Smart repairs

[Gorms]

Ok i had some so called smart repairs carried out to all 4 wheel arches on my car last week (warranty). After reading a post on DW with Gally involved i was expecting to turn up and find my car looking a mess. Guess what... they have now screwed the paint up even more, i rejected the job straight away and got a letter confirming im not happy with the standard of the work.

The dealership have now arranged for me to meet the owner of the Renault approved bodyshop for a little chat. I have already taken the car to a real body shop with a very good reputation and i got a guide of what is wrong with the current job and what needs to be done to correct the mess the other place has made. Unfortunatly this involves both front wings being resprayed and 60% of the rear left quarter needs spraying and then blending in.

Im quite looking forward to the chat as i really want to ask if he would be happy with a repair to the same standard on his car, but i now no longer want a smart repair and want the job done correctly. Im a little worried about Renault as i think its going to cost a fortune to get this done to a standard im happy with. Any pointers?

 

[flat-eric]

Any pics of the work done so far? A friend of mine has had a smart repair done on his vectra and it looked pap!

 

[Gorms]

Its so hard to photograph, stuff like poor prep where there is dirt under the paint, too much silver so looks darker in places, wrong rubbing compound used so it looks like brush marks in the paint and just really bad blend lines.

Hopefully it will all get sorted but if you are ever told a smart repair can fix it! avoid it.

 

[JD]

Their job to fix it. That's the last word. I presume it's warranty work on the 200, so can't be more than a few years old? Is it rust related or paint bubbling?

I had the same on my car (albeit a 10 year old Audi) - paint warranty is 12 years, it went back three times for a 30cm by 5cm area above the number plate on the boot lid. Wrong paint (metallic), bad finish, drips, dirt. Regardless, they either do it properly or I take it to the press... simples.

Just don't get annoyed at them as there is no reason to. Stay calm and level headed as you're in the right. And definitely don't use this little chat with the bodyshop manager as a "one up" conversation/argument. If you listen to his reasons and go back with the issues you have, he's far more likely to talk it through, think it through and hopefully sort it for you with as little stress as possible.

 

[Gorms]

Their job to fix it. That's the last word. I presume it's warranty work on the 200, so can't be more than a few years old? Is it rust related or paint bubbling?

I had the same on my car (albeit a 10 year old Audi) - paint warranty is 12 years, it went back three times for a 30cm by 5cm area above the number plate on the boot lid. Wrong paint (metallic), bad finish, drips, dirt. Regardless, they either do it properly or I take it to the press... simples.

Just don't get annoyed at them as there is no reason to. Stay calm and level headed as you're in the right. And definitely don't use this little chat with the bodyshop manager as a "one up" conversation/argument. If you listen to his reasons and go back with the issues you have, he's far more likely to talk it through, think it through and hopefully sort it for you with as little stress as possible.

Cheers JD, good advise. The car is less than a year old and the issue is the paint in the arch lip. I first spotted the problem when the car was 6 months old but due to garages closing it has taken this long to get fixed. Drips of lacquer must have formed when the car was painted and broken away leaving the paint exposed. The worst being the rear left hand arch where moisture/dirt has made its way between the lacquer and paint layer.

I have spoken to the lady at the dealership today and explained that a smart repair clearly is not going to meet my standard so she has cancelled my meeting with the body shop manager. She is now in talks with Renault to try and sort out a solution.

I will try and put some pictures up so people know what im on about but being silver its so hard to photograph.

 

[Gorms]

Only managed to find the one picture of the rear arch, and this was taken 6 months ago so it was a little bigger.

 

[JD]

Ah now you see, that's slightly more of an issue. Stone chips and "not our fault" might come up as stone chips don't fall under warranty work - although they appear to have already agreed to do it...

Dad had a similar scenario with his. Because the arches are very wide and so are the rear tyres, Audi tried to get out of a rear repaint after lots of stone chips caused an issue under the lacquer.

I s**t you not, their reasons were;

-R8s are Aluminum shells, so paint "doesn't stick as well" (of course, there is no issue on the latest A/S8s...??!!)
-The rear tyres are larger, so there is bound to be a problem and yet an identical one at our tennis club was perfectly clean
-The specific colour paint is of worse colour than the more standard silvers and blacks
-He drives it down a stone lane to our house (which had no effect on the RS4, RS6, S4 and S2...???)

Stealers. What are they good for...

 

[Gorms]

A friend has had some massive issues with Audi and the paint on his rear arches and they refuse every time he takes the car down to rectify it. So in a way i am petty lucky i have got this far i guess. The only problem now is the issue is no longer the original one and is now the repairs, an issue i have had with RUK before. On that occasion they told me it was no longer their problem and it was my job to chase up the body shop and get them to resolve the problem. Crazy well lets see what RUk come back with, im sure it will be interesting.

 

[Gorms]

Quick picture of the rear arch. I would imagine most will say its fine but its so hard to capture.

You can just about make out the darker area.

 

[JD]

And what look like brush marks!!! Hammerite smooth would look better!!

You took it to Renault, it's Renault's problem. I took my car to Audi for an MOT test, they took it to some tiny garage, the tester missed a broken spring (didn't therefore qualify for some MOT insurance I had taken out with them), Audi said it was my job to contact the MOT head office to sort it. I did. Audi Stockport were not impressed.

 

[Adamm.]

Are smart repairs that bad? Have been offered a job with a training course and quite tempted by it.

 

[JD]

To the Gen Pop, no.

To car geeks yes.

To car geeks who spot and worry about swirls in their worktop surfaces, use GTechniq products on their mirrors and bathroom to see beading in the morning while they shower and wax their kitchen surfaces to make them easier to clean, HELL YEAH.

 

[Sir_Dave]

From memory, a good friend of mine who works for a very well regarded bodyshop refers to them as 'unsmart repairs' ...

From my understanding they are fine if you arent fussy, for example use a brush to clean your car. If you are a fan of the two bucket, furry towel & 15 layers of unicorn spunk technique (aka Gally/JD), it probably wont be up to the necessary standard

 

[Adamm.]

Yeah well I have done detailing and I'm definitely fussy but as a job would it really be that hard to achieve reasonable results?

Got to be better than what I'm doing now and would probably allow better opportunities than what I do now.

I'm booked for a induction day with the company and am just waiting on an email with all the info in it so shall have to see.

 

[JD]

You're talking as if we know what you do now Are we talking about quality of smart repairs, or your future career?

 

[Adamm.]

Well where I am now I'm a static security officer which is really boring and just a dead end job with £7 an hour.

Haha both really I would like to hope I could be a good smart repairer but is that even possible? at the same time could it offer me a better career future or is it a pretty s**te job to have?

This company... http://www.ambrosetti.co.uk/

 

[JD]

I can't comment on a career in it Adam mate.

Of course there are good and bad smart repairers, but they only have a certain amount of space/time/money/resources to achieve the finish, so it will always be hindered by this. I spent £100 on a mobile smart repair on my bumper. It's awful, but better than a massive black plastic area sticking out like a sore thumb. But it would have made sense, had I gone through and sold the car as 99% of buyers wouldn't see any different.

The difference is the same as getting a mobile wheel repair. The bulk of the cost is in the ease of having someone coming to your house, rather than taking it somewhere. £100 for a small area vs £300 for a full bumper respray.

 

[Gally]

I'm still shocked they tried to fix a warranty claim with a smart repair. Fukcing Jesus H.

Anyway they fixed it orginaly, warranty is now not in question, they have made the car worse.

A simple question I like to ask to prove the point of smart repairs, why would bodyshops, like ours spend 40k on a paintbooth if we could do it outside in a tent with a tiny spray gun?

Luckily for us their f**k ups provide us with excellent amounts of work.

 

[JD]

s**t website with spelling errors on the first page I went through to (services).

 

[JD]

why would bodyshops, like ours spend 40k on a paintbooth if we could do it outside in a tent with a tiny spray gun

Hi.

 

[Adamm.]

I can't comment on a career in it Adam mate.

Of course there are good and bad smart repairers, but they only have a certain amount of space/time/money/resources to achieve the finish, so it will always be hindered by this. I spent £100 on a mobile smart repair on my bumper. It's awful, but better than a massive black plastic area sticking out like a sore thumb. But it would have made sense, had I gone through and sold the car as 99% of buyers wouldn't see any different.

The difference is the same as getting a mobile wheel repair. The bulk of the cost is in the ease of having someone coming to your house, rather than taking it somewhere. £100 for a small area vs £300 for a full bumper respray.

Cheers for the help mate I understand what you mean.

I will attend the interview and see what the crack is if it doesn't seem worth leaving my job for then I'll have to keep hunting lol.

 

[Gally]

Gorms can you link me to the thread on DW, I fancy a laugh again.

The thing is, a couple of our painters could actually do a "smart repair" on something really well, we have the right materials etc to use, proper paint and lacquers, not cheap s**t and a tent.

Oh and a smart repair on Silver? Behave ffs!

 

[Adamm.]

s**t website with spelling errors on the first page I went through to (services).

Yeah site has put me off a bit it was attached in the email.

Other downer on it is that its 40-50 miles every day other than the 4 miles I'm doing now.

 

[JD]

f**k that for a bunch of bananas!

Keep searching mate. Pan->fire springs to mind.

 

[Adamm.]

Lol yep no rush .

 

[Gorms]

Gorms can you link me to the thread on DW, I fancy a laugh again.

The thing is, a couple of our painters could actually do a "smart repair" on something really well, we have the right materials etc to use, proper paint and lacquers, not cheap s**t and a tent.

Oh and a smart repair on Silver? Behave ffs!

Cant bloody find it now! Was a good read! I'm dropping the car down on Saturday now as I won't be able to in the week and a person from RUK is coming down from Bristol on wednesday to take some pictures. I have now insisted I want the work carried out properly and no not very smart, smart repairs.

Think I'm going to have a fight on my hands. I have informed RUK I'm off to Afghan at the end of September so would like to know what the deal is before then, as I don't need the extra stress out there.

 

[Gally]

I sometimes rant and forget all about it.

If it was my car i'd now be looking at 2 sides possibly being painted but I have the knowledge off the cuff if you know what I mean little harder when you're just trying to get something.

The main thing is they fix it until you're happy. If it comes to it you can also get an independent assessor to cast their eye over it.

The main is make sure they can't go back on the warranty claim. They honoured it to start this mess.

 

[Gorms]

Ok update on this, dropped the car down on saturday and was given a little 1.2 Twingo to drive. i got a phone call from the nice service manager telling me that Renault have agreed to spray all the wings right down to primer. i would imagine its going to be a lot of the car getting painted as its all 4 corners really. it now goes in on the 10th and should be ready for the 15th.