I brought my 3 in to get a little warranty job done. Dropped it off yesterday and came back today to pick it up.

Much to my surprise, there were two small scratches on the driver's side rocker panel just below the back half of the door. Not just light scratches but right through the paint. Clearly somebody accidentially did it while working on the car. They were working the driver's side interior section replacing a sensor.

Needless to say, I was not happy. They offered to bring it to the body shop tomorrow.

It's the rocker panel and not the hood, but still... How should I be handling this?

 

Let them handle it then find a new shop. It's a good thing you saw it before you left otherwise they would have never owned up to it.

 

lucky u caught it

 

Agreed always do a walk around when you drop off and pick up. Let the dealership make it right. If not to your standards then take it someplace else.
Things happen....

 

burn 'em down

 

exactly like you did.

I worked in a body shop for several years writing estimates for GEICO. I always did a walkaround with a paint marker and made sure the customer and I both knew where the old damage is on the car. Every car has old damage on it, it's just a matter of who and when it gets noticed.

The only time I had a problem was with a guy that had a brand new corvette (literally, like, 50 miles on the car before he had an accident) that got pissed off when i started marking things like paint bubbles and a small scratches he claimed weren't there. When he came to pick up the car, he wondered where all these things came from, and I had to go over with him, picture by picture, all the places we had marked as OD on the car.

 

but the GT3 rocker panel is part of the fender. well, basically it doesn't have a separated piece from the car. are they going to blend it? better find out before they attempt a cheap fix.

 

rocker panel ?
I would get an opinion from a pro detailer to use touch up paint and wet sand before spraying anything.

Even then .. I may opt to NOT spray it . A good touch up can make a highly visible scratch almost invisible . Only you will see it because you know it's there and will look directly at it .

A used car shopper would rather see a slight imperfection on a tiny scratch than having to guess why a panel is painted.

 

Go scratch there cars!! no im kidding. I'd raise hell though. Make em fix it or pay for sure.

 

They are going to fix it for sure. No question on that. They knew the car was perfect when I brought it in as they were checking out my purchase. I literally just bought the car last week (not from there though). The car was mint... Not to mention I just had the car detailed and the detailer was so nervous he did a walk around before starting on the car Zero damage. No one is questioning whether or not it happened at the dealer. Especially since the damage is right in the area where they were working yesterday.

I agree about the rocker panel and blending. I'm not sure how they are going to do it. I picked the car up at 530p yesterday so there was no one around to discuss this with.

Should I be concerned about depreciated value and so forth? Or should I just be satisfied that they are going to repair it?

 

Be satisfied that they're taking care of it for you. If I were you, I'd forget the term diminished value. No, this job, if done properly, will not affect the value of your vehicle.
Diminished value is almost strictly an insurance company deal, and only in extreme cases. In my time working for GEICO, I had four people try to bring diminished value claims for work done under an estimate of mine. The first thing we do when someone mentions it is to figure out what the problem with the repair is. If the problem is simply "it was in an accident", they're gently told to pound sand. If there are problems with the repair, we'll fix those problems.

But here's the basic run-down on the process (from the one customer that followed it all the way through):
1. Have irreperable issues with the repair
2. Get no less than three appraisals of the vehicle's value after the repair.
3. Compare that to the Average Cash Value for your vehicle, in your locale.

After that, the difference has to be greater than a certain percentage, and attributed to the directly to the accident/repair itself, not to other factors (wear on the vehicle, mileage, other damage, etc).

 

And just FYI, what they'll probably do with the repair is a spot blend, and end up painting no more than a couple inches on either side of the scratches. You'll never know the difference when it's done

I've seen this done on areas the size of a dollar bill, and it comes out looking great!

 

Thanks for all the info! This makes me feel much better. I'm still in the honeymoon phase with this car since I've only had it for like a week.

I'm sure by this time next year I probably wouldn't have even cared

 

Deputy

When I bought my '08 997s last year, I noticed a pretty deep scratch near the passenger door handle. I didn't mind b/c it is the perfectly optioned car for me, but as part of the sales condition, I had the dealer touch-up and wet-sand the scratch for me. It came out pretty well - you only see a faint reminder of a scratch when you get up close to it. And the color match was great. I'm pretty OCD about rock chips, scratches, etc. myself, but I actually don't mind that it's not 100% perfect. It's darn close and not very noticeable.

The only question is, if it doesn't come out the way you like it, what would you have them do next?


Alan

 

that should be easily fixable....but just wait to you see what happens in time to the rocker panels where they flare out in front of the rear wheels....especially while tracking the car.

Anyone have a fix for this or just a rocker panel repaint? Front to rear?