[flashburn]

So about a month ago I had my car shipped using Accelerated Services. I made a few mistakes, so I'm hoping others can learn from them.

I had decided that I'd rather not have the dealer wash my car before hand because I didn't want to have to do paint correction as soon as I take delivery of a new car. My car arrived in the pitch dark at around 8:30PM (they were about 12 hours late). Because of the fact that it sat in and went through some horrible weather, and because I asked for no wash, it was extremely filthy, so I could only do so much to look over the car before signing for delivery. The next morning, as I started washing the car, I noticed couple giant gobs of grey paint (around 1/2" maybe) on a few spots of the car. I tried just wiping it off at first, before I realized it was paint. I did my best to clean the car, and as I did, I started noticing that every single panel of the car had drops of paint all over it. Most of them were extremely small specks, but occasionally there would be bigger spots. Literally hundreds of specks. So I finished washing the car, pulled it in the garage, and figured I'd start working on removing them.

On top of this, I also noticed fine scratches on almost every panel of the car as well! After I found both of these discoveries I contacted the salesman to inform him of the issues. The salesman told me that the scratches are "normal" for a new car they receive, and that if they washed it, they would of seen it and polished... gee it would of been great if he told me that BEFORE hand. Whatever, I've never seen that when buying a new car before. He told me to contact Accelerated Services right away, which I then did (and had to leave a message). So anyway, I went on with trying to clean up my car.

First thing I tried was a mild polish + porter cable. This unfortunately did absolutely nothing to the paint specks. Next I bumped it up to using Goo-Gone, which was working, but was taking a bit too much elbow grease, as it would've taken me days to remove it all. Finally acetone-free nail polish remover did the job. I was in a race against time however, as later that day I had an appointment to have a clear bra installed. In total I spent about 3 hours working on just the front of the car (basically where I was having the clear bra installed).

So my clear bra guy gets here, I tell him about the issue, and he brings in his super bright lights and we start looking, and of course there are spots I missed. So he pulls out this cleaning solution for cars to remove gunk, and it worked like a dream. He spends an hour or so cleaning it, and unfortunately after putting the clear bra on, he starts noticing some really small spots that are now noticeable after being magnified by the clear bra. Unfortunately at this point, it's too late, you can't remove it and re-install, you'd have to get new film.

So finally a day or two goes by, and I'm able to speak with someone at Accelerated about this issue. I give them basically the entire story above, and sent them a bunch of pictures. At this point, I told them, I just wanted to be compensated for the cost of the clear bra being redone (~$700). They told me they would start their investigation and get back to me.

* Funny Side Story *
So when I'm talking to their claims guy, he asks if the driver who brought the car to Georgia to hand off to the guys who delivered it to me can give me a call, because he lives near by and wanted to take a look. Against my better judgement I agreed to this. So I get a call about 30 minutes later from the driver, and the first thing he does (literally, the first sentence) was tell me how this is his first week (or maybe month) on the job, and that they will make him pay for any damages that occurred. He was hoping I lived closer to him, so he could come over to my house and "use some polishing compound" on my car to remove it. Luckily, he actually lived 4-5 hours away, so that wasn't going to happen. I sat on the phone nicely with him for 30 minutes while he kept apologizing and saying how careful he was with the car to make sure nothing happened to it. The whole thing was just so awkward.
* End of Side Story *

Finally a week goes by, and I get an email from their claims manager, who tells me that it was the clear bra installers responsibility to make sure that the surface of the car was clean before installing and that the car wasn't prepped properly. They said they would give me a $150 "goodwill" check but offered no apologies or admittance to any responsibility. My argument of course is that it shouldn't be expected that a new car has paint specks all over it and it wasn't simply a matter of a car that needed to be washed better. They basically told me "tough luck" and the $150 "good will" was all they could offer me. I begrudgingly accepted it, because at this point, I just wanted to move on from this frustration.

So I'm hoping if anyone took the time to read this ridiculously long story, they got from it the following things:
1. If you're getting a car shipped, you might be better off having it washed first. Hard to say how much of the filth was there before it left on the truck.
2. When you accept a car, make sure it's in the day time where you can METICULOUSLY go over the entire car before signing for it.
3. If you go with Accelerated Services, be prepared for them not to take responsibility for anything that happens to your car, especially if you don't notice it until after you sign for it.

Anyway, that was my fun "new car" experience. Luckily the buying process couldn't of been easier, but I think for me, this might be my last time buying a car and having to deal with it getting shipped in.