aptoslexus

A couple of months ago a young lady hit my rear bumper while I was waiting to merge onto a packed freeway. I thought the rear bumper would be totally trashed at the time, because she hit me hard enough to move the car forward. To my surprise, the damage was minimal. Bumper was slightly wavy with some small indentations and minor cracking and crazing of the paint. The truth was, the rear bumper was the worst part of an otherwise extremely clean LS and I had planned to repaint it myself next summer, so I wound up having the job done for me for nothing. Or almost nothing as it turned out.

A couple of days ago I bring it in. They recondition my bumper instead of getting a new one. I'm not sure what exactly that entails, but they don't do it in house. They send it to San Jose or somewhere in the Bay area to have that done. That doesn't include paint, just reshaping the bumper. Price: $680 for the recondition. Or, the same price as a brand new bumper cover.

Then they bring it back and paint it. Now, they did a helluva job on the paint. The two-tone looks perfect. And they gave me a new metal trim piece so the bumper looks brand new. Total price for parts and labor: $1757. Yikes. Glad someone else way paying the freight.

Then the bad news. When I got home I gave the car the once around and there was black paint transfer on the driver door. Wtf? I got some detail spray and a microfiber cloth and started rubbing it off. Underneath, a nice new door ding. Thanks, body shop! That's the reason I hate bringing my car to any shop. No one gives a damn about your pride and joy. It's just a job that they need to get done ASAP. One more scar for the road.

dicer

I agree with what you say about shops. But the main problem is they have 5 foot wide parking spots for a 6 foot wide car. I guess we need a new federal law that mandates all parking spots be a minimum of 10 fee wide. So people can open their car door without hitting the car next to them.
The ding if you can't fix it yourself, find a good paintless dent guy. And really if you have a super nice car get a junker one to drive and park the good one in a garage. The only way to have something nice is to keep people and any kind of animal away from it.

CELSI0R

Ouch! Sorry to hear that. Does the paint have any visible damage as well? Hopefully not, but if there is, you could try to get them to pay for the damages.. Though, it may be preferable for another body shop to perform the repair at that point.

If there isn't any major paint damage, I would definitely recommend a PDR guy, as dicer mentioned.

aptoslexus

The paint isn't damaged aside from the vertical crease the ding left. If I really wanted to pursue it, I could because I took the precaution of photographing the entire car before I drove it to the shop. It was clean as a whistle with no damage at that spot. I don't know, maybe it would be worth it to have them hire a paintless dent guy, but I definitely don't want the body shop doing a spot repair on the original paint.

CELSI0R

Darn, a vertical crease... I'm glad there's no paint damage, though.

I wonder if it would be possible for the body shop to give you the money to pay a PDR guy to do the work, outside of their shop.

It's all up to you. If you can live with it, then put it behind you. If you're unsure, trying to at least get the money from the shop may be an option. Either way you go, good luck. Sorry that this had to happen.

dicer

If you didn't catch it before driving off the shops lot then its on you. They will say it was probably done at the local Walmart parking lot, you know the 5 foot wide parking spaces. I think its horrible that happened. And likely it was just a _______ customer that drove their junker in for an estimate, and just swung the door open, yes again in the narrow little parking space. Oh did I mention how narrow all the parking spaces are at pretty much every store you go to. Except one near me with the best parking spaces ever.

UNCNOR

iTrader: (1)

Take the car back to the shop and let them know what happened and if they give you grief file a complaint with the Better Business Bureau.Your state consumer advocates can help also.Don't let people like that intimidate you.At least make the manager/owners life miserable and maybe the next guy won't have to get grief from them or a door ding.

jaaa

I have a neighbor who is fanatical about his cars(washes and details his cars once a week), but doesn't do his own maintenance. I think he spends more time taking his car back to the shops that do his maintenance to repair scratches and dings, than it would ever take him to do his own oil changes.

Kansas

That would be a $50 repair at a PDR company where I live. I was charged $50 last year for the first ding and $25/each for two more and I can't tell where the dings used to be. Those PDR guys are magicians.

aptoslexus

The parking spaces at the shop are normal. And there's little traffic there of people coming and going. I watched the guy bring my car from the shop area and deliver it to me and talked to him for a bit about the paint job. Then I got in and drove straight home where I found the damage. Locally, it's a well-regarded shop, but my impression is that they do a lot of insurance work and probably have more cars in the work area (which is fenced off away from the parking area) than they should. I feel pretty safe saying the damage happened in the shop work area.

sha4000

iTrader: (1)

Take it back, I would hope that they would not try to deny such an inexpensive repair after the money that they just made fixing that bumper.

aptoslexus

That's intriguing, but around here, it would take $50 to get someone to fetch a cup of coffee for you.
I might look into that though.

dicer

I know that is what I'm talking about, normal is way TOO BLANKING SMALL.

aptoslexus

I just sent an email to the shop owner stating what happened. I guess we'll see what kind of shop he's running based on his response, if any.