mik3vl

Hi all,

I have a frustrating story to tell. a little of a long read but please bear with it.

About a month ago, I was rear-ended, although the damage did not look that bad, the rear frame of the car, rear-bump, and trunk had to be replaced.

i was sad to say the least, but crap happens. i brought my car to a nearby acura dealer body shop because i assumed I would have a higher quality of a repair and experience at this body shop since it's an Acura dealer... BIG MISTAKE!

a little over 2 weeks into the repair process, I am wondering what is taking so long for what looked like a minor repair process, I come in to take a look at my car...

this is what i saw...



yup, the entire interior of my car was covered in a layer of dust...

i have no idea how they managed to blanket the interior with dust bunnies when only the rear of the TL was damaged. when i asked them about this, i just got a bunch of excuses. needless to say, the exterior was in of a equally dirty condition with various parts stripped off and primer paint splashed everywhere...and basically the whole car looked like a salvaged at this point...

but this was only the beginning of their crappy quality work.

fast forward another week and they claim that the car is ready to be picked up. i take another trip down and see this as their "finished result".









the rear bumper is obviously misaligned with the sides not being flush, the tail lights sticking out, various rubber seals are not put in properly from when the stripped the entire car of the rubber seals around the doors/ top of the car, and the interior is stained with dirt.

I brought up the poor quality with the shop's management and brings my car to the shop and busts out a air pressure hose to "clean" my car's interior even more. HOLY CRAP! to clean my car's interior where the leather has perforated holes, they are blasting 1000's of lbs of pressure in an attempt to hide the dust and dirt...

I did not expect the car to not look like stock, but i find the overall quality and workmanship on my vehicle to be of such low quality. Granted, these are minor issues, they indicate poor quality. i am very wary on the work they did on my car and wonder if i will have future problems with the job (am especially afraid of the infamous TL rattles from all the various rubber strips they took off and re-applied, *car had little to no rattles prior)

They had the insurance company rep come out to inspect the car and agreed that further work had to be done.

they agreed to re-fit the bumper, which they eventually found out was a faulty bumper and re-ordered another bumper...

for the car seats, they are going to have a third party lift up my leather seats and clean them from underneath. (very concerned about this for potentially any future squeaks and rattles that this might cause)

But overall, I find the overall work on my car to be quite shoddy and am very very concerned about my car's overall performance after this.

My top concerns are:

• Irreversible damage to the car's interior
• overall poor quality of work
• potential for lots of rattles and wind noise
• other hidden damage since they did not do a lot of inspection

it has been almost a month now...they promise the car will be ready tomorrow, but they said that 2 weeks ago as well...

I am considering speaking with my insurance rep to have them reimburse me for the lose in value of my car due to the poor workmanship as well as my wasted time running back and forth dealing with this issue.

any comments or opinions will help me greatly!
thanks!

ggesq

iTrader: (1)

Whether the work was done right or wrong - IMHO you should ask the insurance company for diminished value. If you don't know what it is, google it. There is tons of information online about it. Good luck.

Acutron

Take it back and have them re-do it. Simple as that. This does suck and I would need to get on blood pressure meds after going through something like this. I hope you can get this resolved. Good luck.

jwr0ng626

iTrader: (1)

gluck... sorry bout the sh!tty work

i'd

JTS97Z28

iTrader: (4)

Wow that is HORRIBLE workmanship! At first I thought that was paint overspray on the seats and that would basically require an entire interior swap. Dust is pretty bad too and I cant for the life of me figure out how did the cars interior get like that???? Did they have windows removed from the car? What a bunch of idiots. And that bumper fitment is horrendous!! I just dont get it....how can someone install that bumper and allow it to go back to the customer? I know not everyone gives a shit but if I was the body guy working on that car and saw that no way would I have the balls to say the car is ready to pick up.
Hope they make everything right.

james

Aman

Give them a chance to do it over, and let your insurance know now of your problems. If they mess up again, take it to another place. Hopefully your insurance will side with you with this and help you out. Of course, stop by to see how the repair's going like you have been.

I wouldn't let them even touch the interior and just clean it yourself. The only way to know it's being done right short of taking it to a detailer, and I doubt they'll pay for that.

av2600

iTrader: (1)

do not accept the car in its condition and demand to speak to the GM. maybe good to go ahead and give him a call ahead of time to let him know what's going on

unacceptable

TheChamp531

iTrader: (3)

I would file a complaint with the GM or if it's a independent shop for Acura then file a complaint with Acura Client Services for this mistreatment. This is embarassing. Where are you located and what's the name of the shop if I may ask? Would be good to know for other AZ users near that area.

VQPower37

thats horrible ... talk to the insurance company tell them u r not happy with the work, or take it back to the shop and complain and see what they can do

acura_dipset_tl

iTrader: (40)

Wow that sucks bro, hope you get everything resolved soon. Definitely don't take the car until your satisfied with the work.

estabro

Don't need to "name names", but what city do you live in?

boomersooner02000

What state do u reside in? I would certainly pursue the insurance company for diminished value. Your well documented photos should help your case. The way your car was done is a bunch of bulls***. I would almost b inclined to have them strip down your car to see what it really looks like underneath. Odds are if they gave it to you like that then underneath everything their work is probably very crappy as well. This is exactly why I hate body shops.

A good method for calculating diminished value is to use the 17c form. There are different formulas for calculating diminished value, but this one is a good one to use in my opinion. If you need help or have questions about it pm me and I'll b more than happy to help.

mik3vl

whew, i'm glad that i'm not the only one who was appalled at the work done. the dealer was giving me excuses left and right and almost had me for a second.

I have been contacting them everyday for status updates. The did manage to fit a new bumper and now it looks much much better (not perfect) but after seeing their first fit, i'm not going to complain.

they took the car to a interior specialist who is going to take out all of the chairs and clean under the leather.

i think this is pretty much all you can do for the car so in that respect, the insurance company has been helpful.

but what was done is still fairly unsightly and may push for a diminished value from my insurance company.

the real test will be when i get the car back.


but what I have learned from all of this and can share to everyone else is that taking your car to a dealer does not mean ANYTHING, it does not mean they are any better or any worse...(well maybe worse since they have such a high volume and are corporate that they don't care.)

mik3vl

i don't want to give the name of the dealer, it's probably fairly easy to guess the place since not many dealers have body shops...but it's in cali, PM me if you're in the state and are going to a dealer for your body work.

i'll post updates

@boomersooner02000 where do I get these forms? i was thinking of sending these photos to the insurance company and asking for diminished value, did not realize there was a procedure.

TypeSinNC

iTrader: (2)

That sucks dude...I actually was rear-ended about about a month ago. I took my car to a local guy that I had never heard of...per my mechanics recommendation. When I pulled in the drive he was working on a '62 vette. My worries went out the window when I saw that he was good enough to be trusted w/ that car. He did an excellent job, after being shipped a base bumper from Acura...instead of a Type-S. I hope you get everything taken care of. Personally I wouldn't have driven the car from the shop, and called my insurance immediatly

boomersooner02000

You really don't need a form to calculate it. Basically the formula maximizes the loss of value at 10% of the vehicles pre-loss value.

Take the fair market value of the vehicle and then multiply it by 10%. You will take that figure and multiply it by the damage modifier:

1.0 Severe damage to the structure of the vehicle
0.75 Major damage to the structure and panels
0.50 Moderate damage to the structure and panels
0.25 Minor damage to structure of the vehicle

You can increase these numbers a bit to your liking as well, but this is just something to use as a standard.

After getting your number with the damage modifier you will then take into account the mileage of the vehicle. I won't list all of the mileage #'s as it's pretty extensive. If you can give me the mileage of your vehicle I can give you the number that you could use.

Here is an example of the formula at work.

FMV $21,500 * 10% = $2,150 Initial DV claim amount
$2,150 * damage modifier 0.75 = $1612.50
$1,612.50 * mileage modifier .97(3k miles) = $1,564.13
Diminished value claim amount to insurance = $1,564.13

Fairly simple really, but this is just a tool that you could use in calculating the amount. If anything it at least gives u somewhere to start and then if need be you can negotiate with the insurance company from there.

mik3vl

where did you get these numbers from? is there a form/site i can look at?

i'm roughly at 52k right now, is that a mileage modifier of .48?

Jackass

The interior was probably so bad because a window was left open. Body shops are horribly dusty places due to the type of work being done there. I have never had luck getting any diminished value love from any insurance company. Three accidents that were not my fault over the past 15 years and not a single one did the insurance company care about that. So instead I just held the body shop to a stupidly high standard and made them fix any and every little thing I could find. Any speck of dust in the clear coat, any rubber seal that didn't fit right, and panel or trim that didn't sit perfectly where it sat before. One of my accidents, the body shop had my car for almost a total of 4 months because they could not get just every little detail right.

Good luck, and don't accept anything but perfection from them.

boomersooner02000

Yes, that would be correct.

Just google 17c formula.

boomersooner02000

Insurance companies do pay diminished value, but with some you may have to fight with them a bit. I've seen them paid first hand by a lot of the major ones out there. Progressive, State farm, USAA, farmers, Geico, allstate, etc. There are those that will absolutely refuse to pay no matter what. Georiga is the only state in which you are guaranteed to get it , others are a toss up. I handle claims daily so I've battled with plenty of them over diminished value.

VQPower37

i have succesfully gotten insurance depreciated value from the other party's insurance who was at fault. if u need documentation or nething pm me and i will send u what i used

Majofo

Sucks OP. Win the battles worth fighting. If all else fails, sell it and start over. It's not easy finding a reputable shop that does good work, definitely worth the time finding one though. Almost everyone learns the hard way.

VQPower37

also if they are going to be removing ur leather to clean underneath, make sure to check all trim pieces in the car after, they are damn heavy seats and might gouge some of ur plastic trim. if u catch it right away its an ez fix but is an eyesore if its not fixed

LasVegasTL

Damn thats horrible. What's the name and address of the place you went to?

mik3vl

so the story has a happy ending...sort of.

after a bunch of extra work complaining to the insurance and the dealer, they had another brand new bumper fitted onto my car, it's not a perfect fit, but it's good enough.

Then they had the car's exterior detailed to the point where I saw the sparkles in my paint O.o

To fix the interior dust-storm they created, they sent the car to a 3rd party shop to have them lift up all the leather and vacuum out any dust as well as detail the inside.

The car looks better than when I first brought it in now that I had the detailing jobs done so I'm fairly satisfied.

Something I learned is that you must not accept poor quality work when dealing with dealers/insurance. it took a lot of extra trips and phone calls to get my car to what it should have been like in the first place but the end result matters the most right?

however, i will still push the insurance for value lost and make a note of how much extra trouble I had to go through to get my car fixed properly.

TheChamp531

iTrader: (3)

Glad everything was fixed.

You should say to your insurance company that you had to go to the doctor for migraine issues because of all the problems.

mik3vl

paperboy42190

iTrader: (7)

nice....oem type S taillights?