How to get a basic body repair BADLY wrong...

The message from "Mark" contains these words:

You should see some of the ones I've done. But at least they're on my car!

stuff snipped

:( Sorry to hear it. Hope it all gets sorted OK.

Very few proper bodyshops around. I use a small local bodyshop, run by a perfectionist that 99.99% of the time gets it PERFECT. it costs , but it is worth it.... I once asked him "how he does it".... his reply was "if you can tell it has been repaired then it isn't fixed properly".... that about sums it up.

JK

Ok, here's a long rant.....

I bought a car from Cooper Cobham BMW not all that long ago. They said they'd resprayt he bonnet and the rear bumper 'cos of a few stone chips and that when it coems back it'll be "perfect". I said "OK but i don't want to see any oversrpay or ridges etc". I got all the "trust us" promises but when I went to pcik the car up the salesman had tried to use one of those touch up pens on a scratch on the door, there was ridges under the front of the bonnet, pink overspray on the rear of the bonnet, overspray on the bonner handle, masking tape on the bottom of the door & they'd sprayed over what looks a like a fly on the rear bumper.

Despite having had their million point check and promises thaty the car would be perfect I had take it back in later for various rattles etc (they then told me "well it is an old car with a lot of miles sir (2.5 years old, 35k miles)) & they gave me a loan car - which I had to wait for while they charged up the battery of a car that was blocking it in. Then I had to wait while a guy went out in it to put petrol in. There's a petrol station right outside the dealership but he went the other way. Over half an hour later the guy comes back with a bag of stuff. So he gives me the keys & I go out to the car - it's full of rubbish. So I go back in and ask for someone to clean it out. They do. I get in start it up & there's only 1/3 a tank of petrol in there. Drive off, handling seems funny so I check the tyres pressures

- they're all at about 20psi. Walking back to the car I then notice the tax disc has expired.

Anyway, go to pick up my car & they tell me the rattling speaker was fixed by changing a suspension spring :-| ..... They also put loads of grease over the rear seat fixings which I noticed when I got it on me and my stuff when I had to fold the rear seats down. They replaced a seat belt with a creased one, lost a part to my mirror and various other things.

I went in to complain, got taken to a room away from the other customers, got given the "I'm very surprised sir 'cos all our staff are very very good, maybe your standards are too high" and promises that they'll put everything right but I simply haven't had the courage to take the car back there. When I saw the "technicians" coming out the back they were mucking about & looked like they were kwik-fit rejects. Nope, there's no way I'm taking my car back there but it's probably no better anywhere else.

I happened to be in a Vauxhall dealership the other day - saw two guys pushing a non-starter out of the workshop to the parking lot - bang!

- they pushed it right into the wall then started laughing. Lyles in Welwyn Garden City by the way.

Hmmmm sounds like Evan Halshaw ex-Vauxhall in Shirley, West Mids.

Nearly, but

Some time ago I had a black Marina (I said some years ago!) which was my pride and joy - until somebody drove into the back of it. So I got the quotes, and sent them off - including a garage I had been using for years. Quoted for complete replacement rear panel.

So it went in to said garage, picked it up on Friday evening under the lights - just finished washing the car ... (it was Winter of course ...)

And you guessed it - bright daylight next day, just loading up to go away for the weekend - rear panel looks odd.

It had been filled - not replaced - and you could see the marks where the filler had not been sanded very well.

Back round to garage PDQ, very irate - and ...

They'd GONE

and I mean Gone - pumps shut down, forecourt empty, workshop deserted!

Well, yesterday's (optimistic) completion deadline arrived, and so did I - in the bodyshop reception to collect my car.

"I'll just go and get the manager for you" smiled the receptionist and disappeared into the workshop. Two minutes later, aforementioned manager appeared in the doorway with a glum look on his boat.

"It's not going to be ready until the weekend - we've had to start all over again" he said. I asked him why and he agreed with the itemised list fully and said that there was far too much work required to just make it up to a proper job. It would appear that the door is receiving another new skin, and the entire NS flank of the car is being repainted (again). He has advised that as the valet will take at least half a day - he said it would be late on Friday afternoon - this is a promising development if nothing else...

Let's hope it's a vast improvement on the last attempt - I even got an apology last night; and he didn't call me 'Pal' once. I wonder if he reads usenet?

Cooper Wimbledon are a bunch of dishonest sharks too. Complaining direct to the group managing director, and to the one of the parent company, and BMW GB, brought no real satisfaction. So they must all be *very* used to it.

And all at the bargain price of only 110 quid an hour...

I took a mini to Kwick Fit about 10 years ago and had their experts (you can't get better...) carefully place the jack under the car, and then proceed to lift the front, passenger side floor up by about 3 inches. Naturally I wasn't pleased with this service.

Despite the fact that the car was sitting there with the jack under it the manager tried to claim it had been done before. Great, except the car was a week old and came in because of a puncture. They agreed to have it repaired and after 5 days away it came back.

The hump had gone but under the carpet - which was now mysteriously glued in place, the other side (untouched) wasnt - was a flat part covered it loads of mallet-blow type marks. I assume that they had someone hammering away until it was flat enough.

Chris

What I don't understand is if a garage can be so incompetent in the first place, why anyone would have any confidence in them being able to put right their mistake.

Absolutely. This appears to be something I can't get across in my row with BMW. The dealer f**ked up so many things I'd not let them near the car again. Plus the fact that there's nothing to stop them trying to charge for extra parts etc, whether needed or not, just to get their own back, as it were.

Well... it's now been a full working week and I've still not got the car back.

I went back to collect it last night and was told that it had been painted and trimmed up, but hadn't been cleaned. I went again at dinnertime and it still wasn't ready. The manager went all touchy-feely on me to make sure I could do without it over the weekend.

"It'll be valetted on Tuesday, then I'll go round it to make sure it's absolutely spot-on. No point spoiling the job just to get it out of the workshop" were his last words.

Pity his oppo in the workshop didn't think of that the first time round... Watch this space - another report coming on Tuesday evening...

After the hassle we had a couple of years ago with the local " so cheap we are approved and used by every insurance company going" garage, this time when some young teenager driving on his poor fathers insurance rear-ended us staionary at a junction ( how do they get a licence) we asked if we could go to our dealership. We have a brilliant local dealership where we know the staff and they know us by first names. The job is always spot on and a few times other garages have told us they couldn't beat the prices charged by them!!!!! The insurance company stated that their "approved garage" got all their vauxhall parts through our dealership anyway, so all they were concerned with was labour costs. As this cost (can't remember exactly but think it was around £60 per hour) met their cost level they approved us using the dealership. The only extra hassle was that the car had to sit at the garage to wait for an insurance inspector to check it before and after the fix, perhaps an extra couple of hours sat there. Plus even though our cover does not include a courtesy car the dealership provided us with one anyway!!! Could you insist that a representitive of the insurance company involved comes with you to inspect the repair job. After all they are quick enough to send out inspectors/adjusters when it suits them! alison

Right - it's Wednesday evening and I've had the car back a whole day.

When I arrived to collect it, it was sat outside reception looking very clean and very straight!!

No dents, no paint impefections and no dirt or dust anywhere. Very impressed - they obviously intended to get the second attempt perfect.

I look forward to never having to invoke the five year warranty that Churchill are trumpetting as one of the features of their product.

All's well that ends well - I'll just remember the help I received on here and take it where I choose if something happens again.

Thanks all...