how long should all this take???????

Tell the customer 2 days at least. Don't put yourself under pressure and leave plenty of room for Murphy's Law. If the customer says, "So-n-so said they could do it in one day", well, they wouldn't be at your shop right now if that was the case. Tell them you won't rush the job because that would cut down on the quality of your work. And bid the job 25% higher. People aren't afraid of paying a little bit more for quality. Under bidding your jobs disrespects your abilities and will inevitably piss you off when a job goes into overtime, and trust me, it WILL happen.

At one shop I used to work, I had the infamous title of "grandpa" because I took a little longer time on my installs (we all worked on commission). But, it always paid off because my return rate was the lowest, and customer satisfaction the highest. Sure, an installer can bang out jobs, no matter how good he is, but they will spend as much time finding and fixing problems that creep up later........and there isn't any money in fixing your F'Up's.

(Hey Rodney, if you're out there, I am especially talking about you. - This guy had this art of banging out jobs down pat. He would expecially do this if he had the following day off. Then when the customer's car had problems and brought it back the following day, one of us other installers would have to find it and fix it, and there was no money in it. This happened every week! Oh, and Rodney, by the way, how's your kid's hearing doing? Do you still crank the sound up with your baby in the back seat?)

Hey Mobiletoys,

This should take about 16 - 20 hours of straight work + about 3 hours of rest. Basically what webguy says, two full work days for a job like this for only one person. If it takes you longer, make sure the customer knows that you are a 1 person operation and things happen, so expect delays. Make sure they understand that the two day time frame is only an ESTIMATED time, otherwise the customer will hold you to it and that's when you have to start working for free.