04 Tundra Paint Job

I definitely do it when bidding jobs (low voltage/wireless technology & security buildout). But I don't take it all in profit, I either drop costs or add in extra services (value-adds) to fill the void for my customer. It's easier to explain to a potential/current customer things are coming in lower than quoted than to keep going back to them saying, "oh, we had to add this ... had to add that ..." Any money I'm not making usually ends up being free advertising, word-of-mouth has paid in dividends, and customers you do right by are more apt to call when small issues come up, knowing you're going to take care of them. And it doesn't take a lot to make an impact.

Dealing with similar on labor w/one of my customers now. He has two maintenance guys at his facility who are capable enough to do the basic stuff, demolition, hanging backboards, running cable. He's basically cut about 30-40% off his expected bill because I'm cool with his guys knocking out non-technical work. I'm teaching them best practices in the meantime, which'll benefit the younger guy, potentially give him experience he needs to shift into another industry. They don't do the work exactly how I'd do it, but it's helped my customer turn what was originally an $8k job into what will likely be a ~$5k job. And that bothers me zero, I'm totally cool with saving customers money as long as it doesn't create more work for me. I hate being up in ceilings pulling cable, breathing in who the hell knows what, and doing things like hanging equipment backboards solo can be tedious. I'd rather get paid ~$70/hr on the technology buildout side, and I'm nearly certain he'll pay his guys half that, in total, they'll likely get it done quicker too.

 

Anymore, just coming in on budget is a major accomplishment.

 

I'd add to that. Just coming in on budget and getting reasonably passable, non-halfass work is a major accomplishment.

And I say that on the backside of an absolute shit experience with Construction Resources, which recently was acquired by Home Depot.

I hollered at my flooring person at Construction Resources about a month ago, seeing if I could use a business account to get a discount on metal insulated garage doors to replace our existing pair of 9x7 wood doors. "Yeah, no problem! Send me some pics, I'll give you a quote on open-back insulated and fully-enclosed insulated doors." I'm just too tied up, I can't handle the work, and install was like $100 a door after business discounts on buying the doors through them.

I give them the install date range we're available, and specifically tell them, "can't do install on or after 2/18", no problem they say. They ping me on 2/16, tell them, "we'll be there 2/18 to install".

After clearing that up, and setting it up for install 8-10 days later, the installer comes. Had to speak Spanish with him because his English was worse than my Spanish, but no problem I'm good with that, and we work through it. 2hr install turned into a 5½hr install, and when it gets done, he tells me the door on my side of the garage was "muy dificil", but doesn't explain why.

Next day, some random dude pops up to replace the operators - the part mounted to the back of the door that gets pulled on by the motor - with correct hardware. Huh. Ok. Didn't notice he re-used the hardware, everything else was new. Well, "at least I'm getting the proper operators", I guess. Later, my wife opens the door to back out, and bolt falls out of the operator and onto her car. The 1st installer apparently used the wrong bolt size when retrofitting my old operators onto the new door. These thin-skin doors have specific inserts in the door to hold the hardware, and the factory hole is completely wallered out, so the operator technically isn't bolted to the door, and the crossbrace across the top of the door has to be bowed down to use the bottom mounting hole.

Kinda pissed about this, but the real kicker ... I pull out of the garage and I notice the door on my Tundra's side of the garage isn't square/level, which is apparently b/c the new door is 3/8" thicker so he had to mount one of the vertical tracks 1" higher up on the lip of the foundation. Additionally, the drag from the door being crooked it causing a hell of a chatter with the gears inside my opener which totally wasn't there before. And I can't get it to stop, it's not a chain tension thing. Sadly, I'd already paid the 2nd half of the deposit after the guy installed the operators, before the bolt fell on my car, and before I noticed the one door is jankety/crooked.

I call up and complain. So they send a tech out. Same guy who installed the correct operators, but failed to realize the previous installer totally blew out the holes, i.e. the guy who is the reason my wife's Highlander roof took a falling bolt. He bows down the horizontal brace for the door, drills a new hole into the operator, and this is apparently "fixed", forget the fact the other guy blew out the threads in the stock door skin, and drilled other holes into the top panels to repurpose my old operators temporarily. Then, he spends about an hour trying to get the other door straight, says it's not possible to get it straight without using low-headroom track on one side... says he'll talk to the boss about getting it done. He shows me it opens and closes. Then he takes off. I notice there's drywall on my floor. I close and open the door again. The fucking door on my truck's side of the garage is smacking the ceiling every time it opens and closes.

Ping my sales guy to ask what the fuck is going on. Send him pics, tell him, "This is messed up". He calls me and says he knows the problem, apologies, he'll get them to come out and fix everything.

I hear nothing for 3 days. Ping sales guy again, "Dude..." and finally, I get a text (not a call) from the sales manager, "I'll have someone out in two days". Doesn't say what they're going to do, so I ask, "They going to fix the extra holes in my top panels from the installer's failure to have correct hardware, and get the one door square in the hole, right?" He confirms. So next tech comes out. I show him everything, tell him what sales guy said about the problem (sales guy is a former installer, knows his stuff), says they need to notch one of the rails so they can drop it about 1" and shore up the door. New install guy didn't come with new rails, but spends about 90 minutes before knocking to say there's no way to get the door straight, they need low-headroom track on the one side so they can raise the vertical on one side to match the other side. But at least he's stopped it from damaging the door and ceiling going up and down.

Dude tells me he's telling them back at the shop to order the low-profile rail so someone can install, so a 5th trip. I also tell him I want them to replace the top panel of each door, because one has been smacking into my ceiling and damaged the corner bead, and both doors have had custom holes drilled into them that I'm not paying for. He says "I'll make notes". It's been 4 days since. I haven't heard from them yet.

Long story short, if they only come out and install the horizontals but don't replace the top panel of the door, I'm calling Amex to reverse the 2nd charge covering the balance, and they can have it back when they come out and give me totally new doors. I should make them fix the ceiling also, but with how poorly they install garage doors, I'll just do the work myself.

This is the quality of work I've come to expect in the last several years. Ever since Covid hit, it's friggin impossible to get any sense of quality work. I try not to be that guy with my stuff because I'm so sick of experiencing it with any and every thing where I've hired someone else to do the work recently. It's absurd.

Long story shor: NEVER use Construction Resources for your garage doors.

 

Word

 

Honestly I would save your money and make some other modifications that you would like to add. The truck looks great already and is very clean. As many others have already said, paint it and then something will happen to it. It's Murphy's Law. It looks like you take good care of it, along with many miles it has.

 

Jeez @shifty` I feel like you just trolled this thread. What the hell does this have to do with a repaint? Haha.
I clicked on page 2, and just wow. @KNABORES way to trigger it. Haha