Mechanic put a dent in my hood...
 

Hey guys, I've been hanging around here, but haven't posted too much. I'm just looking for some input on what I should do here.

We dropped my firebird off at this local shop on sunday because the fans weren't coming on. They worked on it today and we picked it up at around 5. It was pretty dark out and I didn't really look over the car. I wasn't very concered because it was only there for a day. So, anyway after I pulled it into my garage I noticed they put a dent in my hood. Just a little background on the hood, it's a formula hood with the power buldge and it's a nice metalic blue and the scoop is faded to silver, which imo looks sexy as hell. The dent is right next to the peak near the bottom of it. It looks like they pushed down on the hood (I guess to close it or whatever) and I'm really pissed off. My dad says that they'll deny it because it's so small and we can't proove it wasn't there before hand or whatever.

So what do you guys think we should do about this. My dad just wants to take it to a paintless dent repair guy, but I want them to fix it, they put it there, they should fix it, right? If anyone has any thoughts on this I'd like to hear them, thanks:).....:mad: that smiley didn't work I'm still mad.

First, talk to the shop owner about it WITHOUT getting an attitude, and if that doesn't work and they wont fix it....go to a PDR guy and have them fix it. I think you wouldn't spend anymore than $40 for a dent, probably less like $30 :)

the shop is screwed if they didnt note any dents or scratches on the repair ticket. i feel bad for the guy that did it, it was probably an accident. u should be able to get them to pay to fix it, but if they deny it are u willing to spend the time/money to take legal action against them for a small dent?

:iagree:

Alright, I guess I'll see if I can get them to fix it and if not just front the cash, proly worth an extra 40 bucks to have the car working perfect again, right:)

I get kind of crazy when I see dents on any of my cars, takes me a few hours to get over it. I guess since it's dirty now anyway I can take it out and get it fixed without getting pissy, thanks for the responses. I'm sure it was an accident because it's really small and right where someone would push down on it to close it. Gotta hate taking cars to shops...or anywhere for that matter though.

or next time do a search here, and find out how to fix yourself...

Like I don't know how to fix a ****ing dent :rolls eyes:

It would cost too much money for me to buy a paintless dent repair kit and I shouldn't have to waste my time because some stupid **** can't close a god damn hood...I guess I got mad about it again...oh well

Again, the thinking here is 'why should he have to lift a finger to fix this', this comment is pretty much unneccessary.


Anyway it sucks man, been there, but the shop will most likely deny it up and down. Seriously, if they would say "sorry about that, we'll take care of it" they would have done something about it in the first place.

I had a shop put a few nice scratches in the passenger door of my IROC when I had the new tires put on, and there was absolutely nothing I could do. First I talked to the guy that worked on it because he was pulling the car out just as I pulled up, and he just gave me this stupid look. Then I went to the manager and he rambled on about some bs about how it was there when they brang it in, but I definately know my car, and a series of scratches roughly 3" in length were NOT there when I dropped it off. I mean, hell I spotted them from 20 feet out.

I would be KICKING SOME MAJOR BOOTY if they did that to my car:mad:

^^That sucks, it's like how do you manage to scratch a car putting tires on it.
I didn't appreciate how dirty the top of my fender was either, looked like they leaned on it quite a bit. What bothers me is that I can't seem to take this car anywhere. I drove it to school the first three days and I got a dent in my door from the stupid kid next to me, and I guess it's worth saying after I started driving my truck this stupid kid in a giant f150 crashed into that. Even when I keep this in my garage in front of the door I need to worry about it because my mom and brother are always bumping into it.

On a somewhat related note, do the side moldings work out well, because if they work out, that might be one less thing to worry about.

Yes GOOD QUALITY moldings work very well. Just place on door at the peak and try to get it to look decent.

Look what happened sucks that's a fact, and it really sucks when it happens to your car. BUT you have got to keep a cool head about you when you talk to this guy, if you don't he is going to tell you to take a hike. I've been there myself. I had a 68 Camaro get wrecked once while it was in the shop hairlipped the bumper and messed up the header panel, yea I was steamed (being nice), but I also realized going into HIS place of business and making a total *** of myself in front of HIS customers would not get my car fixed. Patience my friend is a virtue few of us have in todays world. You are going to HAVE to exercise GREAT RESTRAINT to not make a fool of yourself. If you do you likely will get the car fixed, remember you catch more flies with sugar than you do salt.

Yes I know that, but he COULD have completely avoided the situation in the first place by doing a search here...

Whats the saying an ounce of prevention is worth...?

If you can prevent the situation, your a step ahead. Yeah it sucks it happened, but it did. Welcome to to the real world. Stuff gets muffed up all the time when it should not be.

I had sold a set of GTA rims. The shop I had remove the tires busted one up good. Did not even tell me. Just put in the box and when on about the day. I find out about it a day later after I have already shipped them to the buyer. Yeah that cost me $100. Think I will even go to that shop again? They offered 35 bucks and go to a junk yard and find one.

Just to clarify are the factory ones good quality?

I think I might be happier If I accept paying the 40 bucks or whatever to get it fixed and to walk into the shop and scream my head off lol.

I tried to prevent it, but was unsuccesful. I ran a switch to turn the fans on and changed a relay and a sensor with no luck, kind of figured my chip was messed up. They said it was a broken wire by a fuseable link or some crap.

more than likely the switch went out, or the ground wire frayed and broke.

Yes the OEM ones are good.

Speaking as a shop manager I know how those things could happen.... Sometime there are accidents that arise in the shop from carlessness. I know that if something like that rolls into my shop and something happens to a customers car I just tell all my guys to come and get me and let me know, be up front about it don't try to hide it so that I can take care of it. Even the best shops in the world sometimes have whoopsies but it is what happens after that really defines what kind of shop it is. If they did it they should admit it and take care of it. But chances are that if they didn't say anything right away then their probably going to deny it!

That sucks about your hood, Was it a local garage or a big chain like a good year shop or pepboys or something?

Just be nice about it, if they dont take care of it, dont get mad, ITS JUST A HOOD. It can be much worse like no brakes(after they worked on them)..If they dont do anythign take the time out to write a letter. If they dont do anything after that, Dont return as customers.

I am also a shop manager, and speaking from experience you DO need to talk with the manager in a calm manner. Going in there all hot and bothered sends a signal to him that you are never coming back to his shop because of what happens. What is going to make him want to open the shops wallet and pay someone that it never going to come back. I do agree that a shop worth its salt will take care of the problem one way or another to avoid you running off to the internet and telling every one. It sucks that it happended, but we are all human and S*** happens. If things still get nasty contact the BBB you can make a complaint there, and if they care about their ratings they will find middle ground with you.

Good luck,
Brandon

Not to be a prick, but pop the hood, and see if the dent goes away. About 12" up from the very front edge on the Passenger (flat) side the Steel Buldge hood gets a small dent from the latch when closed, when you open the hood it goes away.

Both my vert and my 1st Yellow Formula have this, my 2nd yellow Formula had it but someone tried to fill it in when they painted it. Actually Hawk from Hawksthirdgenparts pointed it out to me because he was looking at his Firehawk and noticed it one day, when he poped the latch it went away, after looking around its pretty common.

John

Just because someone isn't coming back does not mean you aren't liable for damage your guys did to a customer car. I hope that is not the attitude at your shop. :crazy:

BTW... I don't take my cars to garages but the people I see actually getting results are the ones who get the manager out and make a big scene (this is not my style... but what seems to work). If you are Mr. Nice Guy they will likely think you are a push over and try to brush you off.

[quote=johnyIROC;3119470]Just because someone isn't coming back does not mean you aren't liable for damage your guys did to a customer car. I hope that is not the attitude at your shop. :crazy:

NO! NO! NO! That is not how we operate around here at all, we are an award winning shop with a 58 year stature. Like I said any shop worth its salt will just take care of it, but from what was orginally described it sounded like other places I have heard of. From my expericenes acting like an adult about a problem will usually net better results than throwing a temper- tantrum. If the shop is a member of the BBB, AAA, or a Napa Auto care center they are required to settle a dispute, or have the potential of having negative marks on their record which could effect a new customers opinion before they even step foot in the door.

It was a local shop called a-tech. The dent's about 4-5 inches from the very front peak of the hood a little (maby an inch, half inch, I don't really remember) on the passenger's side of the hood. It's pretty small, but big enough so that if you look at it so the peak is the highest point visible, it goes down a little bit where it is. I havent gone down there yet, but I need to take my truck there to be inspected anyway, so maby they'll value me as a customer:) I can't find my camera, but if I do I'll try to take a couple of pictures of it.

I think what BADNBLK was trying to say was that, as with any other Human being if you take them out and try to make a scene your just going to raise tempers and then it just gets into a pissing match and the customer and the shop both lose. If your calm about it but assertive (not being an *** and questioning their worksmanship) then I would think they would want to take care of you.

Coming from a shops point of view sometimes your worst enemy that you can have is the Do-It-Yourself kinda person since sometime (notice I said sometimes not meaning everyone!) but sometimes they seem to always know everything. They come in with the wrong attitude and I kinda feel sometimes like, if your such a good Tech and you know whats wrong and how to fix everything why are you in my shop asking me questions?....... Dont get me wrong most of the time the Do-It-Yourself people are great guys and know alot and you can learn many things from them. But occasionally you get the doosy lol.

We dropped my truck there tonight after they closed and I'm gonna pick it up after school wednesday. I kind of feel like just being an *** and saying like, "hopefully you guys didn't dent this up like you did my firebird *******s" I'm not sure I would even know how to bring it up without questioning their worksmanship because the stupid guy pushed down on the hood and dented it:mad:

My dad knows I'm really pissed off about it, but keeps saying to let it go because they are going to deny it and it's not worth getting into a big thing with them about it. He keeps saying they wont even be able to see it because it's small and the only reason we can see it is because we're crazy like that and have "trained eyes"...anyway...

You guys have been pretty cool, I'll try to take some pics sometime so you guys can tell me what you think, thanks for the replies.

Alright, just one last update. I had my friend drop me off there after school today to pick up my truck and we went all through that and told me that a solenoid locked up that controlled the abs...so after that I asked if they remembered the firebird I had in the other day and they said yeah, then I told them about the dent and how someone must've pushed down on the hood and put a dent in it, and at that point I wasn't mad about it anymore so I told them it wasn't a big deal or anything and that I could just have a paintless dent repair guy fix it and they said if I got it fixed I could bring them the bill and they would reimburse me, so that was cool. I kind of forgot the order of the conversation, but somewhere in the middle of it he said that it was a shame or something that it got a dent in it because it had a really nice paint job and the guy who worked on it had a camaro and wouldn't have done it on purpose.

wayfast84: Lets just hope the brakes on my truck work now:eek: lol

Glad to here things turned out good for you.

Are you for sure this happened at the shop and not home and you just noticed it after it got out of the shop?

glad to hear it worked out ok. goes to show you some people can be real decent about things if you are polite and give them the chance.

i had a real bad experiance with a paint shop a while back that kind of ruined my atitude toward taking my car in for a while. i always like hearing about these things being taken care of.

glad to hear that everything worked out......

100%, I pretty much know every imperfection in the paint, and I really can't stand any of them, fortunately most of them are so minor nobody else will ever notice them. The hood has one other dent in it, but you can't feel it and you can only see it at the right angle, I think it's from hail. I know a lot of people go to a shop complaining about dents that were already there, but I can point out every dent on any one of my cars...especially this one:)

Word, glad it got resolved!

At my moms mechanic they said I didnt need brakes(10 year old at least), just clamped the air tubes down and called my car junk cause it had a 305..

then after it got painted we got into an argument with the manager of the shop, and he was screaming at my mom..

and somewhere in between that a shop rebuilt my trans for 1 grand when all it was, was the cable..

now i do my own work, and still the car gets FED UP!!!!!!!!!!!

Since this isn't really appearance and detailing related and it has been resolved, I'm going to close this to prevent a bunch of off topic "I took my car to the shop and this happened" stories.

Questions or comments, PM me. Thanks.