Best place to replace floor pans/body work in Northern NJ?

Looking for the best place to replace floorpans/body work in Northern NJ. Please leave their number and address.

[dtw]

If you are willing to travel a bit, I would respectfully suggest Klasse 356 of Allentown PA (not too far from you depending on where in Jersey you're from). Don't know if they do 911 work very often but their 356 work is meticulous.

-d

[jbripps]

Hi there,

If you are looking for the BEST in the area (not to mention the East Coast), I'm pretty sure that there is none better than Paterek Brothers in Northern/Central Jersey. I'm not sure of the contact information, but I'm sure someone can chime in. Also, you will find their info. on the PCA website, as they are the "body work" chairs.

best of luck,

[BER]

Paterak Brothers (John and Ray) is in Chatham, NJ (near Short Hills). Their number is 973-635-5924.

Bruce

Oh, I'm not a PCA member, I think most of their website is restricted to members only. Allentown is a bit far, I don't know if my car will make it. Maybe 2hrs away, I'm in Passaic county.

Edit: whoops I posted right after you, thanks BER

[mccan]

* Unicar, Sparta, (973) 579-3903. Have taken a couple of MBz to them. Impeccable work.

I went to macoo because my sister is getting her spoiler done by them and asked just to get an idea. They said 1400 for labor for the whole interior floor pan. That's after sealing and everything. I don't know why all the bad talk about macoo my mom had her car painted by them (paint sanded down ofcourse) and it came out realy well. I'll check what the place you left for me wants, and if that's realy high I guess I'll ask my uncle to help me out. He offered his help to me before. I was just thinking macoo would be good because they are huge known all across america, shouldn't they have a guarentee or soetthing?

[dtw]

Assuming $70/hr labor, that's 20 hours to do the pans. That's pretty high in my opinion.

Be careful assuming that Maaco is good because they have a widely known name. They are nothing more than a franchise. The quality of the shop still depends on the owner/operator and the technicians he employs. There is a huge difference between shooting spoilers and performing major rust repairs. I've found Maaco to be useful for minor repairs and straightforward painting that doesn't require serious quality.

Slow down and do some research on these other shops.

OK, I just read back through some of your other posts. It sounds like your car needs a lot more than just a floorpan replacement. It has snowball syndrome; each project is going to lead to another till your credit card balance looks like the national debt of a 3rd world country. Given that you are 17 (give or take?) but don't sound spoiled rotten, you likely don't have enough cash to go out and do what it takes to restore the car. Advice from me (and it is worth what you paid for it):

2 options
-Sell it RIGHT NOW and try to break even.
-Keep it, fix it up with some patching and POR15 to the point where it is safe to drive and the rust is stopped. Drive it now and through college and enjoy it. Study hard, get a good job, and start a major restoration if you are still in love with the car at that point.

[jbripps]

911T,

I see that you are a bit young, and you probably don't want to blow a lot of moola on a shotty job. I'm not sure if Maaco will be able to perform the job you want (is that who you were referring to?), but I'm not knocking them. I would think that you would want to go to a shop that specializes in your classic car and knows the exact issues and spots that need to be addressed.

As far a cost, I can tell you that Paterak may be more reasonable than some think, you just have to be patient as appointments can take a while there. Additionally, I would encourage you to look at a few other shops and see what their estimates are. It's better to pay someone to do the work right, rather than spend more money trying to do it yourself 3 different times (unless you are that good at it)

Best of luck,

I bought the car with money I saved us since I was little. Yea, that includes money I got on my first communion. I never spent the money when I was a kid on a bike or anything like that, I just put it in the bank. I don't know how, but I have enough money now to take care of the rust problem, and thats a year after I spent everything on this car. I guess it was from my past birthday, and little things I do around my dads building. Maaco is out, they wanted 1400, they didn't see the car but I told them the whole interior. They said it would take three days for a job like that. The reason maaco is out, is because I went to a Porsche/VW private store around here, and they refered me to "Classic car restoration" or something like that in Rutherford. The guy has a lot of motorcycles or does work on them. My dad went there yesterday while I went to maaco and my father said they quoted him 1000 dollars if I supply parts, but they must see the car. The car isn't realy that bad, there are two small holes in the front, and they are not rotted I just don't want to do a "patch up" job. The back right is the only bad area. Sunday I took out the rear seat cusions and sanded down the floorboard no one here knows what it's called. It wasn't rotted, and looks like it's in great condtion. I though the thing inside the vinyll was some spongy thing, but it turns out to be some cloth cushion. I was thinking of selling it, but you all preaty much killed me when I posted the thread. I like this car alot, mechanicaly it works great, the only thing that worries me is in some time something might mechanically will go wrong, and I don't know what, or how long, all I know is this car is 34 years old.

oh yea, I'm getting a real job at best buy in a few days because my dad finished his building.