body and interior Sizzlerscheesetoast Gets Broadsided By Teenager. Body Shop Recs In So Cal?

[max210]

Sorry to  hear about your accident on your beautiful 02. Since she lied is that considered insurance fraud?

[conkitchen]

 Cheesetoast got nailed today     

 

Nothing like a t-bone done medium rare with a little gooey cheese bread.

 

 

 

[ndog]

wow that is bogus,,,,,,

[BDB]

Kind of disturbing to see the impact but congrats!!!  Unfortunately I do not live in So Cal to help you out on the body repair    But when you have a shop in mind, look at the cars they work on.  Mine had these so i knew i was in good hands.  What was my '02 at the end of the line

 

Yah, great advice.  I'm actually going to ask if they have repaired other 02s in the past year and ask if I can talk with the owners as a reference check.  I don't want to just accept the "Oh yeah, we fix them all the time" b.s.   I trust body shops marginally less than auto mechanics!

 

 

Sorry to  hear about your accident on your beautiful 02. Since she lied is that considered insurance fraud?

 

That is an excellent question.  I will say this though: the next time I see that lying POS, she will get an earful from me!

 

 

 

 Cheesetoast got nailed today     

 

Nothing like a t-bone done medium rare with a little gooey cheese bread.

 

 

 

 

 

That animation kicks so much arse on so many levels!  Did you make that?  If yes, that ROCKS!  Made my night

[conkitchen]

Did I make this?

 

We have red light cameras here so I hacked the OPD server to get this sequence. ;-)

[BDB]

Hi folks,

 

Thought I'd update the peanut gallery.  Believe it or not, the saga is still on going on different fronts.  Grab a drink.

 

On the insurance front, the girl's insurance company (Mercury) is saying that the vid is inconclusive and they're taking it to arbitration.  The lady even got ghetto on me after I told her to do her own due diligence and get the vid tape herself from my apt complex.  She had a fit because I wouldn't burn her a copy and mail it to her.  I told her to pound sand, "I don't work for you, lady."

 

Even more inept is my insurance company, State Farm.  I swear, I've had to do everything, especially following up and making sure they're on the ball.  I can cite many examples (including getting the vid tape!), but the latest is just as incredulous.  The lady handling my case passed it over to another dept called "subrogation".  The lady in that dept said "we've called her insurance company 4 times now and i'm just waiting for them to call back".  I said 'don't you think if after 4 calls, she isn't going to call you back?  And didn't you read the notes where I told you guys that the other party's insurance was just going to arbitration because I wouldn't "cooperate?"  And so she said then she would file the case for arbitration    So I said to the lady "I was promised this would be done and over with by the end of the year.  Is that still the case?"  And of course she said "no" because there won't be an opening til late March or April.

 

F#@#@$@#k.  I mean, I'm not poor by any means but the level of incompetence because of the lack of action is really staggering. I feel like I've handled most of this case by myself.

 

Now onto the body shop.  I know I asked for recommendations here and I can't recall who gave me the recommendation to the shop that I went to, but the experience has reinforced in my mind that the vast majority of body shops esp the little independent ones not preferred vendors of the insurance companies are inept as well.  The shop's name is Quality Craft Auto Body in Huntington Beach.  The owner's name is Ray Gallagher.  The man is more than happy to follow up when it comes to payment and letting you know "it isn't ready", but everything else, I had to follow up on.  While I will never know for sure, there were a multitude of excuses why things weren't moving along.  First he told me that he received the body panel from 2002 Haus that wasn't in great shape and he told me that he had 2002 Haus send another one  I tried to confirm w/ 2002 Haus via email (and also inquire about their 5 speed kits), but I dind't hear back.  (EDIT on 12/16: For the record, Rob from 2002 Haus called me today 12/16 that Ray requested to send it back but Rob refused; see my later post on this in this thread). Didn't hear much so I called the shop to see where things were at. Ray's new excuse was that said he got sick.  Then his crew got sick.  I'd have to look in my emails and phone logs to see how long everything took, but I believe it took nearly 2 months.  I felt at the end, the job was rushed---and it was.  

 

While the paint job looks decent, its the multitude of excuses and broken promises that soured my experience.  On the day that I picked up the car (sun was setting), I took a look at the paint. It looked like he did a decent job color matching everything though I did find one dust bunny underneath the driver's side door beltline, but i'm not 100% sure that was covered.  He promised to wash and buff everything to a showroom finish, but that wasn't done.  I asked him about that and there was a lot of mubble mouthing and promised to do it "if I came back", but by that point, I just bit the bullet and said I wanted to have the car back.  And finding a ride from Rancho Cucamonga to HB take a little coordination, if you know what I mean.

 

Because it was a hot weekend, I didn't drive my 02 (after I picked it up on a Friday) until a few days later.  There I noticed how shoddily his shop put everything back together.  Little things to many here I'm sure, but nevertheless it's irritating to be promised a professional job and only realize a few days later, it was less than average.  First, there were a few missing interior parts.  On the B-pillar, there's a plastic plug that was missing.  The seat belt retractor unit (the thing that holds the belt) was only 1/2 way tightened down.  The cap was missing as well.  Looking through the interior, I found a saucer shaped piece that is part of the rotary front vent window mechanism that was carelessly dropped under the seat and not installed.  My rear red LED 3rd brake light was not glued back on.  Lastly and this one really pissed me off was that the interior was covered in fine white body shop dust.  I spent on and off over 2 weekends getting all that dust out.  I didn't notice this fine dust because of the time that I picked up the car.  It required me to remove even the rear seat belts and clean them as well.

 

Since late August, I've been trying to get the missing parts from Ray.  I've been more than professional and patient.  When I'd call, he would go "Oh ohh.....right..." which told me he completely forgot about the issue.  He then made up some bullshit that his parts guy is a few hours away and wasn't going there until the end of the week.  Then he said he found them and would send them.  Guess what?  They never arrived and he said they must've been "lost in the mail".  He said that the parts guy had a lot of straps and so I told him that I'd settle for straps ONLY if it was a complete set.  I gave him approximately 1 more month to produce and now that time has elapsed and now I'm writing the community about this guy's unprofessional attitude and to warn you about how he does business.

 

I know some of you might say "big deal, it's just a few plugs" or "dude, you can just install them yourself", I've had auto body fraud committed on me on a previous car, so yes I know what "worse" is.  But the problem to me is the lack of professionalism, the over promising to "keep me happy", never following up, the multitude of excuses, etc, etc.  I wouldn't want to go back to that excuse machine and I certainly wouldn't want any of you to make the same mistake either.  

Edited December 16, 2013 by sizzlerscheesetoast

[kbmb02]

Edit .. perhaps the female gods have spoken. -KB

Edited December 17, 2013 by kbmb02

[dbmw2002]

To members of this site you have a beautiful 2002 of excellent vintage and condition. To the 22 year old kid who worked on said car its an old euro, kinda cool but funky. Keep this in mind whenever repairs are sought after, its a reality out there. If you got viable repairs and good color match consider yourself blessed, lick your wounds, cobble the details of the reinstallation and move on, Ray dont give a Rats ass about your missing trim.

Insurance companys are a pain and would put all the pressure on your own company, its their job to deal with the young ladys insurance company, not yours, be gratefull she was insured. Your car has been repaired, the insurance will resolve and dont forget as you toil, this too will pass

[Chamonix72]

I work in subrogation for a living. While my company procedures are to starting escalating calls after a couple go unanswered, I think the delay is on two fronts. First, State Farm might be having problems getting all the final documents from the body shop. I know it happens from time to time. But the big delay is, in fact, the arbitration process. In CA the process takes at least 6 months from when it is filed. Also, when it comes to getting the video, your subrogation adjuster is probably not able to run out and get it. Yes, maybe we can make 9 million phone calls to your apartment complex and maybe call and get a field adjuster to do it, but most likely the person is in a central office somewhere miles away. (For example our 3 auto subrogation offices are in Riverside County, Chicagoland and Wilmington, DE). And the apartment complex (or other 3rd parties) doesn't work for us so we get blown off a lot. 

 

So, I get your frustration with the insurance process. I deal with other insurance companies all day. Mercury is pretty well known for being difficult to deal with. I am not shocked at their adjuster's reaction. State Farm is the biggest, but not the most efficient outfit out there. Since they are so big it can take them a while to get moving sometimes. That's my personal experience. 

 

I hope it gets handled as soon as possible, but be prepared for disappointment. You never know what arbitration will bring. Sometimes it's seen your way...sometimes not.

[nbcbird]

A real bummer.  The EXACT same thing happened to me (with the same damage, only to the right side) when I followed a guy for two blocks before we entered a grocery store parking lot.  He stopped for some unexplained reason and as I attempted to pull around him, he put his car in reverse and backed into me.  What idiot, obviously he hadn't look in his rear view mirror for at least 5 minutes.  After my restoration, I'm a little timid about putting the car back on the road.  BTW, I ended up doing a complete quarter panel replacement with a new BMW panel.

Edited December 15, 2013 by nbcbird

[BDB]

 

post deleted by me. 

Edited December 16, 2013 by sizzlerscheesetoast

[BDB]

If you got viable repairs and good color match consider yourself blessed, lick your wounds, cobble the details of the reinstallation and move on, Ray dont give a Rats ass about your missing trim.

Insurance companys are a pain and would put all the pressure on your own company, its their job to deal with the young ladys insurance company, not yours, be gratefull she was insured. Your car has been repaired, the insurance will resolve and dont forget as you toil, this too will pass

 

Dave,

Words of wisdom, thanks.  I just need to cool off from this entire frustrating process.  When you think the damning video evidence would be enough to wrap this up, in reality the process to close this out is just starting.

 

 

So, I get your frustration with the insurance process. I deal with other insurance companies all day. Mercury is pretty well known for being difficult to deal with. I am not shocked at their adjuster's reaction. State Farm is the biggest, but not the most efficient outfit out there. Since they are so big it can take them a while to get moving sometimes. That's my personal experience. 

 

I hope it gets handled as soon as possible, but be prepared for disappointment. You never know what arbitration will bring. Sometimes it's seen your way...sometimes not.

 

David,

 

I appreciate the behind the scenes explanation esp about your experiences about dealing with Mercury.  I've already resigned myself to the fact that this will probably take a year to resolve and I'm just mildly optimistic that I'll see the deductible back.  Speaking of, had the Mercury agent had offered to pay for the dvd copy and shipping to her, I would've gladly done it to further things along.  This was even after I posted the vid on Youtube and suggested she copy the video from YT as this would be the quickest way to get it into her hands.  I went through all that trouble of converting it from a proprietary file format that the security cam uses to a standard video file format and posted it for her. But she was playing "if you don't do this, we will do that" game and then late accused me of "editing the video" and thats where it became too much for me.

 

If this is hard on us insurance consumers, I can't imagine what your job is like on a day to day basis.  You must be incredibly patient---and i hope you get paid well for your work!

[BDB]

Hello all,

 

Thanks for reading.  I've cooled down a bit, removed some offensive language, and wanted to say to the folks here if I've offended any of you with my colorful language, I am sorry.  I'm not good with people who lie, just one of my hot buttons.  

 

I wanted to let you guys know too about my conversation with Rob from 2002 Haus.  Rob read my post above and called me to let me know what happened in greater detail.  My adjuster guy called Rob to discuss and procure the part around mid June.  The part was then ordered by Ray.  Rob took photos of the part and sent it to Ray who was satisfied and ordered the part.  Rob built a crate for it and shipped it.  Rob then confirmed with Ray if everything was kosher.  Ray acknowledged everything was fine.  

 

During this time, I was getting no response (as written above) about the progress of the work.  As stated above Ray claimed that he wasn't happy with the part that Rob sent and that he was getting another part from Rob.  Rob clarified with me today over the phone that Ray requested it, but Rob denied the request.  What need to be determined now is if the damaged body was repaired or was the panel that was purchased through insurance used to complete the repair.

 

So that pretty much confirmed what I thought was b.s. and validates how this guy operates his business.  I'm going to talk with my insurance company and the BAR here in CA and let them know what has transpired.  

Edited December 16, 2013 by sizzlerscheesetoast

[jayamasaki]

Next time, go to Marcos Auto Body.

 

insurance company approved, very professional, never had a bad experience, referred people there and they are more than satisfied.

 

good work, they take long, but well worth the wait, and they do not bs about the wait time, pretty accurate. 

 

 

 

[JFT]

Place called Automotive Innovations, in Van Nuys,  does really good work. I think the founder, Kevin, still runs the place. They do mostly Porsche work, but might just be willing to fix your car for you. I've used 'em and count myself as a satisfied customer. Good luck.

Edited December 16, 2013 by JFT