Advice after poor 'Approved' bodyshop repairs

will-w

Good afternoon all

I'll say sorry in advance for this stupidly long thread; if you get chance to read it all and can offer and advice then it'd be greatly appreciated :j

In October a 3rd party reversed out of a parking space into the side of my (at the time less than 3 month old) car, while I was stationary.

I informed my insurance company almost instantly and the car was booked in for repairs the next day.

As I insure my car with the manufacturers 'branded' insurance company it was sent to my closest dealership to be repaired by a manufacturer 'Approved Bodyshop'.

10 days later I got a call saying that my car was ready for collection. I ran down to the dealership to collect it and made a point of inspecting it before I went in to see the bodyshop guys.
Upon inspection I noticed that the rear arch hadn't been repaired correctly (did not line up with the rear bumper) and that the rear bumper itself had been 'burnt' through to the plastic in two places, where what I can only assume a work experience kid had got trigger happy with a rotary polisher.

I went straight into the dealership, protested at the state of repairs and arranged for the car to be booked in to be repaired again.

3 weeks pass until the car could be booked in again.

They had the car for 8 days this time. I get a call to collect and make my way to the dealership after work, I arrive around 5:30 (it was dark).
I do a quick visual inspection of the car and note that the arch had been repaired properly this time and that the rear bumper appeared to have been resprayed.
I collect the car and head home.

Over the next two days I had a huge amount of work to do (34.5 hours to be exact) so I did not leave the house.

On the Sunday after I had finished work, I took my partner to lay some flowers on her grandparent's grave as it was a beautiful sunny autumn day.
Walking back to the car we both noticed that not only the entire side of the car was covered with holograms and scratches but the rear bumper had been resprayed a different shade of blue and no attempt had been made to blend it in.
I immediately called the dealership on the way home and was told that as it is a Sunday they have no management in and that someone would call me first thing on the Monday.

I hadn’t heard anything by 11 the following day so I thought I’d take a drive up to the dealership and confront them face to face.
When I got there I was greeted by the Bodyshop Supervisor, I showed him the pictures I had taken the previous day and invited him to come have a look at the car himself (to which he declined).

He suggested that the car was booked in again for them to make good – I expressed my unwillingness to let them have the car for a third time knowing the problems that it came back with before but I let them have it anyway.

At this point I thought I would contact the Dealer Principal to see what he would say. Well lets say he did his job and perswaded me to book my car in.

Nearly a week later I got my car back. This time it had not been back to the bodyshop, instead they decided that a quick hand polish and a cursory ‘mop over’ would fix the problems and magically make the rear bumper match the rest of the car, which it obviously didn’t do.

On the way home I took the car into my local friendly detailer for him to inspect the damage. After we had wiped off some of the polish that had been applied we noticed that there was no difference at all to the holograms and scratches, just that they had been covered over slightly with said polish.
Even the newly painted rear bumper was covered with scratches from the last ‘attempt’ at polishing, and of course there was no difference to its colour or how it had been blended.

The detailer has given me a quote of £500 to remove them and attempt to restore to as-new condition, this of course won’t rectify the colour difference.

Since then I have spoken to the Dealer Principal, stated that I do not feel safe letting them have the car back and requested some form of compensation for the frankly shocking job done on my still not 6 month old car.
The best offer he could come back with was a cheque for £200 payable to the dealer on completion of the work. This offer has been made verbally and there is nothing in writing from them.

Now as this is an insurance job I have contacted them and requested that they send an Engineer to assess the damage. This is booked in for the 3rd Jan and I’m waiting to see what happens.
I have also contacted the manufacturer but they frankly could not be bothered as it is an issue between a dealership and myself, even though the bodyshop is an ‘Approved’ bodyshop.

I’ve tried working this out amicably and got nothing but resistence in return. All I want is my less than 6 month old car to be returned to the condition that it was before the accident.

I guess my question is what should be my next step? Where do I stand legally?

YouTube video of holograms: http://youtu.be/PzttfnDo_Ko








Thanks
Will

hethmar

Cant help you but I do feel for you. Thats awful workmanship. Was this a main dealer for your car make?

When we had a dent from a car park - culprit never left their details - the insurers wanted us to use their approved repairer but we held out for the main dealer for VW and they did do an excellent job.

You must have some recourse here, they have not done the job the insurers have paid for. Good luck sorting this out.

will-w

hethmar wrote: »

Cant help you but I do feel for you. Thats awful workmanship. Was this a main dealer for your car make?

When we had a dent from a car park - culprit never left their details - the insurers wanted us to use their approved repairer but we held out for the main dealer for VW and they did do an excellent job.

You must have some recourse here, they have not done the job the insurers have paid for. Good luck sorting this out.

Thanks for the reply, unfortunately the claim isn't going too well either so it's been a rather stressful 10 weeks or so.

I am insured and financed through the manufacturer, it was taken to a main dealer and 'repaired' (if you can call it that) by a manufacturer 'Approved' bodyshop :eek:

Muscle750

Firstly I would ask why are the pics of both sides of the car when the car hit yours it would have only damaged it in one place I don't know what make of car you got but ford and Honda bumpers come pre painted however I would agree that the colour match is way off end of the day don't go back to the repairer go to your insurance company telling them its junk and you want it repaired again they will send an engineer to look at it and then go from there

will-w

Amy_Winns wrote: »

If I was you, I'd contact trading standards and the insurance ombudsman to let them know about this.

If nothing else, it might stop the same thing happening to someone else.

Thanks, I hadn't thought about Trading Standards or the Insurance Ombudsman.. Might do some reading and make some calls tomorrow

Muscle750 wrote: »

Firstly I would ask why are the pics of both sides of the car when the car hit yours it would have only damaged it in one place I don't know what make of car you got but ford and Honda bumpers come pre painted however I would agree that the colour match is way off end of the day don't go back to the repairer go to your insurance company telling them its junk and you want it repaired again they will send an engineer to look at it and then go from there

Pictures are of both sides of the car as they machine 'polished' the entire vehicle.

Repairs were to the rear drivers side but the whole bumper appears to have been sprayed, not replaced.

colino

That is the most amatuer work that I've seen in a long time and thankfully now you've involved your insurer who need to take the reins on it. All very well saying you should have rejected it on sight, but that work has considerably devalued a nearly new car and needs a total reevaluation of the work as they have caused more damage than you had to begin with!
Once it goes back in for fixing, don't think of signing a happy sheet until someone else has looked at it.
That standard of work is a joke.

anotherbaldrick

Just tell the Body Shop that H/D photographs of their shoddy work are on the www:// and if they don't sort it to your satisfaction double quick their identity will be attached as well.

hethmar

When our bump was repaired - it was just over rear wheel arch - the whole side of the car was resprayed!

Skintski

Plastic bumpers will never 100% match metal bodywork anyway since paint seats differently to the different substrates so even out of the factory many never match. Having said that, yours appears to be miles out. I'd be onto the insurance company insisting my car went elsewhere to be rectified. You do not have to use their approved shops anyway even though they will try to insist you do.

ian103

the car looks like a bmw, i had one repaired by an insurance acredited bodyshop a few years ago, it was metallic black, the spray was more like grey, i complained and they said theyed polish it out, in the end it turns out they were mixing the paint themselves rather than buying the correct colour from bmw. it was never right afterwards, the paint was softer and marked very easily, the colour was nearly the same but a shade lighter, it was a company car and i gave up.

i would fight all the way and get what you a paying for, i would reinvolve the car manufacturer as a bad reputation is easy to get but hard to lose.

Skintski

ian103 wrote: »

the car looks like a bmw, i had one repaired by an insurance acredited bodyshop a few years ago, it was metallic black, the spray was more like grey, i complained and they said theyed polish it out, in the end it turns out they were mixing the paint themselves rather than buying the correct colour from bmw. it was never right afterwards, the paint was softer and marked very easily, the colour was nearly the same but a shade lighter, it was a company car and i gave up.

i would fight all the way and get what you a paying for, i would reinvolve the car manufacturer as a bad reputation is easy to get but hard to lose.

The paint will always be mixed on site at the bodyshop. BMW have their own white label scheme which is produced by one of the bigger paint manufacturers, there is no such thing as a standard mix even at a factory level. If you've had it repaired somewhere other than a BMW shop then there is a high chance their paint scheme will be different and so they will mix according to that but should still stand a good chance of getting it right.

Mixing paint by eye using colour chips/eye is no easy task, even a single colour can have numerous variations which the painter has to try to match by eye.