# Bad Insurance Repair!!!



## fatdazza (Dec 29, 2010)

Ok,

thought I would share this with you:

A fortnight ago, an 40 tonner overtaking me on a local infamous dual carriageway, decided he wanted to be in my lane, while I was still there! Front of his cab hit my offside rear quarter and gave the rear and a fair old wobble :doublesho

Damage not too bad considering how it could have turned out. The driver had the cheek to accuse me of driving in his blindspot, when he was over taking me!

Damage was dented and scratched rear wing, and bumper together with a scuffed rear wheel face.

Damage to mine:








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Damage to his:


So insurance company arrange for repair and on Thursday I get the car back.

Well, to say I'm disappointed with the quality of the work is an understatement.

The painting of the wheel face missed one of the spokes of the alloys and looks terrible.

The have filled and painted the rear wing, painted the rear passenger door to "blend it in", and filled and painted the bumper.

The orange peel on the door is unbelievable :



There are half a dozen "blemishes" in the paint (difficult to photo) but look like a piece of dirt / dust was under the paint:



The "polishing" is terrible with several large dull patches:



Pronounced line on wing where it meets with bumper



And finally (although no pictures) there is a overspray of primer on the rear wing door shut, and a clearly visible masking line down the rear wing doorshut.

When I took delivery of the car I wrote on the delivery sheet that I was not satisfied with the quality of the repair, and on Friday had a call from the manager of the bodyshop. Took it in to show him the faults this morning and he agreed they were not acceptable. They are collecting the car on Wednesday for another go. Hopefully they now have me down as one of those "picky individuals" and will make sure the next attempt is much better.

I will update this thread when I get it back.

This was from a bodyshop that claims to be "East Anglia's leading body repair specialist" (taken direct from their website).

Let's see if they can do a better job this time.


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## MDC250 (Jan 4, 2014)

Galling, hope like you say they do a decent job 2nd time round.


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## Sicskate (Oct 3, 2012)

I'd be annoyed about the wheel. 

Otherwise I think I'd just tidy the rest up myself. 

Hopefully they sort it out for you


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## fatdazza (Dec 29, 2010)

Sicskate said:


> I'd be annoyed about the wheel.
> 
> Otherwise I think I'd just tidy the rest up myself.
> 
> Hopefully they sort it out for you


Quite happy to get the flex out and give it a tickle, but not happy dealing with the blemishes in the paint.(where the dust / dirt particles seems to be under the paint). Also I suspect the marking line on the door shut might need wet sanding (something I have never done, so a bit cautious there)

I fully expect to have to give it a further polish when I get it back, but didn't want to give them an opportunity to say that I had caused anything by touching it myself.


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## luke_270 (Jan 30, 2015)

wouldnt hold your breath mate, took them 3 goes on mine before i had enough and arranged with the insurance that i would send it to another garage as it was a terrible finish, it now looks better than new!


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## m4rkymark (Aug 17, 2014)

Agree with Luke, don't hold your breath. Ours went back 3 times and it still wasn't right but we were so fed up by then we gave up and sold the car.


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## luke_270 (Jan 30, 2015)

m4rkymark said:


> Agree with Luke, don't hold your breath. Ours went back 3 times and it still wasn't right but we were so fed up by then we gave up and sold the car.


problem with insurance garages is that they try to do it all as fast and cheaply as possible to make more money, as soon as i arranged the repair they took their time and it came back perfect! just alot of hassle for the sake of a deep scratch after it got broke into


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## squiggs (Oct 19, 2009)

luke_270 said:


> problem with insurance garages is that they try to do it all as fast and cheaply as possible to make more money, as soon as i arranged the repair they took their time and it came back perfect! just alot of hassle for the sake of a deep scratch after it got broke into


Whilst I agree that most insurance jobs are done quickly and cheaply - I disagree that it's always a case of the garage trying to make more money.
Insurance companies tell the repairing garage what will need to be done and how long it will take and they pay the repairing garage based on their calculations.
The insurance companies usual practice is to under estimate the amount of hours required to turnout a decent job therefore the garage has to rush the job just to break even.

It's the complete opposite of when we take our car into a garage for work to be done.
As a silly example - if we took our car in for let's say a wheel to be changed. We might get a bill stating it was 30 mins labour, cost £40. In reality the job takes 15 mins. But an insurance company might tell the garage that a wheel change can be done in 7.5 mins and therefore we will only pay you £10 to do it.


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## JCoxy (Dec 21, 2011)

Also live in East Anglia, must of been taken to Gladwins/Nationwide? I'm wanting to get into the body repair game and I agree this is unacceptable but the insurance companies can be such *******s to the garages and they rush it.


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## m4rkymark (Aug 17, 2014)

Agree with squiggs, insurance companies screw body shops to the ground and give them as little as possible for their repairs. A friend who works in the game reckons the insurance company only give them £10ph labour rate.


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## ted11 (Jul 8, 2011)

We all get it wrong at some point, give them a second chance to see what happens.


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## fatdazza (Dec 29, 2010)

ted11 said:


> We all get it wrong at some point, give them a second chance to see what happens.


I do agree with you and am willing to allow them a second chance. I was perfectly reasonable with them when raising the faults and to their credit the manager I spoke to did not disagree and at no point suggested I was expecting too much. That said, I think the quality of the job was pretty poor, and perhaps does not say much about their quality control. A couple of the faults were clearly visible in dull light, to the extent that they were pointed out by my good lady when I asked her what she thought (without any prompting by me).

Here's hoping this does not end up in a long running saga.


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## Graeme1 (Dec 9, 2006)

m4rkymark said:


> Agree with squiggs, insurance companies screw body shops to the ground and give them as little as possible for their repairs. A friend who works in the game reckons the insurance company only give them £10ph labour rate.


The average over all the insurance companies is £28ph so unfortunately your friend is miss imformed.

It's a funny old world the insurance body shop game. Depends what tier body shop you are. If the job is completed quicker then they will get paid more per hour. It's what is called key to key time. The better average you have the better rate you will be paid.

The fact the op car has been handed back once means that will count as there k2k time. Comebacks don't count to it.

Also bodyshops will repair everything they can. Even if they get say 15% discount on parts. Insurance companies ask for a cut of that. Some even go over the discount rate the bs will get so you end up paying them for the part essentially.

P.S. I would never go to there recommend bs. Also research your own and don't let them force you.


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## AMD (Dec 30, 2012)

I had a Merc back 3 times to our local insurance body shop, they mopped the bonnet and cut through the clearcoat on the wing. I wouldn't send a scrap car there now. 


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk


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## luke_270 (Jan 30, 2015)

AMD said:


> I had a Merc back 3 times to our local insurance body shop, they mopped the bonnet and cut through the clearcoat on the wing. I wouldn't send a scrap car there now.
> 
> Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk


think theyre all the same! mine was orange peel and rear quarter had a dull spot where they cut through clearcoat so sent it back, recieved it again had a even bigger dull spot on door sent it back again then come back with raised edges all down the door so sent it somewhere else, nightmare


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## enc (Jan 25, 2006)

Interested to see the outcome of this. 
Good luck to you


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## Scoobycarl (Aug 13, 2011)

I run my own shop and pride myself on putting a little more effort in polishing stage IE i only use 3m 2000 grit flatting paper followed by 3000 trizact then megs 105 and finish with 205 and my jobs arent too dirty to start with ! Its hard to put this much effort on to each job especially as im a one man band but some shops follow a good repair with poor paint finish and its this that the customers sees first really ! 
Dull spots are from where the fresh clear has been sanded and polished and then when washed the flatting marks return as its not been polished enough ! Usually as the compound they use has fillers which masks the flatting marks and appears polished but isnt !


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## subarufreak (Oct 20, 2013)

squiggs said:


> Whilst I agree that most insurance jobs are done quickly and cheaply - I disagree that it's always a case of the garage trying to make more money.
> Insurance companies tell the repairing garage what will need to be done and how long it will take and they pay the repairing garage based on their calculations.
> The insurance companies usual practice is to under estimate the amount of hours required to turnout a decent job therefore the garage has to rush the job just to break even.
> 
> ...


+1
hope it all works out for you


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## fatdazza (Dec 29, 2010)

*Update - you couldn't make it up!*

Well, to update the thread:

Phone call from the bodyshop yesterday, car would be delivered to my work today. 4pm get a call from reception to say my car had arrived. I walked out of the front of the office as the delivery driver took my car off of the transporter and parked it.

The first thing I saw was the front bumper now has a large scrape down it running top to bottom with a largish chip (about 5mm square). The scrape and chip are so obvious showing the white (not sure if it is the base plastic or primer coat) against the black paint.

I said to the driver "what on earth is that" to which he replied "I take it that wasn't there before?" Well damn right it wasn't there before! I am so glad that both times they collected the car they completed a thorough inspection and gave me a copy of the inspection report each time. There will be no argument about it not being their fault thankfully.

So once over the "shock" of them damaging my car, I then had a quick look at the re worked repair (rear bumper, wing and rear door). The quality of the painting and polishing looked pretty good and to be honest I would have accepted it, but OMG! - They have put a dent in the rear door! Not a large dent, probably only a dink just smaller than a 5p piece, but again on a polished black door, it stands out like a sore thumb.

I showed this to the driver, who agreed it was a dent, and was very apologetic and loaded it back on to his truck.

It should be an interesting conversation with the body shop tomorrow


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## MDC250 (Jan 4, 2014)

Jeez dude you are not having much luck here are you?

Once is just about understandable, twice is careless


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## GaryxG (Sep 8, 2010)

You have my complete and utter sympathy.

I have used 4 bodyshops over the last few years and only one of them was capable of doing a job that was acceptable. One of them caused more damage to my car - paint on the steering wheel, which they removed with paint thinners and took the finish off the steering wheel!

In general based on my experience and from what I see on various forums it is very much the exception to get a decent job done at a bodyshop.

I would certainly take my car to KDS in Kent who do detailing and bodywork but sadly I am about 6 hours away from them.


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## m0bov (May 2, 2007)

Best get it away from the monkeys, two strikes your out!


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## Cookies (Dec 10, 2008)

Good grief chum that's incredible. 

I hope you get sorted.

Btw - did they at least get rid of the red arrow and big odd shaped red circles? They look horrendous 😁😁😁

Cooks


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## fatdazza (Dec 29, 2010)

Cookies said:


> Good grief chum that's incredible.
> 
> I hope you get sorted.
> 
> ...


I could live with the red stuff as that will polish out 

Hopefully should get it back this week


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