When it rains, it pours and I'm not talking Weather

[Xerious]

(Abridged Version)

I bought my car, but it came with a small door ding off of the truck. The dealer provided a due bill to repair it and I made an appointment to have it done. I take it the dealer and it's repaired with no issues, it looked brand new. While picking up my car in the receiving area, someone apparently bumped into the rear of my car. It happened before I even got to the car. The dealership apologizes and offers to have it repaired at one of their local body shops. I knew the local body shop as I had issues with them in the past with my BMW. They do shoddy work and are all about volume and quick turnaround. I didn't want them working on my car but the dealership had no other options.

I drop the car off for repair and returned a few days later to pick it up. As expected, shoddy work. There was slight hazing in the area where they fixed the dents from the impact, ripples on the seams where the bumper meets the fender, the whole trunk was soaked with water, and bumper alignment was off. I complained to the dealer and the body shop and now they're ordering me a new bumper to be painted and installed by a different body shop (more reputable but keeping my fingers crossed).



[rant]
I bought my 2014 Asphalt FR-S Monogram 6MT from the dealer on 2/23/14. I had originally gone in to look at a FireStorm or Whiteout until it happened. I saw an Asphalt FR-S being unloaded from the truck and it was love at first sight. It was not clean and needed to be prepped but I saw what I wanted. I didn't plan to buy a car that day but immediately changed my mind when I saw my car for the first time.

At first the salesman told me that the car was probably a customer order because he didn't see many of the Asphalts on the lot. He was trying to push me into buying the FireStorm with the TRD package because it cost more. Little did he know that the Asphalt was the Monogram series so the price was actually the same. The other bit of good news was that it was not a customer pre-order. It only had 5 miles on the oDo.

Now that I found my car, they had to hurry and go through the whole dealer prep thing. As I finished signing my paperwork with finance, the salesman grabbed me and took me to the car. Holy Cow, the car looked even more amazing when clean and detailed. It was a bright sunny day so I could see the silver metallic shine through the dark color. I knew I made the right choice. As I made my way around the car admiring this beauty, I noticed one small problem. There was a door ding the size of my pinky nail. It wasn't bad and it didn't scratch the paint. The salesman told me it was no problem and wrote up a due bill to have it repaired at my convenience. I was thinking great no problem.

I made an appointment to have the door ding repaired and within an hour they were done. Needless to say, they did the job well and I couldn't even tell where the original door ding was. As I made my way around, something caught my eye on the rear bumper. When I took a closer look, someone in the pickup area decided to kiss my rear bumper with their Prius (they must have had a lot of hate for my sportscar). I guessed it was a Prius because there were so many of them in for service that day. I ended up with two small indentations of the front bolts that held their front license plate.

The dealership covered the damage without issue and sent my car to their local body shop. Unfortunately, it was the same body shop that worked on my BMW and I had problems with. I had to go back to them 4 times to fix, replace, or repair their work. I had told the dealership about my reservations about using this body shop but that was the only option.

I made an appointment to drop my car off at the dealership and pick up my FR-S Silver Ignition loaner car. It was actually nice to drive an automatic to compare the difference between my 6MT. I knew that going with the 6MT was the right choice. It just seemed a lot more responsive.

A few days later I get a call form the dealership that my car was ready for pickup. I get there and inspect the car. I noticed that there was a lot of hazing in the area where the repair was done. I also notice that there were a lot of ripples on both sides of the bumper seams where it meets the rear fenders. To top it all off, the bumper alignment was off slightly as I had a gap on the left side near the trunk. This area was also flexing and was not solid like the right side. I'm thinking OMG not this crap again.

I call the service advisor over and he looks at and sees all of the problems. He makes a note and tries to call someone from the body shop to come over to look at it. While he was looking at the adjustment of the bumper, he opens the trunk. Inside, the whole trunk was soaking wet. My trunk mat, the trunk, and even the spare tire were all wet. It had rained the past two days but we couldn't figure out why this was all wet.

The body shop rep was taking too long so the advisor asked if I'd be willing to drive over there to show them. I agreed as they're only 2 miles down the street. I had to drive with my windows down because they started fogging everywhere because of the condensation of water from the trunk.

I get there and they start telling me that this is all normal and that these really aren't issues. They even tried to tell me that was how the car came and that the ripples are found on all FR-Ss. I'm like WTF? Are you kidding me? We argued for about 5 minutes when he finally said that he wanted to make me happy and that he'd take pictures and talk to the dealership.

I speak to the dealership and tell them that I don't want this body shop working on my car. I told them that I wanted a new bumper and a different body shop to paint and install. They actually agreed quickly as they saw the issues first hand. So now I'm waiting for the call for my new bumper and waiting to take it to the new body shop.

One of the reasons that the dealership had no issues with my claims (in regards to the ripples) was this picture I sent them that I took about a week earlier. You can see there are no ripples between the seams where the bumper and rear fender meet.
[/rant]

[tahdizzle]

I was hoping for some gentlemen club stories.

[Cycotech]

I hope they fix your car and everything runs smoothly. BTW Nice rims! Does the wheel rub the fender when the car is lowered?

[Xerious]

Originally Posted by Cycotech

I hope they fix your car and everything runs smoothly. BTW Nice rims! Does the wheel rub the fender when the car is lowered?

Nope not all. I already had two adults, two kids, a full trunk and had no issues.

[Xerious]

Originally Posted by tahdizzle

I was hoping for some gentlemen club stories.

I wish it was that rather than the BS I'm dealing with. I hope the new bumper color matches well.

[wheelhaus]

Holy wall of text. Might want to add a TLDR.

At least the dealership is being supportive. F'n hacks at the body shop apparently.

[Cockatoo]

As a fellow new owner I feel for you man... This kind of stuff is never as easy as it should be.