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Sadens me to hear of tales like this but it only remonds me why I struggle on trying to do everything myself. I can look at it and say "thats a half assed job" but when it comes down to it thats a half assed job that cost me only the parts/time/materials, and I've seen people pay professionals serious money to do the same or worse.
Theres a guy in the Mopar club spent £15K on paint & body on his Charger and they are treating him like a chump and the job is not progressing, they've had the car a year now! So theres some right PITA peole out there.
The thing is, and this is IN NO WAY a defense of the arsonist welder or anything like that, but we can be our own worst enemies. You take your car for a respray quote and the guy says to do all the body and paint will be £6000. You run away laughing. You get another quote for £600 and it seems very reasonable. Then the car comes back looking like ass. You have to wonder if the £6K price is a rip off or the real cost of doing the job right... A professional body shop with the proper compliant booths etc. is going to have to charge £50 an hour easy, if not more. A mate in the trade uses a place who charge him £80 an hour trade rate! But they are good and the service is good too. Add up the cost of paint, materials, consumables, etc. and before you know it you are well into 4 figures to prep and paint a car that doesn't even need a lot of work on it.
I was looking at a Wolesley 16/60 a while back, all good except sills. I fancied it on the road "right now" as a driver not as a project so I asked around about getting the sills done. Theres a mobile welder saying £50 a side and then my mate who runs the MOT station says £300 to you as a mate, assuming theres nothing else we find when we get into it. Now maybe the mobile guy has lower overheads and all but my mate reckoned to put that "right, properly" was 10 hours labour and he knows Farinas.
I've been burnt by people not doing what I expected for the money I was paying.
The only thing I can suggest is you agree in writing up front a quote and that details exactly what is included and what guarantee is included on their body repairs and paintwork. Make sure they stick to it. Should cover you. ANy one who won't give written quites and guarantees isn;t worth bothering with. You may as well go burn your money. The road to hell comes ith the cash in hand gentlemens agreement. Even with the best will from both sides you can have a misunderstanding about whats being done and to what standard.
Also always go on RECENT recomendation. Charlies Body Repairs did me a great job in 1986 is no guarantee they aren't a bunch of cowboys now.
I had a great job done by a specialist on a Victor I had, ast paint job I paid for (1994 that was) and we asked a lot of questions up front, even like "what fiish do you want on the bulkhead, should the lower bulkhead be painted or stonechipped, are we hanging the doors back on or are you, etc etc. Even then there were bits I wasn't happy with (boot floor, I'd assumed they'd do things different to what they did). But for £1700 even in 1994 you don't get a full concours job.
I never came across anyone who was very successful dealing with a bodyshop in claims. They aregue that "you get what you pay for" and "what you paid for was a cheap quick job we did". With nothing in writing and a beak who's not into old cars you have a fight on. The setting it on fire bit you probably should get compensation for but even then I bet you get about £20 for a seat or something. They'll argue thats what they cost at the scrappers or say they were all worn out anyway.
I'd be "moving on". If you can get something done and some money back then thats great but don;t let it take over your life and don't let it "taint" the car for you.
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1941 Wolseley Not Rod - 1956 Humber Hawk - 1957 Daimler Conquest - 1966 Buick LeSabre - 1968 Plymouth Sport Fury - 1968 Ford Galaxie - 1969 Ford Country Squire - 1969 Mercury Marquis - 1970 Morris Minor - 1970 Buick Skylark - 1970 Ford Galaxie - 1971 Ford Galaxie - 1976 Continental Mark IV - 1976 Ford Capri - 1994 Ford Fiesta
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MWF
Posted a lot
Posts: 2,945
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I'd certainly be moving on too.
I know of a chap with a 306 who fell our with a local garage over the maintenance of his car. Started with legal action, ended with paint stripper all over his car one morning.
Sadly you have to sometimes accept that there's people out there willing to go a step lower than yourself to get revenge.
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bstardchild
Club Retro Rides Member
Posts: 14,962
Club RR Member Number: 71
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This is what a "master craftsman" as far as Lotus Carltons goes did for a ABS club member. He had the car and a wod load of money and after 3 years the owner finally snatched the car back. Caution the pictures are not pretty www.btinternet.com/~collonense/Lotustype104/Lotus803yrs/ Please bear in mind it was a running car that went in for a tidy up and some minor defect rectification. Several parts were "lost" and the car was eventually broken for spares as it wasn't a viable restoration due to the missing parts!!! |
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could we not start a list people to avoid and a list of worthwhile checking out? it would have to be based on personal recomendations only,so no come back on RR or the person who posted it,it may just save others making a big mistake.whadya reckon?  |
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Difficult to publish a black list without openning the door for deformation suit against the admionistrators of RR.
Recommended suppliers or services is a good idea.
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1941 Wolseley Not Rod - 1956 Humber Hawk - 1957 Daimler Conquest - 1966 Buick LeSabre - 1968 Plymouth Sport Fury - 1968 Ford Galaxie - 1969 Ford Country Squire - 1969 Mercury Marquis - 1970 Morris Minor - 1970 Buick Skylark - 1970 Ford Galaxie - 1971 Ford Galaxie - 1976 Continental Mark IV - 1976 Ford Capri - 1994 Ford Fiesta
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My mother had a car that went to an expert for restoration. The expert treated the car in the same way as the Lotus Carlton above. My mother took him to court and bankrupted him. But it took ages, cost a bit in legal fees and was over a disputed £10k in fees.
Walk away.
Charlie
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Thats a complete bodge job I reackon my welding is better than that!
Hope the F**KER get life, W**KER!
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Last Edit: Jan 5, 2007 12:36:06 GMT by Robinxr4i
Sierra - here we go again! He has an illness, it's not his fault.
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searched extensively but cant find the long post i made about my estelle, the one that spent 4months at a 'reputable' garage to return non running, and out of pocket £700 +transport costs to get it there and back, and being treated like a fool and messed around severely. no evidence as with all garages to enable me to claim but I'm still (if i ever bother) going to report the entire incident to trading standards. not a leg to stand on court-wise, no quote, no agreed work, NOTHING in writing except for a receipt...
really really feel for your brother, and hope you have some proper luck. you'll have help in that its a valuable mk2 scrote, whereas i had a badly painted engineless '89 skoda.
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SS, I'd forgotten about your Skoda, that's a really sad tale. Haven't been able to get hold of Matt today to see how he's got on with Trading Standards. TBH he hadn't agreed a timescale and of course there's nothing in writing saying what work was supposed to be done or to what standard so any court case would have to be based on common sense. As AK said, this is the reason for me trying to learn welding and bodywork for myself..... My cars will never be perfect but, hey, that'll be my own fault! |
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My fleet:
Suzuki GSX-R600Y SRAD with bald, melted tyres
A borrowed Mondeo
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My tale of woe....
My wife had a Mini, and it was mint. One day it was hit from behind by a transit van. The damage was minimal. I was quite impressed. Em ended up with a week off work with whiplash but the car was not seriously damaged at all. The bumper was crushed, the boot lid dented and the rear valance had a crease and one tail light was broken on the lens.
A mate in the trade reckoned a day to bump it all straight, a nerw bumper and spray it all from seam to seam across the back would put it right. £300 I think he said, 2-3 days we'd need it...
ANyway the insurance insisted they had to go through the local Rover main dealer for the repair. I agreed, after all, you don't get a shoddy job that way, do you...
Well, they ended up with the car for nearly 3 months and in that time the MOT had expired so I asked them to MOT it for me. They produced a huge fail list of trivial things I knew wasn;t wrong with the car. So I got my mate to go pick it p so he could MOT it and drop it back to us.
There was a small amount of rust in the boot floor up by the rear vallance so I agreed with the insurers that I would pay for this repairing as it wasn't accident damage.
I got a phone call the next day. "Have you seen this car?"
The back end was a different colour to the front, it was orange peel city and there was overspray on the glass all over. The decals and stripes had not been replaced. Even better when it was MOT'd the Rover main agent had failed to notice the following defects: rear radius arm worn dangerously to excess, rear wheel bearing noisey and rough, two front subframe mounts were gone and even better, here's the clincher - when they removed the rear subframe to weld in the rear vallance they had forgotten to bolt it back in and it was just resting under the car... To cap it off they lost our CD changer and the repairs to the boot floor had distorted to boot floor panel so it "kerplinked" when you pressed it...
I'd I'd have accepted thier MOT (new wiper blades, new brake lines, the usual tat) then my wife would havebeen driving round in a lethal death trap.
Jesus - you know what I'm like for having the anger - well, that Rover dealer got both barrels. I complained to the insurer and they told me that they were "reviewing their arangement with the garage" in light of the engineers report I had on the car. I called VOSA and they were suitably horrified and said they'd be sending "secret customers" to the garage for MOT tests to check out their standards of testing.
I had them re-reapry the car, clean it up properly, re-refit the boot floor and a bunch of other stuff.
The only "compensation" I got out of them was that they knocked the £50 MOT fee off my bill and touched up a few stone chips etc on the fromnt of the car for me for free (which I have to admit they did well).
However even when we got the car bak they'd not fitted one of the tail lights correctly, got paint on the headliner and haddent put that or the carpet back in properly. They found the CD changer after I said I was calling the cops for theft LOL.
I really went off the deep end over that.
But I never shouted and I never swore. Quite proud of that.
Joke is they sent a letter 6 weeks later saying "dear sir, you recently had some work done t our garage could you please give us some feedback on how this went" LOL, they got an essay...
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1941 Wolseley Not Rod - 1956 Humber Hawk - 1957 Daimler Conquest - 1966 Buick LeSabre - 1968 Plymouth Sport Fury - 1968 Ford Galaxie - 1969 Ford Country Squire - 1969 Mercury Marquis - 1970 Morris Minor - 1970 Buick Skylark - 1970 Ford Galaxie - 1971 Ford Galaxie - 1976 Continental Mark IV - 1976 Ford Capri - 1994 Ford Fiesta
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bstardchild
Club Retro Rides Member
Posts: 14,962
Club RR Member Number: 71
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Joke is they sent a letter 6 weeks later saying "dear sir, you recently had some work done t our garage could you please give us some feedback on how this went" LOL, they got an essay... I love it when that happens PS the rest of the tale was shocking - I would have resorted to bad language..... |
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Its a shame you have to give yourself a hernia to get treated fairly by some places. Many people not car minded would have just bent over and accepted what they recieved back from the garage. Sad state of affairs. I'm learning to weld and spray after reading all of this!!
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1987 Maestro 1.6 HL perkins diesel conversion 1986 Audi 100 Avant 1800cc on LPG 1979 Allegro Series 2 special 4 door 1500cc with vynil roof. IN BITS. HERITAGE ISSUES.  |
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Joke is they sent a letter 6 weeks later saying "dear sir, you recently had some work done t our garage could you please give us some feedback on how this went" LOL, they got an essay... I love it when that happens PS the rest of the tale was shocking - I would have resorted to bad language..... Funny that, Similar reason is why I still have my phone contract. string of argumetitive team leaders condradicting my new agreement Complaint letter and cancellation notice written and in envelope with stamp. auto text appears! WTF, just for the sheer hell of it I called up the texts number and got without argument off a nice young lady what I was originally promised!   she was flumaxed all she had to do was deliver what was agreed and they had me for 12 months- too easy! I know its O/T but its a minefield out there. careful choosing companies, theres plenty competition.  |
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 it doesn't matter if it's a Morris Marina or a Toyota Celica - it's what you do with it that counts  |
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qwerty
Club Retro Rides Member
Posts: 2,417
Club RR Member Number: 52
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I don't know if swearin helps.
I find starting off calm and polite then getting more and more "firm" works.
Also if its a garage and they won't do stuff for you stand in the forcourt and warn people away from them.
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Probably the reason I wasn't resolting to swearing and shouting was its a large company and the guy I was dealing with was a "body shop custmer executive" or some such job title. He hadn't bvggered upt he paint work, he hadn't left the subframe bolts out, he hadn't done the dodgey welding. Several other incompetant peole had done that.
Creating bad air doesn't help. Telling them firmly you'll send an independant engineers report to VOSA, Rover, VBRA, the local paper, trading standards, Watchdog and anyone else you can think of... If there are enough complains to the manufacturer a main dealer can lose their franchise. Complaints to VOSA will result in heat on the garage and possible withdrawal of their licence to perform MOTs, etc etc. Also helps if you tell them what you expect firmly and clearly. EG - you are taking the car back, you are providing me with a courtesy car, you are repairing the car to pre-accident conditionand I reserve the right to an independant engineer's report before I accept it back off you". (and when he said "I'll see if theres a courtesy car available" I simply said "If theres not I suggest you look on the used car lot or the new car demonstrators. I'm not leaving without a car".) Don't ask for stuff you're not entitled to but don't settle for being fobbed off...
Sadly dealing with one man bands, small family firms, etc. isn;t so easy. If they want to be chestnuts to you they will and they can get big & ugly on your ass. Thats when I'd have difficulty not swearing & losing it. And thats when it would help even less.
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Last Edit: Jan 5, 2007 15:13:44 GMT by akku
1941 Wolseley Not Rod - 1956 Humber Hawk - 1957 Daimler Conquest - 1966 Buick LeSabre - 1968 Plymouth Sport Fury - 1968 Ford Galaxie - 1969 Ford Country Squire - 1969 Mercury Marquis - 1970 Morris Minor - 1970 Buick Skylark - 1970 Ford Galaxie - 1971 Ford Galaxie - 1976 Continental Mark IV - 1976 Ford Capri - 1994 Ford Fiesta
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good man AK, when i was working at a BIG dealership near me I worked beside the service manager. He got constant abuse by some people and sometimes people understood it wasn't his fault, luckily I worked for a reputable place and we did what we could in terms of courtesy cars etc.
unfortunately when I got involved in that side of things, I had to tell someone who'd left their huge tyrannosaurus-jeep in for extensive repairs that we couldn't give them a bigger vehicle for their holidays than a mazda 2.
as far as the estelle was concerned it took ages for them to do nothing and i couldnt get it back without a fight. i told him id be off to the solicitor etc but he said go on then. i desperately wanted the car away from their hands and went 100% broke on it at the time, it was a 2 weeks and £400 quote. charged labour at 'trade' rates 'without VAT' and without adding 'due hours' over the 25 on it already. For an experienced 50yr old mechanic to take 25yrs on a skoda engine and 'box is... well,... and had to pay for stuff like clutch (one i left up was 'bad', and radiator, they busted the one i left up)
damn i am so frickin mad. thanks you guys!
lol
good job I'm not violent or prone to blasphemous outbursts. managed to keep the screamin match civil like.
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One of the best ways of getting info out of someone you want to hang is to talk calmly and quietly to them, even if they are being ringpieces, and eventually they will land themselves in it....especially if you happen to have a 'disinterested mate' with you as a witness....I used a Special Constable when someone eff'd the gearbox in my Marina Special up (fitted a cut-down circlip instead of a spring clip to hold 2/3rd gear clusters in.....Got all the spares and a refund for that, then rebuilt the bloody thing myself!)
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Rover Metro - The TARDIS - brake problems.....Stored
Rover 75 - Barge
MGZTT Cdti 160+ - Winter Hack and Audi botherer...
MGF - The Golden Shot...Stored
Project Minion........
Can you see the theme?
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It's really disappointing to see how many people have similar stories. I'll keep everyone informed of how we get on..... I shall be buying the domain name today! ;D Don't forget to get the .com and the .co.uk www.123-reg.co.uk/ are pretty much the cheapest around for domains and hosting. I use them for most of my sites. If you need a quick site doing give me a shout. No charge for this naturally... |
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Panda Matt
Part of things
Datsun Owners Club Wannabe
Posts: 734
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Any update on this? Where's the name and shame website? |
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Well, Matt heard from the "repairer" today.... He says, basically, that he doesn't give a sh1t, the welding is MOT standard, he's prepared to "finish it off" (whatever that means!), and supply an interior. Should have his letter of reply tomorrow or wednesday... Spacekadett (one of my other brothers) is an MOT tester and his opinion is that he wouldn't test a car where you can get your hand through a hole in the sill that's supposedly repaired... I *think* we're going to go the "give up waiting for money" route, and get the website up shortly - it's all in hand! Either way, looks like I'll be seeing the muppet in court. It's just a matter of who the defendant is - him or me! ;D |
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My fleet:
Suzuki GSX-R600Y SRAD with bald, melted tyres
A borrowed Mondeo
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