Painting Panels

[Glassman]

When painting a panel, my understanding is that any removable items such as glass, lamps, trims and clips should - ideally - be removed?

[paintman]

Ideally yes.
But often not done - even with easily removed items where it would be quicker to take them off rather than mask & would save extra work after painting!(Badges are one item that spring to mind & I've seen a couple where a clipped in front wing indicator repeater was masked rather than being just popped out)

[Glassman]

Looking at a lot of cars in for body repairs, there is so much of this going on. At first I thought it was the repairer blagging the repair. But a lot of estimates are costed so economically, there is no allowance for removing these parts, especially glass.

A repaired tailgate will be X hours for the repair/paint, but the estimate (determined by the work provider or system) does not include the removal of glass.