Complete Front End Reuild -Labor Hours?? Dart

I just finished a customer car that bought a PST kit.
he had many wrong parts as his car was a 67/69/73 disc brake 69 Dart

So this consisted of total disassembly, clean and recondition, all parts, install new bushings and Ball Joints. Pitman arm, clearance header,
dismantle another correct Steering assembly for donor parts, waiting for correct parts, reinstall all

What do you think a fair price is for this service?
He agreed to $65 hours and I have 30 hours total including some wiring and e brake fixes.

last one I done on an aussie charger, I did it for $360 owner supplied parts.

Yeah that is the problem with paying a shop rate for that type of work, especially on an older car that is going to require a bunch of fussing with. Good luck.

a friend Shop Owner with a Demon says bill 9-10 for straight forward rebuild replace.

There was custom work too

Welcome to my world Everything I bolded = extra time. Especially the clean and recondition part. I do not think you are out of line at all. Customers don't always understand the BS we go through trying to make things right, especially when it's a conglomeration of parts or Bubba's been there before you.

I don't generally fart about with other people's rides anymore.

Because they don't want to pay what it costs to do it right but they sure will cry about anything that is wrong, whether you touched it or not.

Remonds me of electric and or driveability problems.People dont understand you can have tons of hours chasing a problem.New cars are tons worse than old ones.Cant say how many hours the shop didnt charg.The best one is they want to know if an hour will be all they owe.Just have to tell them OK so many hours and when its done we stop.Rocky

Not disputing the time spent, but I think anybody would be a little surprised to get a ~$2000 bill for a front end rebuild.

When I was younger I could do a complete front suspension rebuild like that in about 8 to 10 hours. ( not so sure I could do it that fast now though )

Its when you get into cleaning A arms and torsion bars and strut rods etc etc is where a lot of time can be tied up QUICKLY. So I could easily see 20 hours plus in that kind of time in the job
IMO, I wouldn't touch a front end rebuild like that for less than $1000 plus parts

Wiring is something I HATE to quote ahead of time. Most people have no idea how fast time can go by when chasing electrical gremlins

Just finished a 68 at our shop, we have 26 hours in it. No disassembly of secondary unit.
Our rate 95 per hour.
Local shop labor rates range between 85 and 145 per hour, 95% of them will not work on old cars due to rust and difficulty in getting the correct parts.

I thought $400 was generous when I did the last one. But I'm also working on rust free Arizona cars. Also I have all the tools and made tools for making the job move quicker.

Probably 15 years ago a friend of mine paid $1,800 (parts included) for his '71 Barracuda front end rebuild at a local tire shop. I charged a buddy of mine $750 labor last year to rebuild the front end on his 1957 Coronet. I undercharged by a bit due to all the rusty parts, etc. I do hot tank, bead blast, and paint the hard parts. The labor should have been $1,500. All told, I made about $1k on the entire job as there were other things that needed to be done, but I think I made about $10/hour, if that.

Shop owner to shop owner, when I do work like that I tell the customer Up front It will be charged as time and materials. When you start cleaning 45 years worth of grease/paint and road grime and then painting parts and all the other things that go along with it the time adds up. Im not here fixing this crap because I have nothing better to do and im good at what I do. I can put a set of pads and rotors on a Honda accord and make good money much faster and not clean anything. that takes an hour. A few of those a day is all I need. That said charge him what you feel is fair but show him your total hours for the job. If they don't like it they can spend 35 years learning how to do it. People pay to have their cars fixed because they cant do it. You have the knowledge, shop space and tools. all cost money. Just make sure its done right......Bill it out

The only time we would eat hours in a case like that is if the length of time it took to do the repair was because the tech didn't know what he was doing or if we didn't have the proper tools on hand and that made the job take longer than it should.

We had my 73 Duster done a few years back. This was due to another issue we were not aware of at first. Anyways ordered the PST kit w/all Poly parts, thinking in the $500 range then. Well when it was pulled apart found the issue was not worn parts but the sleeve that holds the lower control arm in place. The weld cracked & was letting things go out of alignment. That actually was an easy fix once he found it. But it take a couple tear downs to locate it. When the car was in the air weight was holding that in place, then when lowered oops. Out of alignment again. Anyways he fixed that for a minimal fee. Overall w/my supplying the parts, it was still close the $1,000. Now that included the fix, installing all new bushing (not easy) proper front end alignment.
The car drives like new now, lets hope it stays that way.
Thanks, Ken

somebody replied : "BUBBA was in there first".

well, i've been there, done that, got BUBBA'S t-shirt, and STILL had a TON of fixin' to do ! you never know what can happen when that can-o-worms come open.

If you have a shop and a business with staff and overhead, then the hourly rate should be what it is. The customer should have a realistic idea of time involved upfront, or they might flip at the 2k invoice.. Obviously, there are some uknowns, but they should at least have a window of possibilities. If you do this stuff on the side in your garage or theirs, I don't think you can ask the same rate. There is also some risk on the customer side as to recourse if something goes wrong with the job. That being said, complete front end rebuild is a lot of work. With all the issues that can arise with 50 year seized up parts, who knows... There are so many variables

Hello, I also have a vintage auto repair - resto shop. If it took 30 hours to professionally complete the job then that is what he should be charged. Not to sound rude but if he agreed to time spent and that is what it took then that is what it is. If you even gave him a range of cost before and it was low then you may have an issue. We are VERY upfront with customers that everything is TIME SPENT at our shop rate and I supply the parts as I refuse to have a lift tied up waiting on a customer to get the parts to me. I have been in the repair business my whole life ( 35 years) and used to get stressed about this kind of thing but finally came to the realization that I have to make as much doing this kind of work as I would doing general repairs. I WILL NOT loose money because someone thinks it should be cheap. If they have an issue with time and materials then they are not the customer you need. As far as 30 hours for everything you described that sounds about right. The cleaning, blasting and painting eats up a LOT of time.

$1950 - All new front end. Should drive great !