TIP for those who are having car body repairs--or any kind of car repair: Examine your car EVERYWHERE, including areas that were not subject to repair. Look for nick marks around the window trim, scratches on the door locks, off color windows, unplugged speakers, scratches on the dash, respliced wires, stereos or other accessories that fit a bit crooked that had fit perfectly before.

In another message thread, I relayed how a couple years later, I discovered damage to my Accord because someone had broken into my car while it was at the body shop. The body shop never informed me about the break-in at their shop, but they had requested an extra day to finish the "repairs". Unfortunately, the body shop left little tell-tale signs that I did not understand or figure out until a couple years later when I was having a new stereo installed.

Unless you know that your body shop has safely secured your car inside the shop for overnight stays, be aware of things that can happen.

 

Good thing that the body shop I took my car to put all the cars inside their shop. I was there when they were about to close, and they were pushing the disabled wrecked cars inside the shop. Plus they work on many high end cars, so I trust them. When I picked up my car on Wednesday, they did a walk-around with me and showed me the functions of all the electrical stuffs. They even opened up the hood to show me that they cleaned the engine bay (which was clean before I took it in for the repair).

Also, I learned that you can request to see the old parts or the invoice of the new parts. This is to prevent you from being cheated on by the body shop for just repairing the damaged parts rather than replacing them where they promised to do.

 

Another body repair shop tip is to VERIFY, verify, verify that the work order that the body shop writes up for you very specifically indicates original equipment manufacturer parts (Honda/Acura) on EVERY line item. Read the fine print to ensure that they haven't given themselves license to substitute parts.

What's happened to me in the past is that my insurance carrier will write up an estimate and they always specify OEM parts and prices. What's has subsequently happened, however, is that when I take the insurance estimate to the body shop, the body shop uses the insurance/OEM pricing, but they omit OEM (Honda or whatnot) from each line item. That gives the body shop a LOT of leeway in obtaining subsitute parts, such as the popular sheet metal parts from Brazil. (In Brazil, there are companies that clone popular body panels and sell them way cheaper than OEM parts.)

I don't care if the body shop warrants their repairs with the non-OEM parts for the life of the car. It's a not right. And, you're paying for OEM parts and getting something that really is of lesser quality. It's a shell game they play. And some body shops will substitute any part for cheaper stuff. To this day, my pickup has these look-alike mud flaps that are not nearly as good as the OEM parts, all thanks to a fast talking sleazebag body shop.

Honda in particular is known for using high quality steel, but not all manufacturers have that reputation. Do you think that low-balling budget Brazilian clone body panel manufacturer buys the high grade steel and uses the same preservation techniques as Honda?