OMG, I cant believe VW quote

hethmar

I had my car serviced last week and whilst I was there I asked them to give me a quote for a tiny scratch by the door handle (really a paint pen would do it, but I thought, as car only a year old, worth doing properly) and also a couple of scratches along the plastic under front bumper, from a low kerb.

Today they sent me a quote for £972.92! pmsl

Apparently to do the literally half inch scratch by the door handle will involve taking off the outer door skin and door handle and the channel seal and lock cylinder and right mirror and renew front door moulding and door skin and the rear door trim and channel seal plus the moulding?????

For the scratches on the under bumper it will involve removing the number plate, bumper cover, radiator grill, air grill, front ventilation grill? Its madness

NB Just rang them to check they have the right person - they said the whole door will have to be resprayed. I said for a hair line scratch by the handle??? They said oh but it may not match if we just touch up the scratch and you could get moisture under it. My goodness, what a con.

bigjl

You have to see it from thier point of view, if you had the door handle sprayed and it didn't match then you would be moaning that they have ruined your cars resale value.

Therefore they have given you a quote to ensure they can do the job in a way that would ensure the repair is as difficult to spot as possible, though they probably wouldn't apply colour to the entire door, just the door handle and then blend into the surrounding area and laquer the whole door and handle.

They would probably take the door off, take out the glass and interior trim, then paint and reassemble.

As far as the bumper goes they would have to paint the entire bumper. First take the bumper off the car, then take all the trim off it, paint it and reassemble.

If you want the job I think you really want, a cheap one, then the only way to do this is to use the SMART repairers, who will just paint the area that needs painted, and would probably come in a lot cheaper, probably nearer £200 than £1000.

Going by your comments I would assume that you have no experience of painting and repairing cars and that you have never had to deal with pedantic, petulant middleclass customers that assume that anything that doesn't require a degree is the job of idiots and should therefore be cheap?

Sadly times have changed, materials have changed and so has the cost of the technology and the staff skilled enough to use it. It is simple economics the job will take so many man hours to do, and beleive it or not is almost as labour intensive as changing a much more damaged bumper and door.

The only sensible way to ensure a happy customer and no comebacks is to take a belt and braces approach, which will also maintain your paintwork and corrosion warranty.

A back street outfit will do it for a lot less, but then you will devalue the car by more than what you save.

choc_mouse

Hmm, VW quoted me more than the value of my car to replace my gearbox. Took it to an independant garage and it cost 4x less. I think you need to be prepared to be shocked when getting a quote from a dealer.

hethmar

quote [Going by your comments I would assume that you have no experience of painting and repairing cars and that you have never had to deal with pedantic, petulant middleclass customers that assume that anything that doesn't require a degree is the job of idiots and should therefore be cheap?]quote


But we are talking a tiny scratch by the door handle. The service receptionist said as an aside to me, "buy a pen stick for it" and now I have.

Oh dear, am I really a pedantic, petulant, middleclass customer assuming that workshop guys are idiots because they dont require a degree to paint a scratch? Nope, I think you are being a bit hard there.

colino

Blending metallics is a great art and to look fabulous (it'll never be perfect) a lot of extra painting is required. You may well find though that like many dealers, they don't have their own paintshop and they are adding on (considerable) mark-up to the friendly, independent local guy round the corner they farm their work out to.

hethmar

Its not even metallic colino, just plain tornado red.

Ebe_Scrooge

The "proper" way to repair any paint is to respray the whole panel, with all the dismantling and labour that involves, hence the high price.

But there are a lot of these "chip repair" type companies around that will do small chips and scratches. I never used one myself, but my dad used one recently and he was very pleased with the result ( minor scratches on metallic paint ).

There are lots of these places around, I guess there will be some very good ones and some cowboys as ever. The usual advice - try and see if any friends can recommend a local place.

As has been previously mentioned, don't underestimate the amount of skill and time required to do a good repair job :-)

motorguy

hethmar wrote: »

But we are talking a tiny scratch by the door handle. The service receptionist said as an aside to me, "buy a pen stick for it" and now I have.

Oh dear, am I really a pedantic, petulant, middleclass customer assuming that workshop guys are idiots because they dont require a degree to paint a scratch? Nope, I think you are being a bit hard there.

The point being that an entire panel needs painted no matter what size the damage. PLUS, they'll need to blend it in across the panel either side, and probably lacquer those panels too...

What they're doing is a full on professional repair to take it back to manufacturers standards. You may well feel that you dont want to go to that level on your car and you may well be correct to decide that, but main dealer prices are what they are. Nobodys forcing you to use them.

bigjl

hethmar wrote: »

quote [Going by your comments I would assume that you have no experience of painting and repairing cars and that you have never had to deal with pedantic, petulant middleclass customers that assume that anything that doesn't require a degree is the job of idiots and should therefore be cheap?]quote




Oh dear, am I really a pedantic, petulant, middleclass customer assuming that workshop guys are idiots because they dont require a degree to paint a scratch? Nope, I think you are being a bit hard there.

The part of my post wasn't directly aimed at you, but you must realise that if they did a cheap fix that you weren't happy with you would have started a thread saying,

"Vw main dealer ruined my cars retail value"

The garage is a business and they have a reputation to protect, so will never do any kob other than in a belt and braces way.

And a main dealer will never normally fit used parts so when they quote for a job like a gearbox the price will be extremely high, especially when you consider that a gearbox from a low mileage write off is pretty much as good as a brand new one.

bigjl

hethmar wrote: »

Its not even metallic colino, just plain tornado red.

I would have to check but I think that Tornado red is laquered aswell, I think due to the fact that water based paints aren't very hard wearing so need to be laquered, red can also be a bit of an !!!! to match.

fred7777

Depending on the depth and type of scratch T-cut, polish and elbow grease will get very good results with "hairline scratches" I would always try this before using any sort of touch up paint which even if it matches the colour perfectly would leave a raised make on the paintwork.