Cylinder Head

iTrader: (1)

Man this is absolutely scary. I've actually caught my body shop guy joyriding my Supra around about a year ago, I live maybe a quarter mile away from him and he made the mistake of blasting it down the main road by my house. Now this is a car that registers at over 110db at full chat, louder than most Harley's and very unique. I heard him, from my bedroom, while vacuuming.

I showed up at the shop BEFORE HE GOT BACK and let him have it.

Moral of the story is you can never been too careful about these freaks. Always document the mileage before you drop the car off for work and take pictures of what the car looks like inside and out.

If I were you I'd call the insurance company, the partner company AutoBahn, and anybody else who will listen.

CWW

+1 on the mileage notation.

I just had to take one of my cars in because of a dumb$%#& move on my part...

I tried to use a tap and die to re-thread those grommets that hold the license plate on since mine were stripped and my plate kept falling off. Well, I didn't notice that they're aluminum, and one of them ended up melting and fusing to the drill bit, which then bucked and actually pulled the whole thing out of the back of the car, leaving a gaping hole and bent metal.

After kicking myself for not just buying 4 new ones at $2 each and having someone put them on, I had to go to the body shop and I did what I usually do: Wrote the exact mileage on the front of the estimate and made the guy write the date and his initials next to it. They will give you some attitude about it, but who gives a $%&, they will most definitely joyride your car and burn your gas if you let them. By making them agree to the mileage, you basically just remove yourself from their mental list of possibilities when they are deciding whose car to take to lunch.

When I was a kid, my dad had taken his car in because his ex-wife had tried to put something in the trunk that was too big, and it dented the trunklid outwards. Genius. Anyway, two days later I was eating lunch with him at this place called Cap'n Cody's and the body shop morons were actually unlucky enough to pull up to the same restaraunt we were eating at in his car.

Uber Wagon

#1 - makes me VERY glad that I have a good friend that owns a great body shop.

#2 - I still have him buy the parts, paint it, and I end up putting it together.

#3 - your insurance company should help you - esp if they "approved" this body shop, too. MB approval means squat - oftentimes insurance recommendation will have them warranty the work for the life of the car. The fact that you are pretty sure they were joyriding in your car, and that it was filthy and that stuff isn't working when you picked it up is enough of an issue to report and say that you are unhappy.

Hope this goes well - man - I despise folks that joyriding is reasonable - I've never had that issue.

Bay Area User

TTT
For the ones that haven't read this post.

Today, i noticed that my head rest on the rear seat was up. WTF??
I always have the down. Funny how i was looking out the rear view mirror and something just struck me as odd. took me a little while to figure out what it was.
At this point, i believe my car was not taken for a joy ride, but for a weekend cruise. I'm sure someone sat on the passenger seat, that's why they adjusted the settings. and someone sat on the rear, thus lifting only one of the head rests.
why would you make this changes if you were just joy riding it? it sound more like a couple-few people took a trip somewhere..

bcaruso

I'm sorry to hear about your situation and it sounds like your car was driven more than it should have been. Does your work order note the mileage in? You may be able to work backwards and see if there are miles unaccounted for. From the number of changes you mentionned to the interior settings it is unlikely that the car was driven around the block. It sounds like they were shuttling people around with it. I would use the insurance company to my advantage. You can get them to hold out payment until the car is fixed properly. With regards to the other 'extras' just tell the insurance company that they were offered as 'part of the job' and that you don't know anything about how they relate to the business between the insurance company and the body shop. Good luck with it.

NXtremeJeep

It sucks to hear that your car was taken for a joy ride. Despite what many people think, most body shops and service places have the tendency to take nice cars for serious joy rides.

I would make a complaint with insurance company, file a BBB Complaint, and speak directly to the owner of the company and explain your concerns to him/her.

By the ways, how did the repair to the front bumper and fender come out?

ThisFlyGuy

today in the newspaper, i just saw their ad for repairs, details, ect

guess i'm throwing it away