Some time ago some idiot ran into the side of my '98 Max and made a mess of the driver side fender. The responsible party's insurance company set me up with a bodyshop in Santa Monica, CA called M's Body Shop. The Maxima GLE is my first car, and this is my first experience dealing with a body shop.

The shop replaced and painted the driver side fender as well as the outer panel of the driver side front door. When I looked at their work, after five days of waiting, I was rather disappointed with the quality I saw. While the paint job looks fine from five feet away, closer inspection reveals tiny imperfections all over the place. There's at least one hairline crack; small blisters can be seen from a slant angle; there are even dimples that can be felt when I run my fingers over them. All this suggests that the room in which the panels were spraypainted weren't very well protected from contamination.

To make things worse, there're scratch marks all over the chrome door handle and the weather stripping.

Being so inexperienced in these matters, I would really appreciate some advice from fellow Max owners. Is this the level of quality that I have to settle with? Is it too much to expect factory-spec work from an ordinary repair job, as I have? The insurance company supposedly has lifetime warranty on repairs; how difficult would it be to make a claim on such warranties, and if it's worth it, what should I do differently, on my part, the second time around?

Thanks in advance for any tips.

 

Not at all. The shop was probably instructed by the insurance company to do it as cheaply as possible. If I were you, I would contact your insurance company. Or even better yet, I would basically tell the insurance company of the offender that you have hired a lawyer to look into the matter.

 

Insurance companys dont tell body shops to do cheap work. Body shops have to maintain very high quailty repair work to become a direct repair facility for an insurance company. If that insurance company sent you to a particular shop, they should be turning out some good quality work or they can be audited and lose their D.R.P. contract.

They may substitute aftermarket parts to keep the cost of the repair at a reasonable level if the car is older or request a panel be repair instead of replaced. The quality of the repair must be acceptable to the customer, no matter what.

By law you are entitled to have your car repaired back to the condition it was in prior to getting hit.

From your description, it sounds like the paint was not applied in a clean spray booth. Even so it should have been wet sanded and polished to get that dirt out. Bring the car back and complain about the quality of the paint work. Contact the insurance company as well if you like and tell them your not 100% satisfied with the repair. Point out all the areas your not happy with and have the shop refinish them for you.

 

I dont think youll have too much to worry about if you contact the insurance company. However, ive had a similar experience and i told them i wasnt happy right then and there.

I know they thought i was an AHole, but i inspected it and pointed out the flaws.

They did it over perfectly which is what they should have done in the first place.

 

Thanks for all the advice. I'd like to give the shop another chance but if the work takes more than a day I'd have to tell on them because I will need the insurance company to pay for a rental car.

 

do not settle for what you have. it wasn't your fault, therefore, there's no need to walk it off with crappy work.

best bet is to talk to your lawyer/insurance company. you ARE entitled to a better job.

 

Yes, never settle for anything, especially with automobile services such as body shops. Get your money's worth and be happy!

 

I used to work for nationwide and we sent people to body shops that did cheap work all the time. But it was only our suggestion that you get the work done at these places. we got a ton of complaints, and bascially, you can take your car anywhere to get it repaired. Anytime we heard anyone talking lawyer stuff, we did anything they said.

 

The insurance companies are a piece of ****, and will try to get away as cheap as possible, my sister worked for allstate and Zemp68 has it exactly right about them!!

 

Take it back. I managed to bump up my front bumper cover and the body work was very apparent the first time. I took it back and calmly pointed out the imperfections and they redid the bodywork and repainted the bumper. It looks great now.

 

so what happened??

complain to the insurance company, get a rental, and keep doin it until you are happy. What you are describing are obvious things that even the insurance company can send an agent to verify. You shouldn't have any probs, good luck!

 

You shouldn't of accepted it. Tell them it isn't to your satisfaction. I would of got a rental and billed the paintshop and/or the insurance company for it.