Originally Posted by TravisB

Sadly, entirely too true. I've had 3 body shop experiences, and all 3 of them left a sour taste in my mouth. I now avoid them like the plague.

The first was when I was new to the city and just picked a place with my insurance company that seemed to have nice cars in their holding lot. It went back 3 times, was never really happy with the outcome but I wanted it to be over with.

The second was at a shop where I knew one of the techs through a friend of a friend..same car as the first, just repairing the now cracking/crazing paint from the first shop. It had to go back to this shop 3 times as well, again...still not totally happy, but again I wanted my car back and figured I was probably selling it soon anyway.

The third was just after I got my car a few months ago at a fairly well known PCA owned/managed shop with a great reputation..and I wasn't even coming in for visible paint work, this was a windshield/channel rust job. Of the quotes I got, they were one of the highest, but I wanted quality work done on my new prized toy. I won't even get in to the insurance aspect (long story short, thanks to a lie, I was out of pocket at least $500 more than I should have been), but their shop monkey gouged the hell out of my cowl putting the wipers on. Twice! The back of the hood also got chipped I think. So I've now got overspray on my side windows, paint lines on the fender to cowl gaskets, and a cleared over chip on the hood. Small things, and my car is a driver, but you'd think they'd do good repair work on their own screw ups (then again, if you can't put wiper arms on properly, what am I to expect for anything else?). I'm so disgusted I'm not even going to bother trying to have them correct it..