Flashes of Panic

I’ve really got a lousy track record of picking auto-body shops. The one I went to in March told me to bring it in for a week, and kept it for three(!). So I didn’t go back to them for this job; I found another. This one is now on its third day with a job which I (given the parts) could have done myself in an afternoon. It’s one piece of shaped plastic, for pity’s sake, and it’s held on with clips and sheet-metal screws. This is not neuroscience. “We need the adjustor to take another look at it,” they told me this morning. The insurance adjustor? What, did they smack it again?

Are they just exceptionally out of touch with how long the job is really going to take them? When I dropped it off, they thought they could have it done in a day, or maybe it would run into a second day if they had to mix paint to match. (Guess what: they had to mix paint.)

Or do they only work when I call them? (The shop in March, after having the car for a week, finally admitted that they’d only just had the parts in; the car had sat idle for a week in their lot.)

And, on that note, something else they have in common: neither shop will call me and tell me what’s going on, even when they’ve promised to (or, as this morning, “He’s on another line, I’ll have him call you back as soon as he’s free…”.) I have to call them, or it’s silence. (Before I die, body shops will have web feeds for each car’s record in their in-shop database.)

Note for next time: don’t just sign over the insurance check when you drop off the car. Pay the minimum deposit and don’t give the garage another cent until they’ve done the work. Right now they have both the car and the money, and other than nagging them (and/or reporting the lousy service to both the insurance company and the mechanics who recommended them; I did that with the March shop,) I don’t have much of a lever to move them with.

Now playing: Fix Me Now from Garbage by Garbage