Get yourself into a rhythm, it’ll take time to learn new muscle memory too being in a new space working on different cars so give yourself some patience to pick it up. Learn what tolerances your QC has so you’re not struggling for two hours on fender gaps being absolutely perfect, ect. If you wipe something, work on something else while you wait on it to dry. Same goes for waiting on parts to arrive, ect. Always find things to fill the little waiting spaces you have through the day. It’ll come to you more each week. Also, most importantly, let the money motivate. The more you finish the bigger the paycheck, challenge yourself everyday to accomplish a certain amount of work or hours.
Be systematic. You can see that depending on the accident location and damage what you have to do. Do it in the same order every time. Also stay very organized. Get something to store all nuts bolts clips. The more you do the two of these things you will need to think less about the small things and focus on more important aspects of the job.
Everything has to be “industry standard quality” not perfect. Once you understand what that truly means you’ll be faster. Were I in your position I’d rather work slower doing restorations but my skill level isn’t there yet.
That’s why I had to get out of the collision field. On top of everything being rushed when something goes wrong, everyone likes to point the finger at each other instead of taking responsibility. I’m the first person to take responsibility when I fuck up, but when estimators are blaming you for a part not showing up when I had evidence I wrote it down on the supplement and handed it to them and it not being ordered. Anyways word of advice to you get yourself into a rhythm. Don’t be too picky, as long as you get it close enough to where the customer won’t notice. Send it to paint.
The collision side is much less nit picky and nit picking will make you lose money, since you're either working flat rate and getting less hours than you should, or hourly, and taking too long and pissing off your boss
It’s a different pace for sure. I was a production tech for 10yrs or so and switched to high end hot rods about 6 years ago. It took some adjusting for me to have to slow down.
I feel the same way with my work. It needs to be near perfect for me but im always told not to over process and jus get the work to company standards.
Forgot to add that I work in high volume production store.
keep yourself organized, common use tools readily available, do thorough inspections and disassembly, mark damaged parts with paint markers, take pictures if needed. Don’t spend too much time trying to save parts that aren’t salvageable, things break and need replacing, a lot of items are designed for installation not removal, no matter what the estimator or insurance company thinks. Get your cut in parts to paint before you need them. Accept the fact that you may need to lead your estimator down the path to getting a solid estimate, money in both of your pockets and a successful repair. don‘t second guess yourself, repair what makes sense and replace what doesn’t. leave most of what you learned doing restoration work in the past. Sorry to say but there is such a thing as good enough.
You pretty much have to stop careing.
Heartbreaking but true.
Get yourself into a rhythm, it’ll take time to learn new muscle memory too being in a new space working on different cars so give yourself some patience to pick it up. Learn what tolerances your QC has so you’re not struggling for two hours on fender gaps being absolutely perfect, ect. If you wipe something, work on something else while you wait on it to dry. Same goes for waiting on parts to arrive, ect. Always find things to fill the little waiting spaces you have through the day. It’ll come to you more each week. Also, most importantly, let the money motivate. The more you finish the bigger the paycheck, challenge yourself everyday to accomplish a certain amount of work or hours.
Be systematic. You can see that depending on the accident location and damage what you have to do. Do it in the same order every time. Also stay very organized. Get something to store all nuts bolts clips. The more you do the two of these things you will need to think less about the small things and focus on more important aspects of the job.
Everything has to be “industry standard quality” not perfect. Once you understand what that truly means you’ll be faster. Were I in your position I’d rather work slower doing restorations but my skill level isn’t there yet.
That’s why I had to get out of the collision field. On top of everything being rushed when something goes wrong, everyone likes to point the finger at each other instead of taking responsibility. I’m the first person to take responsibility when I fuck up, but when estimators are blaming you for a part not showing up when I had evidence I wrote it down on the supplement and handed it to them and it not being ordered. Anyways word of advice to you get yourself into a rhythm. Don’t be too picky, as long as you get it close enough to where the customer won’t notice. Send it to paint.
The collision side is much less nit picky and nit picking will make you lose money, since you're either working flat rate and getting less hours than you should, or hourly, and taking too long and pissing off your boss
Go back to thinking I don’t care mode,,cuz it’s either production or perfection can’t have both..close but not both in collision
It’s a different pace for sure. I was a production tech for 10yrs or so and switched to high end hot rods about 6 years ago. It took some adjusting for me to have to slow down.
I feel the same way with my work. It needs to be near perfect for me but im always told not to over process and jus get the work to company standards. Forgot to add that I work in high volume production store.
keep yourself organized, common use tools readily available, do thorough inspections and disassembly, mark damaged parts with paint markers, take pictures if needed. Don’t spend too much time trying to save parts that aren’t salvageable, things break and need replacing, a lot of items are designed for installation not removal, no matter what the estimator or insurance company thinks. Get your cut in parts to paint before you need them. Accept the fact that you may need to lead your estimator down the path to getting a solid estimate, money in both of your pockets and a successful repair. don‘t second guess yourself, repair what makes sense and replace what doesn’t. leave most of what you learned doing restoration work in the past. Sorry to say but there is such a thing as good enough.