Paint mega-disaster (long rant)

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396 Signet

396 Signet

Well-Known Member
Joined
Mar 12, 2008
Messages
415
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21
Location
Pittsburgh, PA
Have a 65 Signet that I was getting painted. It's a super nice 57k mile Ca car with no rust on the body, it had some rust in the trunk that needed partial replacement (tire well & a 2" x 9" section provided by me). Decided to do a real thorough job so I bought a rotisserie. Completely dissassembled car to bare shell, completely removed all undercoating and cleaned until spotless. Car had no accident damage other than a few small dings in the fenders/ quarters, a banged up rear valence, & some dents in the roof where someone had sat on it (this was my biggest worry). Originally was having a body shop very close by do it but they held it for a year & only managed to get a couple small dents fixed so gave up & tried another shop that advertises about their resto work. The guy looked everything over & said this would be easy & should have it done within the year (this was 5/06). Their rates were high ($65/ hr) but their quality appeared good. Gave them detailed pics & instructions on everything to be done as well as verbally telling them. Wanted the floors, trunk, & underbody painted with basic detail with concentration on outer body quality. They immediately dug in & painted & repaired every dent, prepped & primered every part (fenders, hood, doors, trunk, brackets, etc) & replaced trunk sections. The shell was completely in primer & looked great & looked to me to be almost ready for paint in 3/07. Appeared only some surface rust on floor needed sanded & painted. Only one guy was working on it at that time as collision work allowed but he seemed very quick & at that time the total hourly billing totaled about $9k which I paid. At this point the work completely stopped. Called about many times in 2007 & 2008 but they said they had too much collision work & they could not get to it. Resigned myself to waiting & finally the owner called, said he hired a new resto guy to work on my car. This was around 4/08. Went up to check progress a month or so later & the guy was doing what looked to be some final detailing of the trunk, underbody, & floors prior to paint. Mentioned I wanted some frame connectors. Wanted a very simple setup using 1" x 2" tube & some plate which I provided. Gave detailed instructions of exactly the setup with pics, then went up & showed them on the car exactly what I wanted to avoid all confusion. Figured it should take at most 4 hours, a local racecar fabricator said he would do it for $200 but wanted to get them painted so gave the bodyshop the go-ahead. Asked the owner what the current charges were & he said he didn't know, his accountant handles that stuff. Called a few days later & he said he had a total, $10,700, & to come up & pay. Said that seemed a bit high for work done, he looked at the billing & said yeah, somethings wrong, there were overcharges. Gave him a check & told him to just use the extra for any future work. A week later get a call (2 weeks ago) to come up & check out the connectors. Go up & am shocked to see they completely changed my design, they channeled the 2" section to 1", mounted the tube vertically & drilled a 1" through hole for the emergency brake cable. They also finished all welds to the level you might see on a high dollar street rod. Was kinda speechless & asked the body guy why he didn't do what I asked, he said his setup was more attractive & stronger. This was a Friday & the more I thought about how many hours they may have sunk into it the more fearful I became. Called 1st thing Monday & relayed my concerns to the owner & told him take the connectors off, didn't want them that way. He said come on up, I did & he said he would take care of any hourly problem so I said go ahead & leave as-is. Get a call this monday & owner says horray, some of body is ready for final paint, come on & take some pics & bring checkbook to settle. Go up & car looks great, keeping in mind only the underbody, trunk, floors, & engine compartment are final painted. Go in to settle, he says total not including paint work done this week is an additional $19,000. I nearly crap myself & say that can't be right, he says it is. Ask to take billing home. Examine & they have been continuously charging me for the new guys labor & total was more than 500 hours. The new guy was working unbelievably slow. Then they charged me an extra $5/ hr retroactively for misc materials excluding paint ($4200 for materials). The detailed billing showed over $2600 for the frame connector install alone!! My grand total is now over $40,000!! Call the owner to discuss & he says it should be another $20k or so to complete the painting. This is with me doing 100% of all assembly work. Tell him to halt all work immediately. Now I have a huge dilemma as to what to do. My 1st plan is to ask owner to settle on a much smaller amount (unlikely) with the 2nd plan bringing a lawsuit. Any which way I'm screwed as he has my car. Suggestions / comments / sympathy please.
 
Get A lawyer ASAP. Tell them the whole deal, show them what paperwork you have and take it from there. I wouldn't reley on anyones input, this is ALOT of money at stake and since it's going to be a legal matter do it right the first time and move on, don't take a chance at getting screwed out of more money than you already have been.
Just my .02
 
:shock: WOW, what a mess! Sounds like you may want to get a lawyer if he doesn't settle on a lower price. You may just have to pay him, them take your car somewhere else asap! Good luck
 
Sorry, but it's hard to follow through the story - how much have you paid them already and how long have they had the car?
 
Never paid the guy the new bill of $19k & don't plan to unless I get a court order. He will never touch anything of mine ever again, just need to find a way to get my car back, grew kind of fond of it. The body is not worth $19k so he'll be screwed as well.
 
Ace said:
Sorry, but it's hard to follow through the story - how much have you paid them already and how long have they had the car?
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Have paid about $20k, haven't seen the final weeks billing but total should be about $42k. They've had my car over 2 years & have billed for over 500 hours. I have high res pics of everything I gave them.
 
Do you have anything in writing other than invoices? That sounds like a LOT of money for what they are doing. Good luck!!!!
Daryl
 
I guess I've just been lucky. When I had the Challenger done, I told him what I wanted done, and how I wanted certain things done. He did what I asked, and was $27.00 off of his original estimate. I had taken the car to him the end of October. Not much was done the end of November or December because of the holidays. And I think I got the car back in March.

hopefully I'll be taking the Sedan to him soon, and hopefully I'll get the same treatment on it that I did on my Challenger and my truck.
 
440WIP said:
Do you have anything in writing other than invoices? That sounds like a LOT of money for what they are doing. Good luck!!!!
Daryl
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That's my biggest problem. Don't have copies of most of the stuff I gave them as far as instructions & much was verbal. They have everything that I gave them in a folder but doesn't do me much good. This isn't the 1st car I had done, some years ago I had another car's body shell painted by John Balow at MCR which is a well known place that does high quality work & they accomplished vastly more in 500 hours. The crux of the matter is they put a guy to work on it that was incredibly slow.
 
Man thats bad. I would do like 68-340-S says & make friends with a lawyer fast. No 65 Signet is worth 40+K even if it was a 1 of 1. I understand your fond of it & want it done right, I want the same for my duster when the time comes, but man, I think they are just trying to bone you at this point. I mean, 40+K for paint & body?!? Come on. Surely you could sit down with a lawyer & expalin to him whats going on & surely he would see that it shouldnt cost that much to do what your doing to the car..... Sounds like a get rich quick deal for the body shop to me.......
 
Did he give you a written estimate when you first brought the car there? Any way you look at it there`s something fishy in Denmark, I would call a good lawyer first thing Monday morning.
 
Damn that is EXPNSIVE! Personally I think you are SCREWED if you do not have some type of contract, estimate etc. Sounds like you just gave them a GREEN light to get the work done! If that is the case then you owe the bill whatever they say it is. I damn sure would sit down and see what could be done but based on what your side of the story is you gave the OK! Sit down with the Owner and discuss the cost!
keep a level head and be professional, no need in blowing up , cussing and getting all pissed off. That will just make things worse for you, because they still have your car. Personally I think your car should be finished for what you have already paid but that is only my opinion based on your description. You should "NEVER NEVER NEVER" have any shop work on your car without an estimate of some type,or some type of contract etc.
I would try to get the owner to settle somehow on a reasonable $$$ amount and then get your car the hell out of there FAST! Absorb your losses and go on. Take the shafting as a learning experience! If you are like me you would want to beat his *** real good and let him understand he just can't screw people over without concequences! But that is not going to do you anygood neither.Just settle for an amount!
Pay the bill and haul your car away from the crook. Then write your story and post it everywhere you can to make it seen and make his crooked *** be known and his business suffer as much as possible! Tell everyone you know and spread the word on how crooked his shop is and what they did to you.
 
Know it's incredibly stupid on my part, no contract or estimate, was based on time & materials. Made the mistake of trust. One of the critical mistakes I made was not picking up on the fact that any directions I gave them were ignored, they just seemed to do as they wished. This is a very emotional issue for me and have to struggle to keep in control.
 
I know you must be beside yourself but I really think a lawyer and a courtroom could settle this. It`s beyond reasonable to charge anybody that kind of money for body work and paint and I believe a judge would see it that way too. I just recently had my Dart painted and even though I know the owner and worked with him I got him to write up an estimate with what he was to do ,time, rate, materials , and even a completion date. He did miss the completion date by a little bit but I understood that he had his collision work to do too because it`s his bread and butter. I would get a lawyer right away, this shop is trying to scalp you.
 
Something you need to watch out for is! If and when you let him know or he finds out you are seeking Legal action! He may try to get a mechanics lein on the car. You might want to get some type of restraining order on him to stop him from that so it can go to court and be setteled there. With what you have already paid to this idiot I would hate to see him wind up with your car by filing a mechanics lein. GET A LWWYER FAST, maybe a Lawyer can get something done for you. Still sounds to me you gave them the OK to do whatever on the car and if that is so they can basically charge you whatever they want,Time and materials can EAT YOU ALIVE! Especially time! I sure hope you come out on this deal.Keep us all informed!
 
its sad to see places taking advantage of decent people. working on ferraris we do hold the owners car if they dont want to pay but we don't b.s. around so we haven't had a problem.
 
Good Gawd, man!
This shop is using you to finance their slow season, or something! Get a lawyer; don't take this lying down. I would be ashamed to give a customer a bill that high for a car of that vintage.
 
Hey, wait a minute, how come all you guys are telling 396Signet to hire a lawyer? What about all those threads you've posted, saying lawyers are scumbags?? Certainly you don't want 396Signet to hire one of those guys, do you?? No way!! I think the better course is for him to just forget about the money he lost and finish the job himself. That would be highly preferable to hiring one of those scumbag lawyers and recovering the money. You just don't want to lower yourself to associating with such terrible examples of humanity, right?? I mean, like you've said in your numerous, numerous posts!!

Yes, I just wanted to remind you guys about all your previous posts, in which you said that people should avoid lawyers like the plague. I think you were inadvertently being hypocrites in your answers to 396Signet. OF COURSE, I KNOW you guys aren't hypocrites, right? It must have just been an accident. I mean, you aren't like these freakin' hypocrites who complain and complain about lawyers, and then as soon as they get themselves in a legal jam or get a hangnail, go out and hire one, ARE YOU??
 
Bill, I take it your a lawyer ? I dont know, I did a quick search for "Lawyer" and dont see anyone calling them Scumbags here. Perhaps you are thinking of a different web site ?

396, So they have charged you around $30,000 for labor and the car still isnt painted ?
 
Can't speak to whomever you're referring to, but not all lawyers are scumbags............common sense should rule........cynicism and sarcasm noted however..........

This garage is purposely raking you over the coals.......There is no shop owner alive (except one who is mentally challenged) who could possibly believe the work performed is worth that billing.........You need a reputable lawyer, and to start doing your homework........prepare the case yourself by going to a couple other body shops and detailing exactly what was done on the car......get them to give written estimates, and use them as exhibits in court.......and be sure they're well established shops, not fly by nights......it has to bear weight in court.

If you drop off your toaster to be repaired, and the guy has it for 2 years and tinkers with it for 500 hours, then bills you 5 grand for the job, it won't hold up in court. :read2:
 
I could not believe that anyone could charge so much.:wack:
They should have the car completed and motor and int, motor, trans and ready to drive for half that much..... Where are you from?
I wish I could send them a shut down notice and get your car home.
This is unbelievable what they are trying to do to you.:-k

Our mayor and sheriff are car guy's and I bet they would shut them down in this town for the screwing they are giving you.

I hope everything gets straighten out for you soon.8)
 
If Judge Judy and those other shows reflect reality at all I think you may have a hard time without an initial estimate, and already agreeing to pay $20k so far. I would also probably think if you let them work on it for two years money must not be an object. But I hope you can find a good lawyer to get past all that, estimates from other places may help a lot. Good luck.
 
Bad thing is you couldn't trust this guy to finish the car no matter what. He could make the paint fall off of it if he wanted to.

Course you could always take the "place index finger along side of nose then shove to one side" approach and run a bulldozer through his shop......naturally you would want to ascertain the exact location of your car first.

It gets cold and damp sleepin with da fishes


I forgot....this guy really doesn't want to get a mechanic's lien against the car....unless (based on what you were willing to pay so far) he thinks its something really valuable. He'll be lucky to get a grand or two for the hull.

Let him do it, then get a ringer to buy your car back for nuthin
 
Bill, you do sound like a lawyer regarding the scumbag comments. Sorry to offend but I don't like dealing with lawyers at all, seems whenever they get involved everyone loses. My goal is to try & get him to settle 1st so I can get my car back & finish it myself. All depends on how reasonable he is, he has been very pleasant & cooperative so far but this could change in a heartbeat. Once he finds out my plans he may go ballistic in which case I will go the court route as a last resort. I never gave him the go-ahead to work all these hours. He did it without informing me. Keep in mind we went over a year with no billing & I suddenly get a billing for 100's of hours.
 
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