I’m writing a medium to large estimate on a damaged vehicle and my estimating system already has added quite a bit of refinishing on just the major parts alone. Do I really need to chase down and add refinish of the smaller parts too?
Your first thought, and that of any owner/manager, is ABSOLUTELY!
Then again, your second thought might be, “My time is too tight because customers are waiting, my system probably doesn’t have a refinishing operation for that little part, or my system will likely remove overlap for most or all of the labor anyway. So why bother?”
Finally, the painter already has all of the preparation materials out, the color mixed and will be spraying paint anyway, so what’s the big deal?
While some of the above may be true, accurate estimating is still our goal.
We want a written repair plan so that any estimate user can clearly see which operations you feel need to be done for proper repairs. We want to use our chosen estimating system the way it is designed to work. Finally, we want to make sure to add operations that may be lacking in the system.
Vehicle owners, collision repair technicians, refinish technicians, managers, foremen and insurance personnel all need to know exactly what is planned before repairs begin and what is done when repairs are completed.
As needed in a free-market economy, we have competing estimating system vendors. They don’t all operate the same. For example, on the three major estimating systems, a fuel filler door located on my own vehicle’s quarter panel shows a 0.3, 0.4 and 0.5 refinishing labor amount. If the quarter panel is also selected for refinish, two vendors remove 0.2 overlap and the third one calls it “Included.”
Logically, overlap could be removed because there is a difference between painting the small part all by itself and painting the small part along with a nearby major panel (paint is already mixed, gun won’t be cleaned twice, etc.). The vendor that calculates it as “Included” factors fuel door refinish labor into the amount for ordinary quarter panel refinish labor. This means they expect the fuel door to be refinished every time the quarter panel is refinished.
Evidently, each system deals differently with the additional fuel door refinishing tasks, including preparing the surface, masking the opening and dealing with the edges/inside, as reflected by the labor amount differences. There may be good arguments for each method, but the most important point is to know how that your system, or the one that produced the estimate, calculates so it reflects the way you do business. If the needed tasks aren’t reflected in the calculated labor amount, a manual entry (with a good explanation) could be used.
Don’t forget other color-coated small parts including brackets, bezels and supports. For a few tenths of refinish labor, the amount may imply that tasks including paint mixing, color matching, and gun cleaning are already considered on another refinish operation somewhere on the estimate. It also implies that the part will be refinished similar to, and at the same time as, the major exterior panels.
This may not be the case for some of these parts, including those with a different color, those with a different clear coat application and those with a different texture. If you notice that your estimating system doesn’t allow labor for such differences, tell your information provider. Be sure to justify why refinish labor should be different on this particular part on this particular vehicle. As these estimating systems become more and more accurate, everybody wins.
It may seem like a lot of extra work paying attention to refinish of small parts or reporting an inaccuracy. After all, it’s really a minor labor amount. It may be, but, as the saying goes, if you don’t think small things matter, try sleeping in a closed room with one little mosquito.
“To avoid criticism, do nothing, say nothing, and be nothing.”
— Elbert Hubbard
