Need VSC's Input: What is this worth?

Ok so very very long story short: I went to nissan dealer, general sales manager saw my interior,  he's a really cool guy, we bullshit and I end up asking if I could preload some custom interiors on his cars. He says "hell yeah!" he's got a shitload of base model altima's that are all the same and need some "motivation" to sell. What I am going to do is pimp them out then throw all the mods on a window sticker and keep building cars with the hopes that eventually I will be able to build [b]MY[/b] car one of these days.

The thing is i'm having a really difficult time deciding what to charge. I want it to be a single number for all the mods but i'll probably break down the numbers on the sheet.

Each car would have:

*Diamond stitched seat inserts and door inserts.
*A wood or aluminum trim added to gauge cluster/AC vents/Shifter surround/ect..
*Super white LED conversion for the entire interior (dome lights, 4 door lights, 2 map lights)
*Blue or smoked headlight film/tint
*Smoked or red tail light film/tint
*Custom painted grill or custom mesh grill with floating emblem

What do you guys think I can charge the dealers? and what do you think the dealers can charge the customer?

These are like... $12,000-$15,000 cars, they are all 07's and 08's. So finaicing/paying a extra $1,250 for something super dope is only add's %8-%10 to the total cost of the car. Not to mention you go from bland to boop so thats gotta be worth something.

I was thinking I charge the dealership $750 a car and they charge the customer $1,250? I think that is a steal for that price. You could barely get the seats done for that price. The thing is I understand the costumer wants value and what not, but for real $1,250 at some dealerships gets you like... a special "anti-rust coating" and some floormats or some bullshit like that.

What do you guys think? Too cheap? Too expensive? Just right?

- Grundel

charge 40% over your cost

My cost is really low cause its all labor.

When I did it I charged cost of parts, labor, and times that by atleast 300% depending on the difficulty of work and install. 
more if you have too.
you also have to remember that when you go to him with your bill that he will try to talk you down so thats why you go with 300% and you hopefully end up with atleast 200%. then he will feel like he got a discount from you. 

It's all sales!!

Good luck and congrats!

times have changed, 8% more is still a lot now-a-days.  Price point is VERY sensitive right now.  I don't have a # for you, but just be very conscious of the final cost that is passed on to the customer.

[QUOTE=burgy;248198]times have changed, 8% more is still a lot now-a-days.  Price point is VERY sensitive right now.  I don't have a # for you, but just be very conscious of the final cost that is passed on to the customer.[/QUOTE]
yea, nowadays people buying econo-cars probably wont be paying an extra grand for luxury items such as the diamond stitching. it would work better on like 25+ grand cars. 
for the cheaper cars the head/fog/tail tint is a good idea if you use protective film so u can market it better and so is the led conversion.  that would be easy for you and would be very cheap and useful/practical to the customer. 
the other items such as wood trim and the grill probably wont help sales that much, unless the price is really cheap. theres too much ebay crap floating around cheapening peoples tastes.
but hey i hope it works out for you, that could be good business.

Thanks everybody for the input! I think I got it down to door and seat inserts in whichever material is the most appropriate for the job, and build different cars for different types of people so we cover all our bases. We can do 3-4 of them right now according to the GSM. The one thing he said was that they tail light film he wants on all of them and on top of that he said if I can make woven mesh custom grills (and I can) people "ask for that shit all the time" in his words.

I'm going to start taking pictures and post up a blog of all the interior's I do. It'd be fun to watch my style evolve and be able to vent some of the creativity I have.

set what your cost per hour will be...
 
example: a body man may get $78/hr....frame straightening will be $88/hr...auto mechanic may by $95/hr...
 
determine what you will do to these cars and estimate the number of hours it will take you...
 
install guage- 1.2 hrs or install all LED's- 2.1 hrs
 
don't exaggerate but don't cheat yourself either...
 
then all parts 20%- 25% over your cost...
 
and i would stay away from modding anything that could cause legal problems like tinting headlights or tailights...

^ Thats a good idea. I was considering a breakdown in case the dealer wanted to see it. I agree with the no illegal stuff. The only headlight tinting would be blue or yellow and the tail lights would only get red, no smoked/black.

I don't know what to charge for an hourly rate. I'll have to think about that one.

keep us posted on your work too.  I  am interested to see this.  Also interested to see what type of grills you do.

The blue/smoked tint is illegal and the dealer cannot sell that, so nix it on the headlights/taillights.

i think you should just stick to the upholstery and bolt ons. custom work can be kinda unrefined, anything that cannot be done with oem fit/finish i would leave alone.
 
*Diamond stitched seat inserts and door inserts. - go for it
*A wood or aluminum trim added to gauge cluster/AC vents/Shifter surround/ect.. - for this i would 3rd party a water transfer printer. oem look > stick on.
*Super white LED conversion for the entire interior (dome lights, 4 door lights, 2 map lights) - i don't think i would touch this. first of all it's part of the electrical system. second, what's the buyer going to do when something burns out? if you're talking custom then they're s.o.l., if talking drop in then they have to figure out what you used and match it.
*Blue or smoked headlight film/tint - illegal
*Smoked or red tail light film/tint - illegal
*Custom painted grill or custom mesh grill with floating emblem - no problems here although i would sell custom finished manuctured pieces rather than build custom ones from scratch. 
 
sounds like a nice oppurtunity. what i would also push for is exterior mods like wheels, trim, etc. messing with dealers there's definitely money to be made.

Yes the headlight tints are illegal which is unfortunate cause the GSM I am working with is like "lets do _____ and add some _____ and some ________" and I keep saying "I don't think I can do that legally..." i'll probably just clearbra the headlights and call it a day.

BLKonBLK98, The LED's in the interior is a good point. For the trim I am going to wait on the trim till I get a water transfer machine. I was going to throw extra LED's in the glovebox but then they would need to know how to replace them and it would just get complicated.

[QUOTE=BLKonBLK98;249534]...custom work can be kinda unrefined...[/QUOTE]

I agree completely. I learned a lot of this stuff from a pro who makes his living doing highend OEM looking installs so from the start of my experimenting with custom fabrication I had that guidance.

The grills are nice because the quality of the mesh (and my craftsmanship skills) is excellent and since it's custom I can get a few hundred bucks without having to drop a ton of cash on aftermarket parts. Plus its not a huge time investment.

I wish I could be preloading wheels but I don't have the cash for it (yet) I need to think harder and come up with some extra bolt on stuff. I preloaded wheels 3 years ago at the cadillac dealership but they kept holding the invoices for 60 days and it tied up all my cash and screwed me over.

I finally found somebody locally who can help me take apart cars while I sew the seats. We are going to blaze down the dealerships next week (trying to 10 cars) so hopefully I will have a ton of pics next week.

So far lined up I have a HHR with Tan interior and brown inserts, black altima with red inserts, and a blue (exterior) Malibu with tan interior with blue inserts.

I have a ford I am working on right now I am going to ask the owner if I can post pictures of. It's a steel body (no fiberglass) 33' ford convertible. Mirror black paint with a red interior. He's going to be doing the national circuit so I don't know if I can post pics of it before hand or not but if I can I will cause it is absolutely gorgeous.

Thanks for all the input! I will post pics as I get work.

- Grundel