So I brought my car into a high end repair shop to fix the rear bumper cover some texter hit into me at a light (another story). The repair work came out fine but the car was returned with paint damage to the front bonnet and chips in the windshield. The car was delivered to my house while I was away on vacation or I would have never paid the bill or accepted the car.
There are over 40 paint chips in the bonnet and over 15 chips in the windshield that the shop tells me were existing and its just the detail waxing they did that's highlighting the chips... Bunch of Bull Sh*t if you ask me.


What legal recourse do I have as at this point they don't want to take responsibility.


I'm going to hold off on naming the shop until this is resolved. But be prepared to read more on any and all Porsche and supercar related discussion groups to blast my opinion on this shop.

 

I can't comment on how to deal with the body shop, but in terms of legal recourse: my experience is that you'll need before pictures or some kind of evidence that the car did not have the damage before you brought it in. Otherwise it's your word against theirs. Somebody correct me if I'm wrong, but that's how I've seen it go down in small claims court.

 

unless you have proof of condition before you sent it to the shop, you're out of luck. how long did they have the car for and how many additional miles did they put on it?

 

Unless they drove a ton of highway miles, i can't see how your car would have accumulated that many rock chips while in their possession. How far is the body shop from your house?

 

Unless they drove it behind a gravel truck on the way to your house....

But you need before pictures on drop-off to prove any such claims.

 

I do have a cell phone photo of the car the day it was hit which was hit and just driven home and to the body shop. maybe 15 miles on a Sunday and 25 miles on a Monday morning commuter crawl.
The chips also seem to be in a random but uniform fashion. Like someone was grinding something too close to the car.

 

can you post a pic of the chips?

 

I would have never had a shop drive my car to my house under any circumstances. You need to see if they drove excessive miles and have proof of it. Good luck

 

random but uniform

you live in the NE like me. there's bound to be a ton of rock chips on your 4 year old car. i'm gonna side with the body shop on this one.

 

I asked in your other post in detailing section but...

Did you buy car used?

If not, seller (dealer or other) most likely had chips from PO filled and blended i.e. Dr. Colorchip method or similar. In my experience, unless rock chips are properly filled, sanded, etc. the repairs can/will pop when rotary polished and also even w/ a DA. In fact if you read Dr. Colorchip instructions they advise to machine polish affected area before attempting repair w/ their method. Confidence inspiring in durability, huh?

If you bought new and can prove chips were not there then hold their feet to it.

Good luck

 

good point.


I don't think any body shop is grinding stuff to the point where there is shrapnel flying everywhere, especially not in the vicinity of a customer's car. And even if they were, you would see probably see chips on other panels, not just the front.

 

I've made it a habit to take pictures of the mileage on my cars whenever it has to be in the shop overnight. I also take pictures of the mileage purposely when someone from the shop is watching. Luckily for me, my cars has the exact same mileage when I picked them up. They will not take it for a joy ride when they know you know exactly how many miles were on the car.

 

I might agree with this except the OP stated the windshield also had new chips on it.


OP, unfortunately, it will be an uphill battle unless u have recent before pics and perhaps data logging device to show how and when it was driven.

 

Many high-end body shops photograph cars upon intake to avoid this type of claim. Did your shop photograph your car? Do you have a long-standing relationship with this shop? I don't take my cars to anyone other than my tried and true body/paint shop.

 

The body shop I use (fortunately not on this car) always takes high resolution time-stamped photos of every surface on the car when I drop it off. It worked in my favor a couple of months ago with my wife's car. There was a new chip on the door edge that I swore wasn't there previously. We sat down with them and verified it wasn't there before and they readily fixed it on their dime.

Maybe your body shop did the same thing? If not, it's a good idea next time for you to do so yourself. I think I'll do the same rather than rely on theirs next time too, now that you have me thinking about it.