Vehicle damaged by repair company

ben500

Appreciate some input on this from someone in the industry.

My vehicle sustained damage to the bumper {colour coded} and went in for repair, on return the repair itself appears fine {gouges no longer visible} however I now have a much lighter patch of paint in that area about the size of a basketball where they have clearly repainted that section only and an extremely poor job of blending in done.

Apart from that there are several large areas where the laquer has been stripped from the bodywork in unrelated areas {roof & bonnet} these are sizeable areas of damage 4" and 3" in circumference on the bonnet and a 10" x 2.5" strip on the roof along with numerous smaller areas where the laquer has simply been stripped away from the surface.

There is also a series of small scratches down the entire of one side from front to back, I suspect these to have been caused by a car wash or the vehicle being scraped along something.

I have a couple of questions firstly if I get an independant report carried out will they be able to determine how new the damage is and if so perhaps the cause?
Secondly is this damage consistent with a car wash?
This is the impression I get as the series of scratches appear to be at regular intervals.
Third any suggestions as to what else may have resulted in these large patches of laquer being stripped away there appears to be no damage to the paint underneath.

The insurance company stipulate they will foot the bill for the inspection in the event the report confirms that the garage caused the damage, my problem is I can't see any report being able to do this as for all the inspecting garage know this damage could have been there prior to going in for repair, it was only in a week, so is this just going to come down to my word agains there's?

As far as I can see the damage will only be resolved by a complete respray but I am by no means an expert.

ben500

Anybody got any help on this for me?

Strider590

A similar thing happened to my mums car, went in for minor repairs and on the day of collection as my mum pickign up the keys, one of the tow trucks reversed into it. They then repaired and resprayed the car, but left dents and marks.
My father took a red marker pen (white car) and put big circles around the affected area's, they were forced to respray yet again.

I wouldn't recommend doing that, but you do have the right to get any damage repaired if they caused it.
My car is in right now for repair, when they took the car they made a list of existing damage to cover their own backs, but it also means that additional damage can be identified as being their fault. Your repairer should have done the same.

TiTheRev

Strider is right. You should have signed a form to say what damage they were fixing, and what damage was already there (if any), but if you didnt do this it's your word against theirs as even if the damage is shown to be recent, they can claim it was not like that when it left their site. The lighter paintwork is more obviously their fault, and I would suggest has been done by a dent repair specialist in less than ideal conditions. He's probably mixed the colour incorrectly, or it's discoloured as it's dried, which shouldn't happen if a pukka bodyshop does the work and dries it in their oven.

ben500

Strider590 wrote: »

A similar thing happened to my mums car, went in for minor repairs and on the day of collection as my mum pickign up the keys, one of the tow trucks reversed into it. They then repaired and resprayed the car, but left dents and marks.
My father took a red marker pen (white car) and put big circles around the affected area's, they were forced to respray yet again.

I wouldn't recommend doing that, but you do have the right to get any damage repaired if they caused it.
My car is in right now for repair, when they took the car they made a list of existing damage to cover their own backs, but it also means that additional damage can be identified as being their fault. Your repairer should have done the same.

Thanks, problem have is no such list was made in my presence and clearly the garage will be looking to deny the damage was caused by them otherwise they would have owned up when handing over or called me to advise and repaired it before returning.
I have been told that practice is to make such a report and also to take photographs and am waiting on a call from the manager at which time I will ascertain if such a report was made and hopefully obtain a copy. There is no way they were not aware they have caused this damage so I suspect I have a long battle on my hands.

ben500

TiTheRev wrote: »

Strider is right. You should have signed a form to say what damage they were fixing, and what damage was already there (if any), but if you didnt do this it's your word against theirs as even if the damage is shown to be recent, they can claim it was not like that when it left their site. The lighter paintwork is more obviously their fault, and I would suggest has been done by a dent repair specialist in less than ideal conditions. He's probably mixed the colour incorrectly, or it's discoloured as it's dried, which shouldn't happen if a pukka bodyshop does the work and dries it in their oven.

As I say no such report was made in my presence and no joint check made on return of vehicle other than by myself, I merely ran my hand over the damaged area and could feel that the gouges had been repaired smoothly the colour only became apparent as I moved the vehicle and parked it up in the sunlight some minutes after they left. It was then I noticed the damage to the bonnet, I contacted them immediately and obviously they did not own up, I spoke with insurance company and as I was on phone started noticing all these other areas of damage, there are scratching along the entire offside of the vehichle front to back an horrendously sized patch of laquer stripped from the top which obviously I didn't notice immediately as I was concentrating on the repaired area of the bumper.

It is my intention to obtain a copy of the prior damage report which I am informed by another company of the same dealership that they should make on all vehicles prior to repair as standard practice, they may even have photographed the vehicle he tells me, if so then I should have no problems, it's just I have clear reason to doubt their integrity and fear any such report may be doctored to cover their backs my best hope is that photographs were taken as it will be far more difficult for them to deny causing the damage if they are present.

I suppose I'm somewhat gullible in that I expected more of a main dealership it may turn out to be a costly assumption on my part.