Reconditioning cost estimates: dents, paint, tires and rust, and how to price them into an offer

Key takeaways

• Build a rate card with your PDR tech, body shop, tire supplier and detailer, and use it on every appraisal.
• Paintless dent repair works only when the paint is intact and the metal isn’t creased or stretched.
• Price tires on tread depth and age, and replace in pairs or sets.
• Price rust by severity and location. Structural rust is a buy decision, not a recon line.
• Recon comes off the price before gross. Never absorb it from your margin.

Why should recon be estimated item by item?

A lump-sum recon guess hides the misses. When every item has its own line and cost, three things get better: appraisers stop forgetting the same items, two appraisers looking at the same car land on the same total, and you can explain the number to a customer. It also lets you compare estimates with actual invoices each month and tighten the rates that are off.

The foundation is a rate card: what your PDR tech, body shop, tire supplier, glass shop, detailer and service department actually charge you. Every number in an appraisal should trace back to it.

How do you estimate dent repair?

Start with one question: is it PDR-eligible? Paintless dent repair massages the metal back from behind, so it only works when the paint is unbroken and the dent isn’t sharp, creased or stretched. Cracked paint, a deep crease or a dent on a panel edge usually means conventional body and paint.

For PDR, price by size and adjust for what makes the job harder:

• Size. Dent techs often price by coin size: dime, nickel, quarter, half-dollar and larger.
• Additional dents on the same panel usually cost less each than the first.
• Body lines. A dent on a crease or styling line takes more time; many techs add a percentage.
• Aluminum panels are harder to work than steel. Aluminum hoods and liftgates are common, and some pickups, including Ford’s F-150 since the 2015 model year, have aluminum bodies.
• Access. Removing a headliner, trim or tail light to reach the back of a dent adds labour.

For example, with a rate card that says a quarter-size dent is $125, each additional dent on the panel $60 and a 25% body-line surcharge, two quarter-size dents on a door, the first of them on the body line, come to $125 + $60 + about $31 for the body line, or roughly $215. Hail damage follows the same logic per panel; for heavy hail, get the PDR tech’s count before you commit.

How do you estimate paint repair?

Paint damage comes in three depths, and each has a different fix:

Depth	How to tell	Usual repair
Clear coat	Fine scratch, disappears when wet, a fingernail doesn’t catch	Buff and polish
Into the paint	Colour visible in the scratch, fingernail catches	Touch-up or spot repair
Down to metal	Bare metal or primer showing, rust may start	Panel refinish

Panel refinishes often need the neighbouring panels blended so the colour matches, which makes a “one panel” job bigger than it looks. Tri-coat and pearl colours cost more to match. Stone chips across the hood and front bumper are routine on Alberta cars; decide whether you retail them as normal wear or touch them up, and be consistent.

How do you price tires?

• Tread depth. Measure each tire in millimetres at the inside, centre and outside. Many dealers set a retail standard well above the legal minimum and replace anything below it.
• Uneven wear points to alignment, worn suspension parts or incorrect pressure; add an alignment and look for the cause.
• Age. Read the DOT date code: the last four digits are the week and year it was made. Rubber hardens with age, and tire and vehicle makers generally recommend replacing tires somewhere between six and ten years old regardless of tread.
• Pairs and sets. Replace at least in pairs on an axle. Many all-wheel-drive systems need all four tires closely matched in tread depth, so one damaged tire can mean four.
• Winter tires. A set on rims coming with the trade is a nice extra, but decide whether you include them in the retail sale or keep them, and don’t pay for them twice.

How do you estimate rust repair?

Grade rust by severity first, then by location:

• Surface rust: an orange film on otherwise solid metal. Clean, treat and coat; usually a small line.
• Scale: flaking and pitting where metal is being lost. Wire-wheel, treat and sometimes replace parts.
• Perforation: holes, crumbling metal, or metal that goes soft when probed. Cut and weld, or replace the part.

Location decides whether it is cosmetic or structural. A rusty hood edge is cosmetic. Rot in frame rails, subframe or suspension mounts, or the structural part of a rocker can make a car unsafe and very hard to retail, which makes it a buy-or-pass decision rather than a recon line. Price corroded brake and fuel lines as mechanical work, and see the road-salt damage guide for where to look.

What other recon items get missed?

• Glass. A chip can often be repaired; a crack usually means a windshield. On many newer vehicles, replacing the windshield also means recalibrating the driver-assist camera.
• Keys and fobs. A second programmed key is a real cost and buyers expect two.
• Odour. Smoke and pet odour need more than a standard detail.
• Warning lights the scan can’t read. Generic OBD-II doesn’t read ABS or airbag codes; a lit ABS or airbag light needs a manufacturer-level scan and a contingency.
• Maintenance due. Oil, filters, fluids and wiper blades add up across a lot full of cars.
• Inspection items. Whatever your province’s safety or mechanical fitness inspection will require before retail.

How do you price recon into your offer?

1. Take recon off before gross. Max buy = expected retail − recon − pack − holding − gross. If recon is absorbed from gross after the fact, the car never earns what you planned. See how to calculate your max buy.
2. Use one cost basis. Price at what recon costs your store, including internal shop labour at your internal rate, and do it the same way on every car.
3. Add contingency where risk is real. High km, codes cleared recently, a car you couldn’t drive: add a labelled contingency line rather than padding everything.
4. Separate the unconfirmed. A transmission or hybrid code may need diagnosis before anyone knows the cost. Show it as a potential cost and decide deliberately whether to count it.
5. Show it to the customer. An itemized recon list with photos is the strongest support for your offer; the offer presentation guide explains how.

How does Appraise estimate recon?

In Appraise, each photo inspection finding you accept is priced from your own rate tables: a PDR matrix by dent size with additional-dent, body-line, aluminum and access adjustments, and paint rates for buff, touch-up and refinish. Scan codes are priced from book labour hours at your labour rate. Manual presets cover windshields, detail, tires, brakes, keys and safety items. The AI never sets a price, and everything rolls into one recon total that feeds the max buy.

Key facts

• Paintless dent repair needs unbroken paint and metal that isn’t creased or stretched.
• Paint damage has three depths: clear coat (buff), into the paint (touch-up), down to metal (refinish).
• A tire’s DOT date code ends in four digits: week then year of manufacture.
• Ford’s F-150 has used an aluminum body since the 2015 model year, which affects dent repair cost.
• Replacing a windshield on many newer vehicles requires recalibrating the driver-assist camera.
• Recon comes off expected retail before target gross, not out of it.

Frequently asked questions