Originally Posted By: Trav
That may be all true but I see cars repaired today with body lines nowhere near that good, it cant be too far out that's for sure.
Those so called "industry leaders" are nothing more than a pack of A holes on steroids IMO.
They would find fault in a craftsman who had the skill (very few people in this world have that skill today) to form a new fender for an antique with an English wheel and hammer and bag because he didn't use a 100 ton press and laser measurements.
I find fault in their assessment, they talk about the aluminum strut tower, in fact its not much more than just a cast aluminum cap connected to a sheet metal part which is part of BMW's mixed materials concept, they tried to insinuate he was working with aluminum up front, the cap was not touched on this car, did he check it for cracks or defects with dye? We don't know that either.
Should he have replaced the front frame rail or cap? Possibly but if the rail damage didn't go beyond the point he pulled probably not, we don't know that but we can assume with the skills he has he does know.
Damage did not appear to go into the floor pan area or the inner supporting panels for the rear quarter so basically he pulled the front part of the rail, B and C pillars and did a rear quarter. These A holes even chastised him for using a piece of 2x4 instead of their $300 (guessing) plastic block. Anyone with half an brain can see why he used a piece of 2x4 so the chain didn't bend the edges of the post.
They even chastised him looking at what he was doing and using a self fabricated simple measuring tool. If they think that's a third world repair they should come as look at 99.9% of the shops around here.
If they had bought the car, checked the measurements and alignment then crash tested it and it was bad then all well and good but they just tore the man apart at the behest of some company (probably Car-O-Liner).
A-holes on steroids, I like that one. I agree, real easy to criticize, I wonder if they even possess half of his skill set.