How Much !!!!!

Seems cheap to me considering what main dealer garage labour rates are, pushing £200Ph some places. So. Err, lets get some retro or interesting cars in here then. What were the seats for?

£50 an hour is a decent rate for skilled labour.

I guess the bigger question is how many hours they’ve estimated it will take!

My A35van,

D'ya know what, I'd never noticed the 'sports car' panel pressing on these vans properly until now. That really is something you can so easily miss on these pretty little vans.

Aye but they aren't here. Without content, iss not a very good thread

Even with the smooth doors, it's still very prevalent.

I remember going to an upholsterer with a mate to get a quote for a Peugeot 405 Pickup seat to be re covered ( well it was some time ago). The itemised quote came back,for fabric, foam, clips odds and ends and labour. The final quote was more expensive by far than a new seat from the main dealer. (pre internet days) fair play though they were excellent upholsterers and more used to recovering expensive/ valuable antiques, and high end soft furnishings, than car interiors he just wanted a tidy seat so he could sell on the truck,. No wonder that a truck with a good interior would be way way more expensive than one with a well worn interior.

Got quoted a grand to recover two front seats and a rear bench for a mk2 golf 6 years ago. That was labour and materials.

Thing is, can you do it cheaper yourself to the same standard? I couldn't.

You're not just paying for an hours labour, you're paying for the years of experience that person has. Respect the expert and their craft.

Sometimes we just have to accept good work costs coin.

Minimum wage for someone 25+ is £8.72 per hour at the time of writing. That's the wage you pay someone that isn't a specialist, and is 'unskilled', it's the bare minimum. I'd expect a skilled craftsperson to be charge at least twice that; £17.44 ph. On top of that there's the cost of materials, and upholstery materials of good quality are not cheap, insurance, rates on the property they work in, wear and tear on tools, and so on. They'll not just be charging for the time to throw a cover on either, they'll have to strip down the seat, figure out how to correct any damage to the seat and any deformation of the original covers, then draft up new patterns for the new covers, test fit the covers, replace any worn or missing padding and structure, fit the new covers possibly more than once to ensure the best fit with any minor adjustments required and so on. There's also the time spend working with you, the customer, to figure out what standard of work you want, what materials, what colours. There's experience to be spent in managing customer expectations and, on top of all this, customer satisfaction once the job is completed.

£50 ph these days is hardly anything and making money from any sort of specialist endeavour is very difficult, margins are often incredibly slim, and squeezed slimmer by customers wanting high standards and low prices.

If the price is too high, get quotes from other upholsterers. If none of the quotes are satisfactory then it's time to learn a new skill within the budget you've set out for the job. You'll either find a new hobby, or a new appreciation of just what you're paying for and why it's so much.