QUOTE(KELTY360 @ Apr 21 2010, 07:15 AM)
I think it's laughable that you would expect a line item estimate from a professional shop based on the poorly focused presentation you've produced. Why would someone spend the hours necessary for a pig in a poke chance at getting a know it all customer who would undoubtedly be an overbearing pain in the ass.
I'm currently in the process of having a professional shop strip, repair and paint my '74 2.0. They came highly recommended by members of the 914 community in the NW and I'm very pleased with their skills, organization and communication. Based on the attitude and expectations you've demonstrated in this thread, there is no way I would give you their name. I want to stay in their good graces for future work and I'm pretty sure they'd hold the referral against me.
I wish you well getting your car rebuilt but I think you need a reality check. JMO
Marc,
I'm sorry that you feel that way, but others so far have been kind & comfortable enough to offer shop reccos to me - both on here & by PM/email. Some of your points are well taken, but could've been made in another way, such as: "Gee Tom, you need clearer pix for them to be of use to anybody.", etc.
To clarify - I do have excellent hi-rez pics which I've taken of everything, but they're too big to post on this site with a 500KB limit, cuz the lowest rez the other takes is 1 MB & I don't know of a good way to get them online to be reviewed by a shop. Most of these were taken with my cell phone camera to fit on here without a lot of cropping, with a few cropped from bigger hi-rez shots.
In my very first post I did say to email or PM me for more info & pix, for any shop or other person who was interested. I will recheck my first post to make sure that is clear.
However, the only "attitude" in my post is frankly in reaction to past comments from some members on this board who prefer to get on my posts asking questions/advice, & start running me down about why I'd want to fix my 914 at all. That's not what I wanted here & tried to be clear about it, and yet .....
As for requesting a detailed estimate, I just don't need a shop throwing out a lump sum with no mutual understanding of what is included & what is not, so we
both know what is being estimated, & when add-on items come up what's beyond that first estimate. That is very reasonable.
I know that this post's request will not result in a final nor hard estimate, and stated as much initially. Rather, it is a first step for me to find some qualified shops/pros & the range of their costs, in order to determine if it makes sense to go out of my local area or out-of-state. Again, I will make sure to clarify that on my first post.
At a later point the detailed estimate would need to be finalized with the selected shop/pro, up to the point of what is found after media blasting, digging into the project, additional items added by choice later, etc.
And btw - I'm happy to talk to the folks first too, to figure out what makes sense & not, then come to a reasonably detailed prelim estimate without their spending an inordinate amount of time.
Pig in a poke chance? - I don't think so, cuz I'm serious about getting it done, but don't know how or where yet, & cannot determine if it makes sense cost-wise to go out of the area here without comparing apples to apples.
IMHO, when both parties know what's on the table & agree to it, & have something in writing to which to refer as things progress, then it makes things go easier for everybody to refer back to what was included & not. In this case, it keeps clear what is in this prelim. estimate, so that there is no question if something was included from it - going into the final estimate, etc. BTW - I have no problem with additional stuff when it isn't included initially, but don't like later add-ons then havee someone say it wasn't included before when it was!
Know it all, overbearing pain in the ass? JYHO