Expectations of body work
 

Hey guys,

My front end was recently destroyed after hitting a deer. My airbag deployed and hood, front bumper, headlight, DRL, fog light, radiator + support, serpentine belt and airbox were destroyed.

The shop used all OEM Subaru parts and my assumption was they would come pre-painted SWP from Subaru but it looks like the shop had to paint the parts. I got the car back on Friday and noticed a few things regarding the paint work and I'm not sure if this is the norm or if I should send it back to be corrected. I've only had to bring a car in for bodywork one other time in my life so I'm not sure what the normal expectation is regarding quality of bodywork. The shop is a preferred shop for my insurance company (also my employer) and the shop owner is my mothers neighbor and my mother also used to work for him so I had confidence going there.

• Drivers-side windshield pillar (IMG_20171028_120554) has a weird defect in the paint. This part was not damaged in the accident but I guess they painted it in an attempt to make the paint match. Passenger-side windshield pillar has what looks like over-spray but it's not as bad as the weirdness in the drivers side pillar.
• Hood has specs of dirt dried into the paint in multiple areas.
• In the opening of the front bumper, bottom side, the first 2cm or so the paint is not smooth (boxed in yellow in the pic). My concern is I plan to get PPF and I doubt it would stick to this.

I don't want to be a pain but going into this he knew the car was pampered by me & garage kept and I expected a higher level of quality.

That to me looks like very very low quality work. You have every right to be ticked off here

Trash bodywork for sure. You shouldn't be concerned when you bring up these obvious issues.

Lesson learned about "preferred" body shops. Most of them seem to just knock out the repair the fastest, cheapest way.

Body panels never come pre painted since they would stand out against the weathered panels like beacons. A good body shop will mix and blend the paint so you will never even see the difference.
That said, whoever did that prep and paint should never set foot in a body shop again. I had $200 Macco paint jobs that were a thousand times better than that.
Take that shit back since it is totally unacceptable.

Had the front end of my WRB '15 rebuilt over the summer. The work done was OK, but just. After a fair amount of back and forth with the insurance co/body guys (2 diff shops in dif states) it was finally done to my satisfaction.

One of the (few) good things about using a carrrier's "preferred" shop is, in my case at least, the repairs carry a lifetime warranty, and it gave me additional leverage with the carrier and the shop(s) to finally work the kinks out.

Body parts do not come painted, but have to be matched and blended by the shop. In your case, I'd say the shop missed the mark by a very wide margin. I would have no qualms about bringing all the issues you raised, as well as any others a fine tooth comb can unearth, to their attention with the polite insistence that the car be brought back to the condition it was in before it was damaged.

Your relationship to the ins carrier could be a blessing, or a curse, depending on your place in the corporate food chain. Wish you the very best of luck.

Thanks for your feedback guys, and I agree I do want to pursue this. The shop emphasizes that they do it 'the way it should be done' and the way the guys spoke with me the day I dropped it off made it seem like they output perfection so I'm just taken back by what I got from them. I am going to send an email to the owner with the pictures I attached and bring it back in.

Regarding my relationship with my insurance company, while they prefer claims to be settled without a fuss, I have an argument that it was not brought back to the way it was before. My pictures can justify my argument. The car was in perfect condition prior, no accidents and has never had any body work prior.

Sounds like a plan. Good luck - patience and resilience my friend.

But wait, there's more.

I just took another look to make sure I cover everything and found the orange peely hood paint and fender garnish gap difference. I hate to be a nit picky complainer but I was not expecting this at all.

This ain't pretty either:

This is on the undamaged/less damaged side. Hopefully this is just not seated correctly.

Geez, I don't know how you guys find these ripoff joints. Asheville is not the center of the world by any means (though we like to think so) but I expect perfection from a body shop, and there's more than one here that can provide it.

I would be ashamed to turn out work like that -- there's no excuse for it. And if that came from the insurance company's preferred list, they need to stand by you. Return the car to the place and don't take any excuses. If the ins co won't ream their ass for you, get a lawyer. I guess you only gave them $250 of your own money, but that doesn't count. This situation is bad news for everybody, and you have every right to go to your TV station and let them point a camera at your car while you describe how your insurance told you to go to that shop and you were robbed -- you had a beautiful car before, and now you don't. The works was done by gorillas with a big mallet and a garden hose.

Tell all this to their faces and don't feel the slightest bit shy about it. God, I'm so steamed about what they did to you, I wish you could send me to say it for you.

Courage, and good luck!

:paddle:

My panel gap between left and right sides is worse from the factory... But that's a different story.

Wow that is some atrocious body work.
I'm far from an expect but I've done better job in the past with rattle can paint on my beater.

Mine's been like that for about two years before anybody hit it. Smack it back in and it pops out before the day is over.

:iono:

I would ship my car out to North Carolina if you could guarantee a top notch job. Fuck I'd probably pay out of pocket for a complete rework and respray in color of my choice if I could afford it.

Out of all the "the car should have come like this from the factory!" I think at this point paint is the only one that's been truly disappointing.

Top 5 metro area and NOBODY knows a good body shop, they all blow.

It took three tries to get my rear bumper cover replaced by one shop to do an even passable job and you can still tell it wasn't right.

:suicide:

Damn! That would bug the living crap outta me and I am not all that picky. Mine sits nice and firm way down in the joint. Even lower that his other picture.

The shop corrected the paint issues but body panels still are not perfect. Is some damage not repairable or should I push them to fix these issues? They make it sound like some things cannot be fixed after an accident like this but I cannot tell if they just don't want to put the time in, or if it's not possible to realign things (I know nothing about body work). Mainly the hood is slightly off and each fender has issues. Please educated answers only, not just "go back and tell them f*ckers to fix it!". Thanks in advance.

Go back and tell them fuckers to fix it!
No really. That is not an acceptable repair. The hood is canted a bit to the right and that is what is causing the gap in the bumper and the different sized gaps at the fender. It is a relatively simple adjustment.
The inserts really are not that bad and probably within spec though.

Thanks. I'm trying not to be a pain in the ass, the car already went back once and I didnt look close enough at things when I picked it up. I know if I dont get these things fixed they are going to bother me forever. They are being cool about it, just surprised they are ok letting the car leave the shop like this, and it was worse the first time I picked it up.

If you don't like the quality of the work, then tell them to fix it. You're justified in being suspicious. Pretty much everything that's wrong there is a direct result of poor prep work, poor masking, and inattention to proper cleanliness. That all directly relates to them not taking the proper amount of time to do the job. I'm not a professional and I'm not saying mine would be great but I can confidently say I could do a better job than that with a rattle can.

Why do you keep saying you're not trying to be picky or a pain in the ass.

Be as picky as you need to be, and be the biggest pain in their AND the insurance companies' ass until the car is fixed correctly. Have a spine, man. This has obviously been going on far too long and now it is going on longer. What is your time worth and how much does the car mean to you?

When mine was damaged and the repairs didn't meet my expectations I told the shop (as politely as possible) that I intended to be a pain in the ass. That the car was in showroom condition when it got hit, and I wanted showroom condition after it was repaired. I told them I was sorry if that was a bother, but their job and that of the insurance company is to make it right, and it's not. If they needed more money, call the adjuster. If he says no, call me.

You guys are right. I was almost to the point where I was going to say if they aren't up for the work to make it right I will call my adjustor and ask for another shop to correct their mistakes, even if it resulted in some out of pocket expense. At this point I just want it to be perfect again and done with.

Fortunately the owner is being cool about it and willing to take it back to fix it. The first time they took it back they sanded down the drivers side windshield support opposed to painting it and I can still see minor indents in the paint. The hood also already has a small chip which is crazy after only a few weeks of being freshly painted. I mentioned these things so in addition to re-aligning panels, they have some paint work to do. Hoping they re-spray the entire hood since on the first bring back to resolve what looked like dirt in the paint they wet sanded the hell out of the paint which I think was dumb. It was shiny, but nervous about the longevity of the paint, and where did those dirt specs go? It also looked blotchy under florescent light at certain angles, I forget what the word for this is but I believe its from not letting layers of primer/paint dry enough between coats.

Car goes back in next Tuesday. I need to look it over good when I pick it up, trust is gone.

The chip isn't their fault. The misaligned panels however are.

I think it was part of their prep work. After 4.5 years my hood had no paint chips at all. Possibly coincidental, but suspect to me. It was actually a surface crack/blemish in the paint that I nicked with my finger nail that turned into a small chip. It's literally 1-2mm, but it's a chip.

I think this is finally done. In my 2nd bring-back (2 weeks ago) I initially asked them to just fix up the fender gaps/hood gap and a part of over-spray that was not done correctly the first time I brought it back. After dropping the car off I ended up sending an email asking them to repaint the hood since the car should look nearly new when leaving the shop (the painted parts at least) and I knew I'd be disappointed forever if it was not corrected...I even offered them money for parts & labor. I heard nothing back from them after sending that email. 1.5 weeks later my claim adjuster leaves me a voicemail and said an appraiser is going out to take a look at the car and asked me for specifics about what was wrong; I explained and sent her a ton of pictures. I wasn't sure if he was trying to get more money or to deny fixing it or what. Today I get a call that the car is done and he tells me they took everything apart and fixed all gaps and repainted everything (hood, bumper cover, fenders) which I was not expecting. I get there and the car looks awesome and the owner was super cool about it.

I think he realized through this that his quality control is going downhill and he is going to work on how they handle things better. He was really apologetic and cool about it. So glad I pushed to have this stuff corrected. I will post some pics when temps are half decent.