SVO body shop updates

[79'293stang]

4k for the job, more than 7k counting all the parts.

[wolfinger]

Oh Hell No !! I Would Have Someones Head On A Plate!! Either That Or If They Refused To Fix It I Would Drive It Through The Front Door And Say My Foot Slipped! What Are They Gonna Do? Fix It?

[wraithracing]

Sorry to hear about the issues with the paint and the car. I would definitely make them fix the issues. The quality of work doesn't match the price they charged for it. As a former shop owner, you need to be polite, but direct as to what the issues are and what you want done to correct the problems. I won't comment on the rag joint and electrical issues since I don't know all the information. As to the paint job, these are specific and identifiable. You need to take photos of everything (in excellent lighting too!) that needs attention. Document everything and then type up a letter with these items and how you want them addressed. This should be sent to the shop by certified mail with signed delivery confirmation. Allow the shop a few days to 1 week after receiving it to respond to you. If they don't, then contact them directly again politely and in a business manner. Allow them to tell you what if anything they want to do. If they refuse to take care of the issues to your satisfaction, then inform them that you feel you have no other options, but to take them to small claims court and contact the BBB. DO NOT THREATEN, just state that is the only option you are left with it they will not address your concerns.

You need to allow the shop the opportunity to fix the issues first even if you would like to take it else where. You took the car to them and agreed to pay them for the work. They should preform the work to a satisfactory condition and be allowed to fix any issues at no additional costs to you. If they are not able or unwilling to fix these issues, then you have every right to get your money back and take the car else where.

Good Luck with this! Again remember this is a business transaction and although you are emotionally involved, emotions have nothing to do with it. Be polite, logical, ethical, and reasonable. If you do this and they respond in kind you will work this out. If they do not, then you do what you have to do legally to remedy the situation.

Trey

[79'293stang]

I sent all of the photos that I posted in here to the shop. The response was that they sincerely hoped it was not to expensive to buy a new spoiler... The rag joint I am not so mad about, chances are it would have broken eventually due to nature. I was really mad they did not inform me of it, I am assuming it happened from them pushing the car around the shop without starting it. The electrical wiring to my knowledge must have occured while they were troubleshooting some issues with the car. It sat in the shop for 17 months unstarted and unmaintained apparently, they did not even unhook the battery so when they did finally decide to start it they jump started it repeatedly and fried some sensors that they did replace on their dime, but had been under the dash testing wires. There is also a huge story of issues that were going on during the paint process, them being very late on delivery, severe lack of communication, they lost a couple hundred dollars worth of parts that I had to replace at my own cost, etc etc. I kept with them only under the promise that my car would be amazing when I recieved it.

[wraithracing]

I would still recommend follow the advice I gave above about sending a certified letter with pictures and your request for repairs. This will help you down the road if things don't go well with the body shop. You want to document everything in writing and keep records of everything you do such as talking on the phone, who, when, how long, what is discussed etc. If document all of this it will help your case should you have to take them to small claims court. I hope it doesn't come to that, but it is much better to be prepared and ready for that just in case.

As I stated before, if you are reasonable and logical about this you should come out of it just fine. The rag joint and some of the electrical issues are minor issues that are hard to prove and substantiate so I would focus on the paint issues and any other repairs that need to be addressed.

Good Luck!

Trey

[79'293stang]

Yea I agree. I have all of the correspondence between myself and the shop saved into a file with dates. I have been exceedingly accepting of this with the shop when in all honesty I should have went to the BBB months ago over the lost parts that they did not refund me for that I had to purchase a second time on my own dime. Even after LMR sent out the signed shipping receipt proving that the parts had indeed been received by the shop. These issues are just a small drop in the bucket of bad business with this shop, but for 12 months of it I was out of country so there was nothing I could do. The original deal was I dropped my car for them to sand, paint and roll my fenders with 12 month for them to complete. Fenders did not get rolled and my car took them 17 months to finish and it is sub par. I could literally write a book of issues, its absolutely disgusting to think about.

[wraithracing]

I completely understand your frustrations and don't blame you for being pissed! Hopefully you can get the issues addressed and get the SVO finished so you can move on and enjoy it. Good Luck and I hope everything works out for the best!

Trey

[4themasses]

Hope it didn't cost too much if there are issues and your not happy. Great to see someone treatin the SVO with some love!!

[79'293stang]

Yea, I have a lot of plans for this car. Just was hoping to be done with the body portion by now. Next step in the project will be of course making it so I can drive it legally/safely, taking the interior out and restoring the dash, broken wiring under the dash, seats and headliner. After that eventually will be engine compartment.

[KevinK]

Unfortunately, this is a fairly common routine. Wait until the last minute, do what it takes to get it out the door, and maybe have it come back to fix all the mistakes. I don't take my cars to the shop for repairs very often. When I do, they are spotless clean and anything that is not needed stays home. I just don't understand it. They would rather fix it a couple times rather than doing it right the first time. The other unfortunate thing is they expect you to drop off your car for the wait until they get to it. Be patient and follow thru.

This is exactly why my 69 Mustang remains unfinished.

[homer302]

Sorry to hear that. I hate trusting others with my car.

You sound more than capable but if you have any questions about the rag joint, I have some pictures of the rag joint replacement install in my thread in my sig. It takes (at least me) a few hours to do but isn't really hard. I got my kit from NAPA for $10.
I didn't even need to get under the car or raise it in the air. All done from the top under the hood.

[MidwestMustangs]

This is a touchy subject. One that unfortunately happens all to often in the industry. One of the reason I hate the industry. I myself currently own and operate a small specialized shop. For the last 8 years I have done nothing but restorations, and have recently switched gears.

What wraithracing is saying is 100% true. If you paid for it and accepted the work. The shop really does not have to do anything for you. Yes you will call the BBB, but that isnt going to get your problems fixed, it will infact just escalate them. You mention a lawyer, again you think you have spent money now, wait til you get a lawyer involved. Lets say you take it to court, you'll be in court for at least a year, and even if you win there is no guarentee that you will ever see a dime. Getting a judgement is one thing, collecting on it is another.

Im going to play devils advocate and play with both sides of the fence on this one. Im not picking sides, Im not pointing fingers but there is usually three sides to every story.
Your side, the shops side and the truth.

There are several things I see with this whole build from the start.

First you took a specialty car to a collision shop. This is not a knock against the shop, but you have to be realistic of what you're going to get in return. Most collision shops are not restoration shops and vice versa. They are two different worlds. Most collision shops want to get a car in and out asap because thats how they make their money. They typically are doing 1-3 panel repairs, not completes. I may be wrong with this particular shop but Im just pointing this out. Which leads me to my next point.

Communication and education. The client has to be very specific on what he wants, and the shop needs to be very specific on what they are going to do. For instance do you know how many times a day I hear "It doesnt have to be a show quality paint job, just something nice" I then typically reply "what does that mean?? What separates a show paint job from a good paint job" In 8 years of working for myself I have yet to have someone actually answer the question.

Again, this is not to knock you but to try and help you understand how something like this happens. Most collision shops produce "commercially acceptable" work. Meaning, things like tape lines, a piece of dirt, etc stuff like that is accepted in the collision world. Its sad, but its true.

Most collision shops do not pay attention to the detail For instance why would this shop go through all the trouble of stripping the car, etc. Yet they leave the door handles and quarter glass in the car to mask them off?? Those are items that are generally taken off. Now if its a budget job, those items typically get left on.

They're left on because either the client didnt know any better and thought it was ok, or the shop didnt car to explain the differences of leaving them on vs taking them off.

The other thing I noticed is you mentioned the front bumper doesnt match. In the pictures it clearly shows that the front bumper was painted at a different time than the rest of the car. Looks like it was sprayed in the middle of the shop. Chances are they used a different hardener rather than what they used on the whole car to speed up the dry time. I have seen hardeners change the color slightly. On white this would be noticeable. Which you are now experiencing.
The shop may not have caught this because most new cars have mismatched bumpers. Go look at a new car. The bumpers very rarely match. So to the shop, this would be normal. Again the difference between one type of shop to the next.

The other thing that strikes me is the condition of the shop. I typically do not like to judge a book by its cover, and believe me at times my shop looks like a tornado went through it. However this place is really bad, look at the booth. If they maintain they're facility like this, how do you think they will treat your vehicle?? Look closely at the pictures of the car in the booth, they kept the same masking paper on the rear hatch that they used to mask the car off for primer as they did to paint it white. Look at the grey overspray on the paper. How lazy is a shop not to put fresh paper on before you spray a car, especially white. Here again, without knowing the full story I cant say either way.

The wiring issues are weird, no doubt. There should be no reason for them to go under the dash for paint work. There has to be more to this story.

Lastly is the cost. You say the total was 7k, 4k for the job, so Im guessing the rest of it was parts and material? Or just parts?? Your original timeline was 12 months so I will use that. Lets say the labor for the job was 4k, divide that by 12 months $333.00 per month is what that car was paying them. This car was not a priority to them, or there was something else not being said. And if we go by the 17 months divided by 4k it made them $235 per month. Thats nothing.
So my guess is they bid it too low to begin with, let it sit and then tried to get it done asap and hope it didnt come back. This is why collision shops typically do not do completes like yours. They lost money on this car, no doubt. You know how hard it is to get up in the morning and work for nothing? Im assuming that is why it took so long, they figured that the car wouldnt come back. Well they were wrong.

Like Trey said, take your emotions out of this. Deal with them in a professional matter. Thats the best advice I can give you. Its an unfortunate situation. Cases like this is why I have strict policies on the type of work that I do, and who I do it for.

In my opinion for 4k in labor you got a hell of a deal, and if that included paint and material you got a smokin deal.. They did a lot of work.

I hope this works out for you, I do feel your frustration and anger. Good luck with it

[79'293stang]

I completely understand what you are saying and agree with everything. I am just showing the work I was given and my feelings over it.

The whole story is this, its a fairly messed up one with me being far to trusting of someone who is supposed to be a good friend of mine.

I was leaving for my 3rd tour in Afghanistan, the manager of that shop is a good friend of mine and we did 2 tours together. He offered to store my car and repair/repaint and roll the fenders on it for 3-4k, I was going to have a local shop do it for equal cost. He told me basically I could have someone local do it or he could work on it here and there for a year and give me a show paint job and pick it up when I got home no issue, all this was supposedly under the table more of less with me buying the parts as they come up. So I figured it was a good opportunity to see an old friend and give him some business. I drove my car across the country to PA based on this promise from him, the manager of this shop, instead of having it done locally like I had planned.
I leave for Afghanistan a week later. I spent sometimes as much as 4 months trying to get any information about my car or updates on parts that I had ordered. 5 months after I ordered several hundred in parts I am informed they did not show up, ends up the shop lost them, after contacting LMR and getting signed shipping receipts. So I reorder based on the shop basically telling me they cannot continue my car without them. I spent around 3k in parts total throughout this year not counting things I had to buy twice.

I got back in July and the car was not done, I asked when it would be done and was told 3 more weeks. 3 weeks go by and I get ready to head out and get informed they have not had time to work on it because they were working on paying jobs and mine was under the table, so I said ok thats understandable I am getting a good deal on what is supposed to be a show job, as I was promised nearly every time I spoke with him. After the next missed due date I tell them that I was going to retrieve the car and bring it local to finish since they are to busy. They said to just wait some more time and since it was so late it would be absolutely flawless and would be a show winner, so of course I did not go get it, trusting the shop once again based on our past.
So finally I get a call saying that its almost done and that I can arrange transport, by this time I cannot just go get it with the weather so I set up a semi to pick it up and deliver it to Iowa. Shop says that now its an official job and it will be 5k. I say wth its really late and over our agreement so they say ok 4k. I ask about the fender being rolled and am informed that they forgot and would take care of it and that they want payment before truck shows up.
Two days before delivery I get a call saying that the battery is toast and they cannot get it running and that they have been under the dash testing every wire they could, checking the ecm, playing with timing, anything to get it to fire and that they had been trying repeatedly to jump start it. I told them odds were the TFI was bad and to replace it, car starts after TFI replacement. I ask if battery has been getting disconnected and if it was getting started occasionally, answer is no. Car comes to my house, will not start, semi driver leaves it in street, almost gets towed away by authorities because I was at work and my fiance knows nothing about cars. I get home push it off the road, get it started and into the driveway. Engine bay is covered in a thick layer of dust, alternator is not working, I replace alternator.

Take it for a drive to get gas 3 blocks away, fiance says my tail lights are not lighting up, and I almost ran over a curb around the first bend from so much steering slop. Bring it home and look, rag joint is completely gone, its riding the bolts, slop is answered. Look under dash and see several wires hanging around including those to brake pedal switch, brake lights, radio and window operation answered. Fiance notices a run in the paint, so I start looking and find more than 5 noticeable runs and all the other issues I have stated. Then notice the fenders are not rolled, and that my spoiler was loose, look closer and notice the damage to the spoiler. I call my "friend" and manager of this shop and tell him what I have found and send photos, he says that he is sick to his stomach over the quality of the work and hopes its not expensive to replace the spoiler. I ask him what happened to my show quality paint job, he says that they lost several employees and are basically going under. I ask him what he would do in my spot, he said that he would be depressed and that he is really upset himself over this deal because he is scared of it ruining our friendship. I told him that I need to take it and get the issues fixed and its going to cost a lot of money. He says sorry and once again that he is basically sick with disgust over the issues with my car. I mention that I have been under pressure(from my fiance) to go to the BBB over this. He has not been in contact with me since or respond to my calls. I filed a report to the BBB after 3 days with no communication. Now I wait.

[MidwestMustangs]

That abosolutely sucks. This is a no win situation. Everyone is going to lose on this one.

Your situation is exactly why I try and not do work for friends very often. The politics can be a real SOB. It makes sense. I hate to say it but the chances of you getting anything out of this are slim to none. The BBB isnt going to be able to do much. Yea, they may have a complaint against them, but at the end of the day if they go under, they dont care.

I feel your pain and frustration. Sad part is now chances are is its going to now cost more to have it fixed that it did the first time.

Hopefully you can find a shop that can "fix" what you have. I mean, sand the runs out, maybe polish it up a little, etc,etc. You can sometimes fix poor paint, but you cant fix bad body work. So if the car is straight, hopefully someone locally by you can help fix it.

This is one of those rare cases. I do hope that it works out for you and that you are able to get this worked out. Be thankful you at least got your car back together. I have seen cars disappear in shops that "close" Or you get it back in worse shape than when you dropped it off.

[79'293stang]

Yea, I really do not think anything is going to come of this. Its not so much the money I am upset about as much as the let down. Really all I wanted to do was enjoy my car. Now I cannot even drive it without causing more damage or risking others safety and between work, school and kid I have no time to even go out and mess with it. So hopefully in the next few months I will get an opportunity to get these issues sorted before summer rolls around. My dad knows a good body man and he is going to check it out and see if he can sand out the runs and respray some sections properly.

[79'293stang]

The shop is going to make this right and cover the repair costs.
Edit-Shop cannot afford to refund money so they worked a payment plan with me...

[wraithracing]

Glad to hear things are looking better. I hope everything works out for you in the end and you are able to keep your friendship.

I personally ran into similiar issues myself when I had my own shop many years ago. It's those same issues that finally forced me to walk away from all of it.

I know not everyone feels this way, but I finally decided that as the old saying "Don't lend money to friends or relatives" The same goes for don't work for friends and relatives. There are just too many issues that come up that cause friction in the relationship.

Good Luck and let us know how things go.

Trey

[79'293stang]

Thanks for the reply. The shop itself actually is not refunding my money, but my friend who did the work is paying me back incrementally as he can afford to.
On another note some of the paint is starting to bubble in certain areas. Any suggestions on how to keep it from spreading?

[wraithracing]

I don't know of any way to stop bubbling. Unfortunately that just means that the shop screwed up.

With bubbling paint, the shop needs to do something to fix the issue, as it will only get worse. The shop needs to pay to have the issues repaired, due to faulty workmanship.

Maybe MidwestMustangs knows of something to help, but generally that is a sign of poor prep of the surface prior to paint, too much moisture while painting, underlying rust, or other possible issues. Either way, any reputable shop should take care of the issue without any discussion. I know you don't want them working on it, so I am not sure how you fix it with them.

If you can post pictures of the bubbling areas, there might be a solultion depending on how severe and where it is located.

Trey

[MidwestMustangs]

The bubbling can be caused by so many things. Poor prep, underlying rust that nobody ever saw, moisture in the air lines, etc,etc. Im going to guess, by looking at the pictures it was a combination of several of these.

As a shop owner the only way I could warranty something like this would be to strip it and start over. There are just to many liabilities any other way. It is a no win situation for everyone involved.

Dont get me wrong someone could "fix" all the spots. Their work is only as good as what lies underneath. So in a couple of months you may find that you have new bubbles,etc,etc.

Like Trey said, working for friends and family can be a nightmare. Generally unless its my immediate family, I try to avoid working on their cars. I always say Im busy, even if I have nothing else to do.

Its truly an unfortunate situation. More than likely the cost to repair this is going to far exceed the cost of the original job.

Good luck with it, I hope it works out, looks like it can be a really nice car

Chris

[79'293stang]

The bubbling is occurring in the corners of the sail panels. I spent about 3 hours soldering wires and connectors last night, so brake lights are now in operation along with a couple other things.
To be honest if the shop offered to fix all this I would have no issue. But they cannot afford to ship it back across the country.

[wraithracing]

The bubbling is actually on the sail panels or the metal that that sail panels bolt to?

If the bubbling is actually on the sail panels, that is a much easier fix. You can remove the sail panels and have them stripped, cleaned, and repainted and you should be fine.

If its the metal underneath, it can still be fixed, but it requires you to either blend in a larger area or repaint the entire area so you don't have any tape lines.

If its the sail panels, most likely they did not prep the panels correctly and you have some lifting due to lack of adhesion or a chemical reaction with old wax or some type of silicone product. This is quite common on the sail panels when previous owners sprayed them with Armour All or some other product that leaves a residue that has to be cleaned completely before painting.

Trey

[79'293stang]

Yea it is on the sail panel itself. They have to be repainted anyway because there are quite a few runs on them both but it will not be for a while. The wifey wont let me spend any more money on the car right now, she does our finances and is a bit upset with me over this whole deal and since I have to take a payment plan for reimbursement it all spells itself out. I am hoping to just enjoy it for this summer and make the body corrections as a next winter sort of deal, but at the same time I really don't want paint flaking off.

[wraithracing]

Luckily the paint issue on the sail panels will not lead to any rusting since they are not metal. So other than the aesthestic the bubbling paint there is not much of an issue. If the runs and bubbling are bad enough, you could always repair them on the car. Not always the best option, but still doable.

Good Luck!

Trey