations not found anywhere else in the country. My old state of PA attempted to try the same type of oversight, but got shot down in their senate for being an overreach. Cooler heads prevailed, or I may have gotten out of the business 6 years prior to when I lost my lease right after hurricane Sandy.

Just saying

Bill S