SneezinCD5

I'm shopping around for work to paint. I last worked for Maaco, but quit after a few months as the shop owner expected too much out of the employees. At Maaco I was working 5 days a week from 8 to about 6 or 7 at night. Then on Saturday I would put in 4-5 hours. This was for $700 per week. Not bad money, but it does not add up to much when you calculate the amount of hours I was putting in.

I am more about quality and taken my time, but you can imagine what a production shop like Maaco was more concerned with. So, I was spraying about 7 cars per day which just kicked my a$$!!

I am looking to get on with a shop (until I can get my own thing going) and just curious to what kind of hours you guys work and if you are paid on an hourly basis with overtime. Or are you paid per car? How is it working for a dealership or a company where quality comes before quantity?

Thanks for any input

mugencivic94

i work at a shop in NC as their painter and get payed commesion so if i do 100 hours of paint work in 40 hours i still get paid 100 hours, and all the tech's at are shop are paid half the labor rate which in our area the shop rate is $55 frame , $40 for paint and body, ive seen alot of your work on here if you get in at a high flow dealership (100+ hours a week) you should be making $17 or more per labor hour which would mean alot more money.

DC2.2_GSR

flat rate is the way to go if you can find a shop that'll hire a flat rate painter. most shops in my area are hourly. salary painters aren't very common, but they're the best in the business.. it'll take a while to get there.

for comparison...

i made $12/hr. at my first shop as a prepper. 40 hrs/week with (time and a half) overtime allowed. i prepped panels and taped cars for paint.

same shop, 6 months later, i moved up to "assistant painter" and made $15/hr., 40 hrs. with overtime allowed. prepped panels, taped cars, cut-in work, small jobs.

next shop a year later, i made $18/hr. as head painter. still 40 hrs./wk. overtime still allowed, but i depended on overtime to get cars done. at this point, expect to put in a good 50+ hours a week.


now, if you move up to a flat rate painter's position, expect to bust your *** like crazy... but make serious cash. you'll get payed per hour, but it's per flat rate hour, not per hour worked. if a job pays out 9 hours, and you get it done in 4.5 hrs. (normal 200% efficiency), you still get payed 9 hours for that job. but.. if you take 11 hours?? you get payed for 9 hrs.

the flat rate head painter at the first shop i worked for made a consistant 70-85 hours a week, but only worked from 7-4:30pm 5 days a week. if you're good, you're good haha.

SneezinCD5

Thanks for the responses. Hopefully I can get somewhere with a flat rate

powerflow

When I quit the painting biz I was making $22.0 hourly w/overtime. I was planning to go to a flat rate shop eventually or go full time at a custom shop I worked at on the side. The shop I worked at had 4 painters when I started, 2 when I left, they wanted me to leave cause they couldn't afford 2 high paid painters anymore. I know a few painters at flat rate shops/dealers, those guys make good money. One of them use to average over 100K a year, but I know that shop slowed down. The industry is definitely past its peak, higher paying jobs are hard to find but they are out there. The day I put in my notice I had another job, in a different line of work. After being in the auto industry for 6+ years, it's feels great to work for a growing company, in a growing industry.

Disease

Yup the more and more I think about it the more I want out of the industry. I'm not a painter but a body tech. I do frame and everything else but paint. Pay is the same as described. You can find salary places wich are good when it dies like now. I have only one car on the rack a week now. It used to be 2 to 4 cars on the frame machine a week.

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I never started doing this work because I wanted to be rich. I enjoyed it but now it's just not enough with the raise in cost of everything. I bust my *** and I could get paid a ton more after a couple years working for UPS. No disrespect to anyone that works there but I just can't imagine how a delivery job gets you more money than a tech job. Stacking boxes sounds better and better every day.

DC2.2_GSR

man i couldn't agree more. i'm sick of the collision industry. i mentioned in a different thread that i wanted to move into a real paint shop, not a collision shop. i would love to have one car every week that i could take my time on instead of burning through 10+ fender/quarter jobs.

even since 3 years ago the industry really has slowed down like crazy. 2 of my coworkers and i were strung along for 3 1/2 weeks with no work in the shop for any of us to take time from and finally i quit to look for a more consistent paying job. there just isn't any work out there.

you can definitely make money doing collision if you're flat rate and good at your job, but it's too much work. if i get back into painting, it's going to be side work at first and eventually i may open my own shop, but i won't do collision.

mugencivic94

now i quess i feel a little better about the place im at, the great thing about it is i have a key to the shop so i can work as hard as i want and when i get all the typical jobs done we get classic cars to work on , like cars ive never seen before or heard of until this job , last week i got to spray a door and qt panel of a 1949 for coupe with 17,000 orginal miles and a 1965 corvette sting ray with 10,000 orginal miles, there is a collector that has over 500 cars and sends us about 2 a week that the cars are just amazing. i about got out of the industry and went back to school before i got this job , i get to work on amazing things and get to do great work and make more than i ever have, stick in there and get a job that pays flag time and you'll start to enjoy it agian, you just have to find the right place.

94_integra

I was working flat rate as the head painter at a dealership until I got layed off 2 weeks ago.. F@ckin' ******.. You get used to working against the clock.. I like it a lot better, not just because it pays well, but it teaches you to be more efficient in everyday things.