Tweet
Calgary Coachworks not great
I'm going to start spewing negativity again, so if that bothers you click the back button. Otherwise, lets continue!
As some of you know, my car was in Calgary Coachworks last month, for my unfortunate (but light) incident with a deer. The car was booked in back on June 5th, and finally went in the shop on Jul 24. I had a crappy rental car (how they can compare a GTI with a Pontiac Pursuit, I don't know), and hoped it would all be over soon.....wrong...
First off, I went in to get the estimate. I myself and the shop estimate guy had determined the following needed to be fixed:
Repair/repaint hood
Replace headlight (pass)
Replace Grille
Repaint bumper (stress cracks)
Repaint fender (pass)
Replace Windshield
So, off the car goes. First thing when I drop it off, my insurance company changes the policy. Now they send someone out to do the estimate when the car is dropped off...Well there goes all the damage hunting we did earlier....plus that means the headlight or grille wasn't pre-ordered....I wasn't too pleased.....
I've got what I feel is very good body shop experience, having spent 3 years full time. I know how long this takes, and if its longer than a week, thats just bad service.
FFWD to 3 weeks later...no word from them, so I stop in....well it won't be done another week, not sure what the hold up is, and they won't show me the estimate or repair sheet so I don't know what all got fixed? Shoulda pressed harder....
4 weeks: Finally go to pick up the car, yay! Drop off the rental, show up to Coachworks, and the bitches didn't paint my bumper.....Plus, I get in the car to drive off, and they didn't put in a signal lamp to the new headlight! Plus the new headlight isn't aimed!!! ARRGHGH.....Again, going back to my previous experience, you check EVERYTHING before the car goes out, and when you install a headlight, aim the Fing thing right away like you're supposed to!! And another thing, they didn't install my foglight!! And they didn't paint the underside of my hood (even though it was on the repair bill, and they got paid for it!!!)....
Sigh....those are just the coachworks problems....My insurance company is just as evil....I pay them THOUSANDS upon THOUSANDS of dollars over the last 10 years of insurance thru them, and they cheap out on a few things...Namely, the bumper for starters, c'mon it woulda been an easy fix to refinish the bumper, and I don't care if it already had rock chips on it, there is NEW damage, so correct it....Next up, they chose to "repair and refinish" the grille....thats great, but everyone here knows how strong a 2 bar badgeless grille is, well try it with a bunch of GLUE holding it together....it broke the first time the wind hit it! So they cheaped out on buying a $115 dollar grille....Now for the wierd part, they painted the passenger fender, hood, and drivers fender....why is that wierd? THERE WAS NO DAMAGE ON THE D FENDER! yup....paint the good fender, leave the bad bumper....SMRT.....Oh, and the windshield wasn't replaced either....All I ask is that the car is repaired to the state is was before the accident, and a glued together grille and cracked windshield and paint cracked bumper is not that...
So, has anyone gathered I'm pissed yet? I'm starting with the insurance company, and forcing them to fix what they should have, and then deal with coachworks....The repair took too long, the general workmanship was shoddy, the only good thing was the quality of the paint work..it looks good.....FWIW a good friend of mine has her brand new Jetta in there too, hit a coyote and its taken a month aswell....
As some of you know, my car was in Calgary Coachworks last month, for my unfortunate (but light) incident with a deer. The car was booked in back on June 5th, and finally went in the shop on Jul 24. I had a crappy rental car (how they can compare a GTI with a Pontiac Pursuit, I don't know), and hoped it would all be over soon.....wrong...
First off, I went in to get the estimate. I myself and the shop estimate guy had determined the following needed to be fixed:
Repair/repaint hood
Replace headlight (pass)
Replace Grille
Repaint bumper (stress cracks)
Repaint fender (pass)
Replace Windshield
So, off the car goes. First thing when I drop it off, my insurance company changes the policy. Now they send someone out to do the estimate when the car is dropped off...Well there goes all the damage hunting we did earlier....plus that means the headlight or grille wasn't pre-ordered....I wasn't too pleased.....
I've got what I feel is very good body shop experience, having spent 3 years full time. I know how long this takes, and if its longer than a week, thats just bad service.
FFWD to 3 weeks later...no word from them, so I stop in....well it won't be done another week, not sure what the hold up is, and they won't show me the estimate or repair sheet so I don't know what all got fixed? Shoulda pressed harder....
4 weeks: Finally go to pick up the car, yay! Drop off the rental, show up to Coachworks, and the bitches didn't paint my bumper.....Plus, I get in the car to drive off, and they didn't put in a signal lamp to the new headlight! Plus the new headlight isn't aimed!!! ARRGHGH.....Again, going back to my previous experience, you check EVERYTHING before the car goes out, and when you install a headlight, aim the Fing thing right away like you're supposed to!! And another thing, they didn't install my foglight!! And they didn't paint the underside of my hood (even though it was on the repair bill, and they got paid for it!!!)....
Sigh....those are just the coachworks problems....My insurance company is just as evil....I pay them THOUSANDS upon THOUSANDS of dollars over the last 10 years of insurance thru them, and they cheap out on a few things...Namely, the bumper for starters, c'mon it woulda been an easy fix to refinish the bumper, and I don't care if it already had rock chips on it, there is NEW damage, so correct it....Next up, they chose to "repair and refinish" the grille....thats great, but everyone here knows how strong a 2 bar badgeless grille is, well try it with a bunch of GLUE holding it together....it broke the first time the wind hit it! So they cheaped out on buying a $115 dollar grille....Now for the wierd part, they painted the passenger fender, hood, and drivers fender....why is that wierd? THERE WAS NO DAMAGE ON THE D FENDER! yup....paint the good fender, leave the bad bumper....SMRT.....Oh, and the windshield wasn't replaced either....All I ask is that the car is repaired to the state is was before the accident, and a glued together grille and cracked windshield and paint cracked bumper is not that...
So, has anyone gathered I'm pissed yet? I'm starting with the insurance company, and forcing them to fix what they should have, and then deal with coachworks....The repair took too long, the general workmanship was shoddy, the only good thing was the quality of the paint work..it looks good.....FWIW a good friend of mine has her brand new Jetta in there too, hit a coyote and its taken a month aswell....
If it's smoken it ain't broken
I sent my body kit for MKV to the body shop to get painted and installed. book 1 month in advance and left the car before i went to mexico. Told the guys the had three weeks to paint and install the kit before I was to take ownership of the car. Well, I got back and they hadn't even painted the kit yet. Then after harrasing them for another week they call me and tell me that the "oem" glue kit for the kit is a seperate special order item that doesn't come with the kit. fine enough. However, had they opened the box of the kit when they said they would they would have found the paper with HUGE type font explaining this and it coulda been ordered much earlier... well attempted to be ordered. Turns out the glue kit is now unavailable from VW, so then they tell me they have a better, stronger glue that in thier "opinion" will work much better. Now riddle me this batman, why on gods green earth would you NOT use this glue kit to begin with if you think it's better?!? I am by no means a body shop guy, so why do I have to explain to someone how to do thier job.
Now what gets me more is I had my 2000 civic in there as well to fix up a few things before I sold it and all I need was some sort of wheel to get around. They had both cars for over a month and never made an offer to get me a set of wheels.
Comment