So long story but I’ll be as concise as I can.
Got rear ended in June. Person has Safeco. I have liberty. Sister companies.
Body shop I’ve used before and has a good reputation did work. Put a bumper on it. Bumper fit sucked (aftermarket) and it’d literally had cut a wash mit it was so sharp on the edges. I told them I’m not happy, they took pictures and submitted for OEM. They told me to take my car home because it was drivable now, against what I wanted to do I just took my car.
Got in, found my windshield broken. Went back in, they claimed I dropped it off that way. We did a full walk around and took 32 pictures on drop off. They couldn’t prove anything. They literally write on the windshield with yellow crayon my info and the repair info and do a full walk around and take pictures. Right where the writing is my windshield was broken, like 18” crack broken. Walk back in, review all the pictures. They tell me they’ll decide how to proceed while they try to get insurance to approve the OEM bumper.
Weeks go by. No one will call me back from the shop. Insurance has no idea what’s going on. They finally prove OEM bumper, I drop off. No word on what they’ll do with windshield.
Come to pick up, they put windshield in. Great. Pop trunk to check bumper etc, tail lights are falling out. They chipped the quarter panel paint where tail lights go in. And you can literally see pavement through and inch or more gap between bumper and trunk/structure of car.
They take car back in shop and tell me it’s a 10 min fix. 30 min later they tell me to take rental car back home. Week later they say it’s fixed.
I come back, Bumper fits now, but tail light damage still not fixed. I leave it another day.
They literally touch up painted it. Nothing better than I could’ve done. I’m at my Witts end so I just take it and want to be done. I have stone chips everywhere anyway (it’s a commuter car) but the tail lights had never been out of the car before, no reason to have those chips.
First time I go in the trunk weeks or a month later just to check spare tire pressure, inch or more water standing down there. I hoped they just left trunk open on the lot during repairs. I pulled plugs and drained it. I dried it. Spare wheel rust was never present before but it’s a spare I guess I could live with it. Next rain, it has water in the trunk again.
I call and talk to the office manager about it all. She relays the message to whoever needed to know and take action on it. They won’t respond about it. I gave them multiple times I was out of town to drop it off for them to diagnose and fix. I had to get insurance involved again to get them to respond.
They did who knows what, two times as I kept finding water in my spare tire well weeks later, months later. Nothing has actually fixed it. Nothing documented.
Insurance finally sends me to another body shop. They think the bumper didn’t fit because there’s structural damage. They think they pulled the bumper off and pulled the structure to fit the bumper, but didn’t do it all perfectly so the trunk isn’t fitting properly. None of the body lines are off (trunk closed) but trunk open the lines where weatherstrip sits and bumper meets did always look off to me. First body shop always said it’s all fine though, and it’s not like I’m an expert at what my trunk and body lines look like when my trunk is in the open position.
But like I said I’m up to a $2500 estimate on top of what was already repaired. I can’t see the estimate, just $ amounts, so I called in. They said I can’t see it because they are still adding jobs to it, it’s not finalized.
Do you think I have any recourse, or do I just be happy that my car will be fixed finally (hopefully!) and move on?
Got rear ended in June. Person has Safeco. I have liberty. Sister companies.
Body shop I’ve used before and has a good reputation did work. Put a bumper on it. Bumper fit sucked (aftermarket) and it’d literally had cut a wash mit it was so sharp on the edges. I told them I’m not happy, they took pictures and submitted for OEM. They told me to take my car home because it was drivable now, against what I wanted to do I just took my car.
Got in, found my windshield broken. Went back in, they claimed I dropped it off that way. We did a full walk around and took 32 pictures on drop off. They couldn’t prove anything. They literally write on the windshield with yellow crayon my info and the repair info and do a full walk around and take pictures. Right where the writing is my windshield was broken, like 18” crack broken. Walk back in, review all the pictures. They tell me they’ll decide how to proceed while they try to get insurance to approve the OEM bumper.
Weeks go by. No one will call me back from the shop. Insurance has no idea what’s going on. They finally prove OEM bumper, I drop off. No word on what they’ll do with windshield.
Come to pick up, they put windshield in. Great. Pop trunk to check bumper etc, tail lights are falling out. They chipped the quarter panel paint where tail lights go in. And you can literally see pavement through and inch or more gap between bumper and trunk/structure of car.
They take car back in shop and tell me it’s a 10 min fix. 30 min later they tell me to take rental car back home. Week later they say it’s fixed.
I come back, Bumper fits now, but tail light damage still not fixed. I leave it another day.
They literally touch up painted it. Nothing better than I could’ve done. I’m at my Witts end so I just take it and want to be done. I have stone chips everywhere anyway (it’s a commuter car) but the tail lights had never been out of the car before, no reason to have those chips.
First time I go in the trunk weeks or a month later just to check spare tire pressure, inch or more water standing down there. I hoped they just left trunk open on the lot during repairs. I pulled plugs and drained it. I dried it. Spare wheel rust was never present before but it’s a spare I guess I could live with it. Next rain, it has water in the trunk again.
I call and talk to the office manager about it all. She relays the message to whoever needed to know and take action on it. They won’t respond about it. I gave them multiple times I was out of town to drop it off for them to diagnose and fix. I had to get insurance involved again to get them to respond.
They did who knows what, two times as I kept finding water in my spare tire well weeks later, months later. Nothing has actually fixed it. Nothing documented.
Insurance finally sends me to another body shop. They think the bumper didn’t fit because there’s structural damage. They think they pulled the bumper off and pulled the structure to fit the bumper, but didn’t do it all perfectly so the trunk isn’t fitting properly. None of the body lines are off (trunk closed) but trunk open the lines where weatherstrip sits and bumper meets did always look off to me. First body shop always said it’s all fine though, and it’s not like I’m an expert at what my trunk and body lines look like when my trunk is in the open position.
But like I said I’m up to a $2500 estimate on top of what was already repaired. I can’t see the estimate, just $ amounts, so I called in. They said I can’t see it because they are still adding jobs to it, it’s not finalized.
Do you think I have any recourse, or do I just be happy that my car will be fixed finally (hopefully!) and move on?
