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Document every transaction, conversation, communication with this shop. Get the best possible pictures you can of the problem areas. File a complaint with the BBB in his area, even if he isn't a BBB member. If no movement on his part, you may need an attorney to convince him to do the right thing. It will get expensive if it goes beyond this point, attorney, expert witness, etc.
This shop is NOT a good shop. Don't let them hoodwink you. Be rational and calm, but be firm.
A very generalized overview of the paint application is surface prep/de-grease, primer/sealer, base color coat, clearcoat.
Primer is wet-sanded before color coat. No sanding on color coat. Wet-sanding on clearcoat followed by buffing with proper compounds to first smooth out the surface and then eliminate swirls. Note that the more the clearcoat is worked, the more of it is removed. A good shop knows how much they will remove to get to a final smooth protective layer.
Thanks for the info on that. It wouldn't surprise me at all if they were cutting corners on the work.
Originally Posted by KEY08
^ And they need to be laying this down in a paint booth. I can see from your video they are spraying in a garage. All kinds of debris floats around in that hack setup.
Yeah, they have some paint booths, and some garages where they paint apparently. I agree, definitely shouldn't be painting in a garage, and not with the ****ing doors open to let all the debris blow in.
Originally Posted by Sunnyslope48
Document every transaction, conversation, communication with this shop. Get the best possible pictures you can of the problem areas. File a complaint with the BBB in his area, even if he isn't a BBB member. If no movement on his part, you may need an attorney to convince him to do the right thing. It will get expensive if it goes beyond this point, attorney, expert witness, etc.
This shop is NOT a good shop. Don't let them hoodwink you. Be rational and calm, but be firm.
Hoodwink. I get it. I'm not sure if I want to go through the BBB, BAR, or just try to initiate a chargeback with my CC. Lastly I can handle it in small claims court too.
Everyone will like this... he actually had the gall to suggest I get the car detailed because it "helps to remove those swirls". Are you ****ing kidding me!?
I can say that at least around here (TX) the BBB is essentially toothless and has zero power over a business. From what you're saying I really don't think this shop is going to correct the hood properly.
If you are thinking to seek legal resolution, consider first taking the car to another shop to evaluate the condition and to give you an estimate to correct. This is before you deal further with the current shop. This gives you a professional perspective and info that a small claims court will acknowledge. Including your clear documentation of events and photos of conditions.
I've painted many vehicles and assorted trailers, jetskis, all kinds of stuff. I do not believe that the work can be corrected without a repaint. Famous last words " if it was me" I would notify the shop that I'm having the work repaired/documented at another shop and billing them through small claims. You have already tried twice for resolution. At that point the shop will sometimes agree to try again but if not be prepared to present your case. A professional shop is assumed to be able to do professional work.
2020 GLS450 / 2024 Ford Bronco / (former) W212 4-matic 350 sport package
That’s crap! What I’ve come to learn about these small businesses - social media rules over all other forms of retribution. I had a contractor screw up a simple patio door install so badly that I lit them up on Angie’s List. End of the day (well, by the end of the week), they wanted to buy my review of their services for $800.
I posted on Yelp (and on here too I believe) about a crappy MB dealership I caught lying to me about fixing two bent rims (and charging the warranty company for the work). I complained to MB Corp, and alerted the warranty company they had been ripped off. I got nothing from either. But I lit that dealership up on Yelp, which caused an apology by the GM and an offer for free whatever service I wanted to give them a second chance.
My opinion - I would insist on a full refund here, demand it. And when they complain about it - ask them which one they think will cost them more - the refund or that picture of your high end German sedan as an example of their quality of work floating around on every social media site there is... the shop manager might not care, but I bet the shop OWNER will certainly care! Find the owner, go to them only. Not the guy hired to run the shop day to day.
Here’s another. A certain nation chain tire store. 2017, thanksgiving, NC. Drove the family booger bucket (2013 Toyota Highlander) down from DC to family in NC. Wife’s car. Could be in fire and she’d probably say all was fine. It was a 225 mile vibrating and pulling road trip (totally out of balance and alignment). Clearly a Costco parking lot victim. Anyway, before making the trip back, I took it to a, let’s call them Mr. X, franchise chain. Rotate, balance, align. I watched football in the waiting room as I waited. Then I watched technician weedman pull out the car from the bay and take it on his quality check test drive. As the sales guy came out to tell me it’s all done, is when I saw the front passenger wheel go flying down the road at 45mph along with the fender and bumper. I responded “I’m not thinking you’re correct on that one amigo”. They tried to get their country bumpkin cousin (you know, the tv repair man with a *****en set of tools from Ridgemont High) to fix it. End of the day, an email directly to the CEO, CFO, COO and chairman of the board (they’re a publicly traded company) with one picture and the threat of it being floated all over social media - resulted in the booger bucket being loaded on a flatbed truck, driven 225 miles to the Toyota dealership near our home, fixed exclusively by Toyota, plus a check for $5,000 due diminished value. Bubba figured $500 and for me to pick it up next time we were there. Ended up closer to $12,000 and bubba working at Crispy Creme instead...
That’s crap! What I’ve come to learn about these small businesses - social media rules over all other forms of retribution. I had a contractor screw up a simple patio door install so badly that I lit them up on Angie’s List. End of the day (well, by the end of the week), they wanted to buy my review of their services for $800.
I posted on Yelp (and on here too I believe) about a crappy MB dealership I caught lying to me about fixing two bent rims (and charging the warranty company for the work). I complained to MB Corp, and alerted the warranty company they had been ripped off. I got nothing from either. But I lit that dealership up on Yelp, which caused an apology by the GM and an offer for free whatever service I wanted to give them a second chance.
Yup. I'll be lighting him up on Yelp and Google reviews for certain. I'm going to look into where else I can leave a review as well. I might even report them to the BAR just so they have something on record should another customer have an issue. He has the car right now (*cringe*) but I told him that he said he guarantees his work, and I would personally be ashamed to put out work like that. He said he'll repaint it... but we'll see.
And holy crap man, that's a hell of a story. Front wheel went flying off? Thank God you and the booger family weren't in there and on the highway when it happened.
2020 GLS450 / 2024 Ford Bronco / (former) W212 4-matic 350 sport package
Here are two photos of what happened! One is them trying to get it off the road after they found the wheel about 200 yards away in an RV dealership lot, and the other is what it looked like the night it was delivered to our Toyota dealership near our home back in DC. Could’ve killed someone easily, not just us but anyone who could’ve been hit by the wheel. Total mess. They wanted to take the cheap way out - threat of social media put them back on the right course of action. I can’t show the other pictures because of company name in them...
This was 25k miles ago. Car just rolled over 105k miles last week. Thing still drives like new. Can’t kill it, and with two little kids - easy cleanup with a leaf blower, 409, and Lysol spray.. Cockroaches will be driving Highlander’s long after we’ve nuked ourselves off the planet..
2019 Dune Silver Metallic E-450 Mercedes Cabriolet NEW Mercedes 2020 GLC300 graphite gray SUV
Look, forget wasting time with the BBB, etc. This is a perfect case to take to small claims court. That is what it's intention is meant to be. I would never, under any circumstances, take my car back to them again. Three strikes and your out. Go to small claims; with your photos and documentation from a legitimate paint place, you could recover your cost plus damages done to your car. Take that extra money, and go to another pro to paint it right.
Look, forget wasting time with the BBB, etc. This is a perfect case to take to small claims court. That is what it's intention is meant to be.
Yup, that's going to be my next step I think. The BAR and small claims. The downside is that small claims can take two months and I don't want to cruise around with that ****ty paint for two months. I'll have an update probably next week... we'll see how everything turns out.
Got the car back. I'm too burned out to write a whole review here,so I'll just copy/paste my Yelp review here:
Spoiler
This review is going to be lengthy. If you don't want to read it all then just take this as fair warning. If you come here your paint job is going to be sub par, and your car will potentially be returned with additional damage to it. And personally, I'm taking my experience to the Bureau of Automotive Repair.
Here we go. So, don't care about the quality of your paint job and just looking for a cheap fix? Great! Come here.
Want a professional paint job that you're proud to show off, done by professional people? Look elsewhere. Don't be fooled by all the cars they have posing in front of the shop. I can almost guarantee they didn't get painted here.
Art is quick to respond to messages and texts, and is very friendly up front. I was quoted three days and dropped my car off on Tuesday morning. I got my car back the following Tuesday (which is a week by anyone's count). At first inspection I noticed light swirl marks on the hood like it was drier with a dirty towel. Not a big deal, I'll get someone to buff it out later. The interior was nice and wiped down, there was a paper mat on the floor so it wouldn't get dirty, it smelled like strawberry air freshened inside... all nice touches. I drove home and as I was inspecting the car at home I noticed a lot of fisheye/bubbles in the paint job (see picture). One would've irritated me, but I would've accepted that. Several, across the whole hood? Completely unacceptable. Additionally there was a dig in the paint next to the hood ornament, like they took the tape off of the ornament while the paint was wet and gouged the paint. I decided to check to see if my dash cam caught anything that might give me a clue as to what happened, and low and behold I saw them painting a car in an open garage. (See picture.) Let's explore that. A dirty *** garage, with the doors open, and wet paint. Brilliant job guys. Also the dash cam captured them looking at the painted hood like "What is that?"
I took the car back to Art and showed him the paint gouge and the bubbles and his response was "all paint will have that", which is a blatant lie. I've been in accidents and had paint redone and never had such a poor paint job. Ever. I also got the opinions of some other people (prior to taking it back) and their responses all ranged from "make him repaint it" to "take him to small claims court" to "they're not prepping the hood correctly or using dirty equipment". From seeing them paint in a garage though I'm thinking it's the last one. I'm nothing if not fair though, so I allowed him the chance to correct it. Apparently their way of correcting the poor paint is to sand the hell out of the hood (see picture). Seriously! How the hell could anyone think that's acceptable, let alone people who run a body shop!
So I took the car back again and Art begrudgingly agreed to repaint the hood. Which they did, but now the paint job is even worse than the original paint. There are more bubbles but these actually look like someone got angry and jabbed a ballpoint pen into the hood. There are also small little dings that were painted over that weren't there before. Additionally, the car was returned filthy from sitting outside all weekend, had paint dust all over it (see picture), the back seat was dirty (NO idea how that would even happen) (see picture), it had a nice new ding in the passenger door (see picture), and it even had a chip in the freshly painted bumper (that THEY painted so how could it have been there before) (see picture).
And icing on the cake, when I took the car to get it washed to rinse off the filth from this place I realized that the license plate frame was loose because they actually lost one of the screws so they put it back on with just one screw. (They had to take the plate assembly off in order to repaint the bumper, so yes... they most certainly took it off, and then lost a screw.)
When I picked up the car this last time time Art didn't even have the ***** to come view the car with me because he knew the condition it was in. As mentioned above, I'm taking this to the CA BAR.
So, as the review mentions, the car was returned sans a screw for the front license plate frame. Anyone happen to know what screw I can pick up to replace it? Driving around with a crooked, custom plate makes me feel like a goddamn moron.
Just drive to Home Depot, take the other screw out, and take it in the store. You should be able to get the exact size there if you match it up.
And sorry about all the trouble with this paint job.
True, I just don't keep a screwdriver in my car and I was planning to go after work. I guess I could just turn it into a two day endeavor. Or go there, buy a screwdriver, take the other one out, buy the new screw, screw them both back in, and return the screwdriver. Hahaha. I'll take care of it, was just hoping someone would know.
06-10-2019, 01:15 PM
