ATX - Body Shop Chronicles: My Epic Nightmare (Don's Classic Cars)
08-24-2011, 04:06 PM
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Drifting
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Member Since: Oct 2007
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St. Jude Donor '08
ATX - Body Shop Chronicles: My Epic Nightmare (Don's Classic Cars)
WARNING: THIS IS A LONG READ, BUT I COULD HAVE GONE ON FOR PAGES MORE. Please read and comment! Your support is appreciated.
Below is a listing of facts in chronological order.
Towards the end of the 3rd quarter of 2010, I bought a 2004 Dodge Viper SRT-10 Mamba Edition from one of my friends on the West Coast. I got a great deal on it, and the car was a good looking beast too. It was a nationally competitive autocrosser's car. He wanted to get out of it and build a different car. I changed out my SRT-10 truck with this SRT-10 Viper as my daily driver. I was the happiest person alive, and I enjoyed about 4500 problem free miles of pure driving bliss over the next couple months. I even had some fun at some autocross events with it. I had one of my dream cars as my daily driver and I loved every second of it. It was my sports car, my grand tourer, my grocery getter, my love.
January 20, 2011
I drive my car to work and park it in a spot in front of my business. In the middle of the work day, I'm alerted by my employees yelling out to someone to stop, and then I hear a crunch sound. A customer in her BMW X5 had backed up her car into the side of my car. Fighting strong feelings, I went through the process of calling insurance companies, setting up to ship to a body shop etc.
January 21, 2011
Here is where I made my mistake. I did not want to send the car to the insurance company's recommended shop because I was afraid they would not know how to work with fiberglass/carbon fiber and I wanted to get a good job. I called a couple people, and decided to send my car to Don's Classic Cars on 620 on recommendation from a friend who had a couple cars painted there and was getting ready to ship his FFR Cobra's body there as well. I looked online and after a few reviews, without actually having even met the guy or having seen his shop, I shipped my car off to him.
January 29, 2011
I got a check in the mail from the lady's insurance company for $6605 as per the insurance claim. I cashed the check and took Don a deposit of $4000. I went to his shop, and I was not too impressed by the booth and the shop. However, since he was so highly recommended to me, and since he had already started making progress on the car, I didn't think much of it. I dropped off the deposit, checked on my car and left. He promised the car to me in 4-5 weeks. I knew he would probably take longer, but I didn't think it would be too much of a problem. The insurance company said they would provide a rental for 2 months, and that seemed more than enough. I also picked up a used Borla exhaust at this time and installed it onto the car at his shop which he had the skirts off it.
Also, I agreed to pay him $1000 extra at the end to refinish the rest of the car, clean up scome scuffs and to make it look new like the side the insurance company had said they would pay for. I thought I would be getting a show quality finish, and the way Don spoke, I was led to believe the same. The man has a golden mouth, a gift of gab, I can give him that.
March/April/May
Days turned into weeks, Weeks turned into months. Don never seemed to run out of excuses as to why my car was not ready. He would blame faulty parts, missing bolts, aftermarket body parts that the body shop had supplied, black being a hard color to work on, his employees not showing up, etc. Frustration ran high, but I kept my cool and trudged through it. I returned the rental car because it seemed like he was ready to give the car back to me towards the end of April/ early May. At the end of 4 months (May 21st), he said he would drop the $1000 extra charge to paint the rest of the car since it was taking a lot longer than he had expected. I thought this meant we were in the last leg of the race.
June
He kept making excuses every day, and co-incidentally, work was very busy for me. I had very little time to spend on my hobbies and follow other stuff outside of work. The Viper went to the back burner.
Towards mid June, I started trying to contact him at least once every couple days, and pressuring to have my car done. He would still keep making excuses. He claimed he broke a door and that he had to refinish fenders that the insurance company sent him etc. Also he had to get a new bracket for the inside of the fender, and said that the insurance company would be sending me a check for $1100 in incidentals for it.
The way my setup is at work, I can not leave during work hours, 8 am - 6 pm every day. My only day off is Sundays. This came to his benefit, since he never had to deal with me face to face because I never had time to go see him. He kept piling on excuses as to why he couldn't meet deadlines that he gave himself. Parts not showing up, trucks losing packages, companies taking his credit card info and not shipping anything, employees not showing up, it was too hot....the list goes on. He always said he would give the car back to me after it got to a point where he was happy with it. I thought that meant I would get a good show finish since this guy had a bunch of expensive classic cars at his shop. At multiple times in the process, I wanted to pick up my car and send it somewhere else to finish, but Don would talk me out of it and ensure me that it would be done "right."
July
After a 100 more excuses and atleast a total of 20 deadlines that he had given himself, not a single one of which had been met, I got the insurance company involved in it again. They sent out someone to check on the progress of the car and forced him to give me tracking information on parts that were supposedly ordered. I really don't believe that he had ordered a fender or a sideskirt for the car (almost $3K in parts), and he finally gave me tracking numbers. Fedex/UPS also decided to add to the confusion and delayed my packages a couple days. The first fender that showed up was damaged in shipping, and had to be returned and another one shipped. ETA was the last week of July. July 21st marked 6 months of him having my car and I went berserk in my head. Somehow, I still managed to stay cool since I was busy with work.
The fender showed up around the last week of July, and by July 30th, I got a call that the car was ready to be picked up. I knew he had done a quick job just to finish it, but I still went in with high hopes for the car. His booth doesn't have capabilities to bake the paint. It seemed too good to be true since I know black takes a while to set etc.
When I pulled up, the car was outside his shop, in the bright sunlight. I was late for a meeting and just gave it a quick look around. I saw some haziness and some dust and compound still in the creases of the car and on the rubber, but decided that I would let the car bake a couple weeks, and then get it professionally buffed and detailed. I paid the balance on the job ($2205 from the initial estimate plus $1100 in incidental = $3305) picked it up and took it back to my work and parked it for the weekend. 2 of the 4 tires had screws in them from sitting at his shop, but they were almost bald and were runflats, and I already had new tires ordered, so I didn't care too much about it. The 8-10 mile drive back to my work was the most fun I had in 6 months. I had a smile on my face all the way back to my shop. The emblem on the front bumper was way too low, but I knew that would be a quick fix.
August 1st 2011
Come Monday, I took the car to a neighboring shop to have lowering springs and new tires installed. As soon as I pulled it into their shop, under the flourescents, we started catching stuff in the paint. One of the guys that worked at the shop used to work in a custom car shop in the past and he helped me look over the car and we spotted many fisheyes, dirt in the paint and a lot of haziness that had started showing more since the paint was drying. He said that he had seen better paintjobs come out of people's garages. Also, upon further inspection, the paint on the sideskirts had cracked and was peeling off the car from the heat from the exhausts.
I called Don and took the car right back to him that day. My friend and I spent some time with some masking tape and marked off defects ALL OVER the car. It really did not look like a professional job. Kokamo Joe painted his '69 Camaro in his garage and the finish on that looks a 1000 times better than my car. Don had forgotten to replace the heat shields over the exhausts, and the heat from them had made the paint peel off. The car did not look like it had been flashed right between coats and the last 2 body panels had been rushed through. There was all kinds of haziness showing back up in the paint. There was buffing compound in gaps, on rubber, on the convertible top. A couple edges had been burned in buffing. It was obvious that dirty pads had been used and that had scratched up the paint etc.
My friend who recommended me the shop has been extremely apologetic all along. He claims he has never been treated this way by Don and that he will never recommend him to anyone ever again. He too was very sad and taken aback, but he had family issues to deal with, so I stopped talking about it to him.
August 12th 2011
Don says he has resprayed clear on some panels and is cutting and buffing them again. He promises to have the car back by August 20th and that I will absolutely love the finish on it. Again, I keep my hopes high and look forward to seeing it
August 20th 2011
Don says he still has to reclear the hood and the trunk and finish it right and that it may take him another week to finish. At this point, I'm so far past being frustrated that it is almost at the point of depression. It makes me sad even to listen to this guy's excuses.
August 23rd 2011
I called him today and he says that he is yet to spray the decklid. He says he sprayed the hood and fenders but has not had time to cut or buff them. He says he will not be done with it by this weekend. When asked why he was still making bogus promises after a 7 month wait, he said that he will stop making promises and will just give the car back to me when he thinks he is happy with it.
Not only has this been the most un-professional, exhausting, frustrating business I have ever dealt with, but it has been over 7 months since I dropped off the car and I am yet to get it back right. I have been straggling along for the last 7 months without my dream car which I had for a short 2-3 month period before it was taken away from me. It pains me to go through this and type it out. It hurts to even think about it. My blood pressure goes up and I get very hot and flustered knowing that I have been played around with and there's almost nothing I can do about it. I have even paid this guy's balance payment, the one thing that I had over him. It hurts me to think that I've been such a co-operative and calm customer when I could have easily blown up and got stuff done right. I didn't want to be rude and disrespectful, since I'm a nice guy. Call me naive, and you may actually be right. When it comes to people that have been recommended to me, I'm really nice to them, and I never negotiate or try to go around things with them.
I still keep my hopes up that I get my car back at some point in time in the next couple weeks, and that it looks better than it did the first time I got it. I get pretty depressed every time I think about it, and have run out of things to try to get this guy to do it right. This is pretty much the only reason I'm posting up here. My friend thinks that Don is just a guy who has lost the love for his skill with working on cars. He just doesn't care as much anymore and that shows in his work. Other people I know on a local car forum here in Austin say that Don is back to his old tricks and that I'm screwed.
Thanks for your support and reading this. I will update this thread as and when any progress happens. Meanwhile, PLEASE be aware before you consider this guy for any work.
The insurance company (State Farm) has pretty much washed their hands clean because they have paid out and I picked the shop, and it is not one of their recommended shops. Sucks to be me.
Ven Shenoy
Below is a listing of facts in chronological order.
Towards the end of the 3rd quarter of 2010, I bought a 2004 Dodge Viper SRT-10 Mamba Edition from one of my friends on the West Coast. I got a great deal on it, and the car was a good looking beast too. It was a nationally competitive autocrosser's car. He wanted to get out of it and build a different car. I changed out my SRT-10 truck with this SRT-10 Viper as my daily driver. I was the happiest person alive, and I enjoyed about 4500 problem free miles of pure driving bliss over the next couple months. I even had some fun at some autocross events with it. I had one of my dream cars as my daily driver and I loved every second of it. It was my sports car, my grand tourer, my grocery getter, my love.
January 20, 2011
I drive my car to work and park it in a spot in front of my business. In the middle of the work day, I'm alerted by my employees yelling out to someone to stop, and then I hear a crunch sound. A customer in her BMW X5 had backed up her car into the side of my car. Fighting strong feelings, I went through the process of calling insurance companies, setting up to ship to a body shop etc.
January 21, 2011
Here is where I made my mistake. I did not want to send the car to the insurance company's recommended shop because I was afraid they would not know how to work with fiberglass/carbon fiber and I wanted to get a good job. I called a couple people, and decided to send my car to Don's Classic Cars on 620 on recommendation from a friend who had a couple cars painted there and was getting ready to ship his FFR Cobra's body there as well. I looked online and after a few reviews, without actually having even met the guy or having seen his shop, I shipped my car off to him.
January 29, 2011
I got a check in the mail from the lady's insurance company for $6605 as per the insurance claim. I cashed the check and took Don a deposit of $4000. I went to his shop, and I was not too impressed by the booth and the shop. However, since he was so highly recommended to me, and since he had already started making progress on the car, I didn't think much of it. I dropped off the deposit, checked on my car and left. He promised the car to me in 4-5 weeks. I knew he would probably take longer, but I didn't think it would be too much of a problem. The insurance company said they would provide a rental for 2 months, and that seemed more than enough. I also picked up a used Borla exhaust at this time and installed it onto the car at his shop which he had the skirts off it.
Also, I agreed to pay him $1000 extra at the end to refinish the rest of the car, clean up scome scuffs and to make it look new like the side the insurance company had said they would pay for. I thought I would be getting a show quality finish, and the way Don spoke, I was led to believe the same. The man has a golden mouth, a gift of gab, I can give him that.
March/April/May
Days turned into weeks, Weeks turned into months. Don never seemed to run out of excuses as to why my car was not ready. He would blame faulty parts, missing bolts, aftermarket body parts that the body shop had supplied, black being a hard color to work on, his employees not showing up, etc. Frustration ran high, but I kept my cool and trudged through it. I returned the rental car because it seemed like he was ready to give the car back to me towards the end of April/ early May. At the end of 4 months (May 21st), he said he would drop the $1000 extra charge to paint the rest of the car since it was taking a lot longer than he had expected. I thought this meant we were in the last leg of the race.
June
He kept making excuses every day, and co-incidentally, work was very busy for me. I had very little time to spend on my hobbies and follow other stuff outside of work. The Viper went to the back burner.
Towards mid June, I started trying to contact him at least once every couple days, and pressuring to have my car done. He would still keep making excuses. He claimed he broke a door and that he had to refinish fenders that the insurance company sent him etc. Also he had to get a new bracket for the inside of the fender, and said that the insurance company would be sending me a check for $1100 in incidentals for it.
The way my setup is at work, I can not leave during work hours, 8 am - 6 pm every day. My only day off is Sundays. This came to his benefit, since he never had to deal with me face to face because I never had time to go see him. He kept piling on excuses as to why he couldn't meet deadlines that he gave himself. Parts not showing up, trucks losing packages, companies taking his credit card info and not shipping anything, employees not showing up, it was too hot....the list goes on. He always said he would give the car back to me after it got to a point where he was happy with it. I thought that meant I would get a good show finish since this guy had a bunch of expensive classic cars at his shop. At multiple times in the process, I wanted to pick up my car and send it somewhere else to finish, but Don would talk me out of it and ensure me that it would be done "right."
July
After a 100 more excuses and atleast a total of 20 deadlines that he had given himself, not a single one of which had been met, I got the insurance company involved in it again. They sent out someone to check on the progress of the car and forced him to give me tracking information on parts that were supposedly ordered. I really don't believe that he had ordered a fender or a sideskirt for the car (almost $3K in parts), and he finally gave me tracking numbers. Fedex/UPS also decided to add to the confusion and delayed my packages a couple days. The first fender that showed up was damaged in shipping, and had to be returned and another one shipped. ETA was the last week of July. July 21st marked 6 months of him having my car and I went berserk in my head. Somehow, I still managed to stay cool since I was busy with work.
The fender showed up around the last week of July, and by July 30th, I got a call that the car was ready to be picked up. I knew he had done a quick job just to finish it, but I still went in with high hopes for the car. His booth doesn't have capabilities to bake the paint. It seemed too good to be true since I know black takes a while to set etc.
When I pulled up, the car was outside his shop, in the bright sunlight. I was late for a meeting and just gave it a quick look around. I saw some haziness and some dust and compound still in the creases of the car and on the rubber, but decided that I would let the car bake a couple weeks, and then get it professionally buffed and detailed. I paid the balance on the job ($2205 from the initial estimate plus $1100 in incidental = $3305) picked it up and took it back to my work and parked it for the weekend. 2 of the 4 tires had screws in them from sitting at his shop, but they were almost bald and were runflats, and I already had new tires ordered, so I didn't care too much about it. The 8-10 mile drive back to my work was the most fun I had in 6 months. I had a smile on my face all the way back to my shop. The emblem on the front bumper was way too low, but I knew that would be a quick fix.
August 1st 2011
Come Monday, I took the car to a neighboring shop to have lowering springs and new tires installed. As soon as I pulled it into their shop, under the flourescents, we started catching stuff in the paint. One of the guys that worked at the shop used to work in a custom car shop in the past and he helped me look over the car and we spotted many fisheyes, dirt in the paint and a lot of haziness that had started showing more since the paint was drying. He said that he had seen better paintjobs come out of people's garages. Also, upon further inspection, the paint on the sideskirts had cracked and was peeling off the car from the heat from the exhausts.
I called Don and took the car right back to him that day. My friend and I spent some time with some masking tape and marked off defects ALL OVER the car. It really did not look like a professional job. Kokamo Joe painted his '69 Camaro in his garage and the finish on that looks a 1000 times better than my car. Don had forgotten to replace the heat shields over the exhausts, and the heat from them had made the paint peel off. The car did not look like it had been flashed right between coats and the last 2 body panels had been rushed through. There was all kinds of haziness showing back up in the paint. There was buffing compound in gaps, on rubber, on the convertible top. A couple edges had been burned in buffing. It was obvious that dirty pads had been used and that had scratched up the paint etc.
My friend who recommended me the shop has been extremely apologetic all along. He claims he has never been treated this way by Don and that he will never recommend him to anyone ever again. He too was very sad and taken aback, but he had family issues to deal with, so I stopped talking about it to him.
August 12th 2011
Don says he has resprayed clear on some panels and is cutting and buffing them again. He promises to have the car back by August 20th and that I will absolutely love the finish on it. Again, I keep my hopes high and look forward to seeing it
August 20th 2011
Don says he still has to reclear the hood and the trunk and finish it right and that it may take him another week to finish. At this point, I'm so far past being frustrated that it is almost at the point of depression. It makes me sad even to listen to this guy's excuses.
August 23rd 2011
I called him today and he says that he is yet to spray the decklid. He says he sprayed the hood and fenders but has not had time to cut or buff them. He says he will not be done with it by this weekend. When asked why he was still making bogus promises after a 7 month wait, he said that he will stop making promises and will just give the car back to me when he thinks he is happy with it.
Not only has this been the most un-professional, exhausting, frustrating business I have ever dealt with, but it has been over 7 months since I dropped off the car and I am yet to get it back right. I have been straggling along for the last 7 months without my dream car which I had for a short 2-3 month period before it was taken away from me. It pains me to go through this and type it out. It hurts to even think about it. My blood pressure goes up and I get very hot and flustered knowing that I have been played around with and there's almost nothing I can do about it. I have even paid this guy's balance payment, the one thing that I had over him. It hurts me to think that I've been such a co-operative and calm customer when I could have easily blown up and got stuff done right. I didn't want to be rude and disrespectful, since I'm a nice guy. Call me naive, and you may actually be right. When it comes to people that have been recommended to me, I'm really nice to them, and I never negotiate or try to go around things with them.
I still keep my hopes up that I get my car back at some point in time in the next couple weeks, and that it looks better than it did the first time I got it. I get pretty depressed every time I think about it, and have run out of things to try to get this guy to do it right. This is pretty much the only reason I'm posting up here. My friend thinks that Don is just a guy who has lost the love for his skill with working on cars. He just doesn't care as much anymore and that shows in his work. Other people I know on a local car forum here in Austin say that Don is back to his old tricks and that I'm screwed.
Thanks for your support and reading this. I will update this thread as and when any progress happens. Meanwhile, PLEASE be aware before you consider this guy for any work.
The insurance company (State Farm) has pretty much washed their hands clean because they have paid out and I picked the shop, and it is not one of their recommended shops. Sucks to be me.
Ven Shenoy
08-24-2011, 10:26 PM
#4
Le Mans Master
WOW that sucks. You also need to have the exhaust system aligned. It sits too far back and will go farther back everytime it heats up. Hopefully you will get it all fixed and enjoy.
08-25-2011, 12:00 AM
#6
I am so very sorry you have had to endure this guy's tactics and lack of professionalism. I cannot imagine the patience it must take to deal with a scumbag like this. Only once have I experienced something similar to this (but not nearly as bad) and it was with CF vendor. The pain and helplessness a person feels in situations like this is unbearable at times. It is a shame that revenge is mostly illegal (at least the kind that I would like to inflict on people like this). However, dragging this guy through a lawsuit, even if there is no real result may be the only satisfaction you can get out of this ridiculus situation.
In any event, good luck with the results and try to move on and enjoy your new Viper
In any event, good luck with the results and try to move on and enjoy your new Viper
08-25-2011, 12:36 AM
#7
Race Director
That's hard to hear (read) and harder to look at. I hope after all your patience it works out for you!
08-25-2011, 11:51 AM
#9
Burning Brakes
All I can say is WOW!! I know how you feel. I have been there before...not with this business, but with others. It just really puts a bad taste in your mouth. 
Why can't they understand this is NOT how you run a business?! Reading your story brings me back to that period in my life where I went through the same thing with a business.
I wish you all the luck in the world with this. At the end of the day, I just hope you get your Viper back as good as new!!!
Why can't they understand this is NOT how you run a business?! Reading your story brings me back to that period in my life where I went through the same thing with a business. I wish you all the luck in the world with this. At the end of the day, I just hope you get your Viper back as good as new!!!
01-17-2019, 11:17 AM
#14
Get the car out of there ASAP. Tell him whatever to get it on friendly terms. Don't tell him where its going or who will have it. This way he cant try to get it back.
Once that is done, and the car is secure, go to court. He didn't delivery and you have waited far more than most would have.You may have to settle for whatever he did right. Beyond that, get as much back as you can.
Depending on the state you may need an expert to state was was done and fair and reasonable payment for that.
Good luck, this is messy.
Once that is done, and the car is secure, go to court. He didn't delivery and you have waited far more than most would have.You may have to settle for whatever he did right. Beyond that, get as much back as you can.
Depending on the state you may need an expert to state was was done and fair and reasonable payment for that.
Good luck, this is messy.
01-22-2019, 09:04 PM
#16
Instructor
Check your statute of limitation in your State. Texas has a 2 year status to file a civil claim. I made the mistake of waiting to long to file when my painter gave me the run around and I paid through the ***!!! to get a crappy job. Had to pay him almost weekly for his work and then after dismantling the car he charge an extra $2,000.
Last edited by regatta; 01-22-2019 at 09:14 PM.
