Car goes into body shop, comes out worse

lgtspecb

lgtspecb

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So a couple months ago some lady hit and run my 08 Impreza. The damage was very minor, just some paint on the rear bumper. I Finally got it into the body shop to have the bumper repainted and picked it up today. Now there is a door ding on the drivers passenger door with paint transfer and the car is swirlled to hell.

It has never been to a car wash, I hand wash it every time and I am very anal as many of you know. Use two bucket method with grit guards, wash top to bottom rinsing after each panel. I wash in forward to back and top to bottom motions. I only blot dry with mf. I never use quick detailer unless it is to clean up bird droppings. I even use the autogeek deluxe water filter. Now I know no matter how careful you are, minor marring is a fact of washing and that is why I have already polished the car twice in the 6 months I have owned it, but my "swirls" are always straight lines, never a circular swirl as caused by bad washing habits.

The car is swirled really bad now, and the question is, do I let them pick it up and detail the car, or eat it and do it myself.
 
Do it yourself... They'll probably hack it up worse than it is now. You can ask them to reimburse you for a fair amount to cover having the car detailed, but I don't know you'll get it.
 
When I got my car back from the body shop it looked horrible. Swirls, scratches, over-spray, etc. I thought about raising hell, but then again I wouldn't want them to touch it. When I sat down in my car to drive away, I found the drying towel they used. OMG it was filthy and was stiff as a board because they forgot about it and left it in the car. I was disgusted they used something like that to dry my car. Most body shops could give two ****'s about how much we take care of our cars.
Some places have no pride in the quality of work they do. It's whatever it takes to get the job done, then its see ya.
 
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I am with all of you, in the fact that I do not want to take it back to them since they have caused enough damage. I also, don't feel like doing it myself as I just did a spring detail on the thing, and at the rate I work and the depth of the scratches it would take me 20+ hours to wash, clay and clean (in case of overspray), polish 2x and seal 2x.

Since it was an insurance job, I paid nothing and cannot get anything in return. I think the only reasonable outcome would be for them to pay for an exterior detail from a professional detailer of my choice.
 
Well, I am going to work on the car today myself. I was thinking of trying out my new optimum polish and lc pads. Should I use the orange or white pad, and if I do it with orange will I need to re-apply the polish with the white pad?
 
lgtspecb said:
Well, I am going to work on the car today myself. I was thinking of trying out my new optimum polish and lc pads. Should I use the orange or white pad, and if I do it with orange will I need to re-apply the polish with the white pad?
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Always start with the least aggressive combo...in this case the white pad. (thats the best advice i have gotten from AG).

Sometimes you can go from orange to LSP...but it depends on many factors..you will have to look at the paint and decide.

Check out some of the videos offered on this site, they will show you marring and how to tell if the finish is ready for LSP.


Enjoy.
 
body shops suck !!! after i got my truck back it had a ton!!! of over spray all over it. i had to clay the hell outa it. along with a full polish ..
 
The AG how-to polish videos show heavy marring with a lc orange pad, but does not show the paints condition prior to applying the finishing polish. My car is not nearly as bad as the videos car, so I thought a white pad would suffice, but I have been reading the details on this forum using op and they all use the orange pad. Are there videos I am missing? All I see is the orbital polisher how-to. I am going to go wash and clay, I will check back in shortly. Thanks.
 
lgtspecb said:
The AG how-to polish videos show heavy marring with a lc orange pad, but does not show the paints condition prior to applying the finishing polish. My car is not nearly as bad as the videos car, so I thought a white pad would suffice, but I have been reading the details on this forum using op and they all use the orange pad. Are there videos I am missing? All I see is the orbital polisher how-to. I am going to go wash and clay, I will check back in shortly. Thanks.
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Try the white pad first I'm not sure how hard the clear coat is ... if you do a pass and the swirls are still there (most of them) probably means your clear is harder. That would require a tougher pad or tougher polish/compound. Remember to work the polish in slowly because you want to do some cutting to remove the swirls and not just jewel the paint.

Good luck.
 
body shops should be more careful when buffing the new paint. as well as care about what is being used on the cars. which is why at the body shop i work at i use my personal stuff and take twice as long to buff a car. IMO you should be yelling at the insurance companies. i see the estimates so i know what they pay and dont pay. for example. we had a 2001 ford ranger that need hood and whole driver side panels replaced and painted. insurance gave 1 hour to wet sand and buff out. and we all know it will take more than 1 hour just to buff that much. not counting the wet sanding. think about it most everyone on here as admitted to taking 3-6 hours just to buff and polish. and alot of times that is with an AIO so there is only 1 step before applying the LSP of your choice. the body shops basically have to do a 3 strep process in1/6th of the time or they will loose huge money. not trying to justify the crap that comes out of body shops but trying to let you know the insurance companies really squeeze them.
 
detailgod said:
body shops should be more careful when buffing the new paint. as well as care about what is being used on the cars. which is why at the body shop i work at i use my personal stuff and take twice as long to buff a car. IMO you should be yelling at the insurance companies. i see the estimates so i know what they pay and dont pay. for example. we had a 2001 ford ranger that need hood and whole driver side panels replaced and painted. insurance gave 1 hour to wet sand and buff out. and we all know it will take more than 1 hour just to buff that much. not counting the wet sanding. think about it most everyone on here as admitted to taking 3-6 hours just to buff and polish. and alot of times that is with an AIO so there is only 1 step before applying the LSP of your choice. the body shops basically have to do a 3 strep process in1/6th of the time or they will loose huge money. not trying to justify the crap that comes out of body shops but trying to let you know the insurance companies really squeeze them.
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Makes sense, but the body shop isn't required to go by the insurance quote, are they? Sure the adjusters will estimate it low, this was estimated at $414. I took it to another body shop that I thought was trustworthy and they gladly accepted the adjusters quote. Since it is your choice of where you want to have the car repaired, isn't insurance required to pay the bill even if it was 2x the original estimate?
 
matteo86 said:
Try the white pad first I'm not sure how hard the clear coat is ... if you do a pass and the swirls are still there (most of them) probably means your clear is harder. That would require a tougher pad or tougher polish/compound. Remember to work the polish in slowly because you want to do some cutting to remove the swirls and not just jewel the paint.

Good luck.
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Jeweling the paint is all I am good at. It never seems like I can get swirls out, and today is no exception. I gave the car a good wash and clayed it. I started out polishing the hood with optimum polish and the white lc pad. I've done a couple passes on the hood increasing pressure and speed each time, the paint is looking clean and shiny (jeweled) but close inspection still reveals the swirls. I might try the orange pad and see if I have any better luck. What frustrates me, is this is the same thing I run into everytime. Swirls are not that deep, they cannot be seen from 5 feet away under halogen, but if i put my face 3" from the paint I can see them and the polish is ineffective. I have used many polishes over the last year, hoping to find one that works the way I do and thought op was finally my ticket. I don't know if I'm using too much polish, going to fast, or just not breaking it down all the way. I try to follow all the instructions I have heard 1000x before here and other forums and what the label says. Maybe I should go bug my neighbor (details for a living) for some tips.
 
lgtspecb said:
Jeweling the paint is all I am good at. It never seems like I can get swirls out, and today is no exception. I gave the car a good wash and clayed it. I started out polishing the hood with optimum polish and the white lc pad. I've done a couple passes on the hood increasing pressure and speed each time, the paint is looking clean and shiny (jeweled) but close inspection still reveals the swirls. I might try the orange pad and see if I have any better luck. What frustrates me, is this is the same thing I run into everytime. Swirls are not that deep, they cannot be seen from 5 feet away under halogen, but if i put my face 3" from the paint I can see them and the polish is ineffective. I have used many polishes over the last year, hoping to find one that works the way I do and thought op was finally my ticket. I don't know if I'm using too much polish, going to fast, or just not breaking it down all the way. I try to follow all the instructions I have heard 1000x before here and other forums and what the label says. Maybe I should go bug my neighbor (details for a living) for some tips.
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Never give up! :) I have not used OP before but apparently there is some good working time with the pc. When you spread the polish you are able to see it..and then when your done working, it should be fairly translucent. If this is what you have done, try out the orange pad.

Are you also running the PC at speed 5/6 ?

Still persists? Might need to step up the polish.
 
Last night while detailing a show truck, I was speaking to the guy that painted it and whom I do alot of paint correction for

His opinion was that some painters don't care, they do the best work they can as far as prep and painting goes but it's the detailers job to fix the swirls and other damage

At this place I don't think there is a detailer, one of the painters is pretty good with a rotary but no pro
It's good for me as after it's painted and flow coated, they employee me to give it a flaw free finish and $500 to 600 bucks is charged to the customer (which they know about when they bring the car in for painting)

They've tried lots of detail shops but gotten poor results
One problem is that even paint shops that have detailers there, don't have the proper skills or they don't care as most people won't notice the marks anyway and will take it to a detailer to sort out

Biggest problem with body shops - they don't clean their buffing pads out often enough or at all and just put holograms and swirls in the paint (seen it first hand)

Foam pads that are clogged to the max with farecla G3
They are taught at TAFE here in Australia to clean foam pads like you do with a wool (screwdriver) and no wonder they go through a pad or two a day whereas mine are five years old and still have same thickness and like new appearance (no ripping)
 
The damage was small ($414), just some drunk lady that backed into me in a parking lot and scuffed the bumper up.

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The car is 6 months old now, and it hasn't been polished since the week I picked it up. I use optimum opti-seal after every other wash, and it had a all-in-one cleaning about a month ago. Washed it up Sunday morning, and took it to the body shop on Monday. I wanted to tell them not to wash it (that's why I did), but I couldn't bring myself to do it because I didn't want to offend them. After all it is a body shop, they restore cars, not damage them.

The car is not scratched up from painting and buffing the entire car, in fact the bumper they repaired actually looks fine. It was from the "courtesy" wash afterwards. Most of the car looks fine with just very minor straight line marring (most likely a side effect of my own washing) but not to the level where I would have considered polishing again just yet. The drivers side however, is scratched up pretty bad, like they dropped the wash mitt or towel, and they are circular swirls as well as horizontal across the vertical panels. They are kinda deep and most definitely are not a result of my own washing.

I spent 8 hours washing, claying and polishing. I got the hood, trunk, and drivers side done and it is starting to look good. I'll try to post pics up soon.

Atleast the door ding (also from the body shop), was just a scuff, no dent. I was able to get that right out with some megs scratch-x.
 
lgtspecb said:
Makes sense, but the body shop isn't required to go by the insurance quote, are they? Sure the adjusters will estimate it low, this was estimated at $414. I took it to another body shop that I thought was trustworthy and they gladly accepted the adjusters quote. Since it is your choice of where you want to have the car repaired, isn't insurance required to pay the bill even if it was 2x the original estimate?
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they can haggle about the price and that is about all they can do. insurance company as the last word. insurance comapny also decides if your vehicle get factory parts aftermarket parts or used parts from junkyard. any price above what insurance company has set will have to be paid by the vehicle owner. so if insurance company quotes a job at $500.00 and to use aftermarket parts but the customer wants factory parts and that makes the bill come to $1500.00 then customer has to pay the extra $1000.00
 
detailgod said:
they can haggle about the price and that is about all they can do. insurance company as the last word. insurance comapny also decides if your vehicle get factory parts aftermarket parts or used parts from junkyard. any price above what insurance company has set will have to be paid by the vehicle owner. so if insurance company quotes a job at $500.00 and to use aftermarket parts but the customer wants factory parts and that makes the bill come to $1500.00 then customer has to pay the extra $1000.00
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You summed it up almost correctly. It's actually an appraiser's/adjuster's job to negotiate the best possible repair cost with the shop of the owner's choice as long as it's reasonable and customary. If you took your car to a high end shop, the adjuster is more likely to conceed for a higher price than at a place like Maaco that you know isn't going to go above and beyond; even if their life depended on it. The bad thing is, even when shops come across like they want to do great work and try working the adjuster over for some more money, the sad thing is they usually don't do it! The key to doing a good repair is to make it look like the vehicle hasn't been repaired, but almost every shop sucks!
 
Well, I spent another 8 hours on the car today. I finished the polishing and sealed it, then worked on the windows, tires and trim. I got most of the stuff out and the car looks pretty good, just a few minor things that only I will ever know are there. When I couldn't get everything out, I went and bugged my neighbor who was washing his cars at the time. I asked him to critique my technique. I was doing it just about right, perhaps a little too slow and allowing too much build up on the pad before cleaning. Turns out, the microscopic scratches that I can only see when my face is inches from the paint and looking directly into the light are in fact scratches that no amount of polishing with a pc will fix. We even tried a the orange pad with optimum compound at speed 6 and got nothing but buffer swirls.

I've spent over $1200 in the last year for tools and products, and a good 100+ hours using them. I will just practice safe washing once a week, seal every other month, do a light polish every winter and have the car professionally detailed with a high speed rotary every summer. It will end up being a lot cheaper and I wont have to spend as much time and effort.

I was amazed and bumbed that the porter cable is just another electric wax spreader and nothing more. Which means I most likely will not continue buying these expensive polishes/waxes/pads and visiting these forums. Been nice knowing you guys and chatting with you. Good luck on your own cars.
 
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Call the insurance company and have them send an adjuster out to look at the car. They can go back to the body shop and fight then for a discount, then the will more than likely give you money towards getting your car detailed and the door ding fixed.
 
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