A month ago I was T-boned into my passenger door ('92 W124) while in a traffic circle. The other driver was at fault and I subsequently brought the car to a body shop (Madison Auto Body in Madison, CT) that the other driver's insurance (Progessive) recommended as a preferred body shop. It took the shop 2 weeks to fix my car and when I finally picked her up last night, everything was screwed up.
First off, my "new" passenger door is so warped that it leaks rain through the top and water enters though the door sill in the bottom when I hit a puddle. Also, none of the door lock anymore when I put the key into the driver, passenger, or trunk locks, so I manually have to push down the buttons in the doors. This means that the alarm does not work, either. Then, all my interior light switch between not working to flickering like chasing christmas lights and my windows don't open anymore when I push the window buttons in the center. Also, my antenna for the radio does not work. Next, the guys never put my door speaker back in as I found it under my passenger seat this morning. When I shut the passenger door, I hear a clanking in the door like a few lose screws.
To add to all this, when they put the door cladding back on the inside, they pulled the "leather" off the door, so I have the blister look all around my now cracked speaker cover int he door. On the outside, my door looks like it has not been closed properly and the "new" door is wavy looking in the paint when compared to the smooth look of the other three dingless doors. The white paint does not match all the other doors either as this one has a distinct cream look.
I have not been able to contact the Progressive insurance company over the weekend, so I am at a loss of what to do. When I confronted the body shop owner about the warped door yesterday, he said to me exactly "Well, you should be happy that you even got a new door. This car is 16 years old and they don't make anything for these cars."
I am very disappointed and don't know where to start in getting my car repaired. With all the electrical stuff that is wrong, I am afraid to drive the car as I am afraid that the airbags may either not work at all or go off randomly when I am driving.
I don't want this guy at Madison Auto Body to ever go near my car again and I want to bring the car to an autorized Mercedes dealer to have it fixed (Carriage House of New London maybe?).
Has anyone else had anything like this happen to them here? What should I do? Should I go take this up with the insurance company as they recommended this shop to me? Should I go confront the body shop owner?
Any help will really be appreciated.

Thanks so much,
Leo

If you're not happy with the quality of the repair, contact your insurance company and the other party's insurance and let them know.

Also take it to a second body shop for an estimate.

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With best regards

Al

If it's a Progressive Preferred Shop, the insurance company has a written lifetime warranty. The problem is this, to be a preferred shop, Progressive demands discounts on parts and labor from the shop, and lots of nice shops won't give the discount, so you get second tier shops as preferred shops.

You really have to give the shop a chance to correct the defects, then if you get no satisfaction, contact Progressive and demand that a different shop correct the problems.

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2002 Ford ZX2
2 x 2013 Honda Civics

In Missouri at least, you can also file a complaint with the department of insurance if the insurance company doesn't give you any satisfaction. I suspect that there would be regulatory bodies for insurance companies and repair shops in most states, and there should be a complaint form with those regulatory agencies.

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2002 Ford ZX2
2 x 2013 Honda Civics

Your car was worked on by idiots. I'd have a hard time bringing it back there too, but you need to give the shop a chance to make it right before doing anything else. Let the insurance company know you are not happy. If the shop can't resolve it, you will need to become a thorn in the side for the insurance company until they do something.

I can sort of understand the paint problem though. When I got an estimate to get some body work done, the guy was very up front about the finish. They use the original color code, but the existing paint on the car has 20+ years of fade, so it tough to match it exactly.

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1985 380SE Blue/Blue - 230,000 miles
2012 Subaru Forester 5-speed
2005 Toyota Sienna
2004 Chrysler Sebring convertible
1999 Toyota Tacoma

Really, it sounds like the shop owner is really pressing hard to keep labor and parts costs low. I work with maybe 50 different shops in my local area (paint + supplies jobber) and I can really only recommend 2 of them to customers, my concious won't let me do it any other way.

But it all comes back to the insurance companies. They will fight tooth and nail to keep costs at a minimum, leaving the shops cutting all sorts of corners to break even.

If you want to REALLY find out about quality shops in your area, find out who supplies their paint and ask the employees.

As far as the paint match goes, I match colors all day every day, and we are able to get a perfect match 99% of the time. Granted, it may take up to five hours (we do it all by eye, the machines aren't even close to accurate enough), and every once in awhile you get an impossible misfit color. But there is a lot of pressure on painters to do four or five cars a day, so they need to mix up the color and get it in and out of the booth as fast as possible. Usually they have a varient deck to get the exact formulation of a specific color code, but half the shops I work with don't touch their deck.

I'll say it again. YOU HAVE THE RIGHT TO HAVE WHOEVER YOU WANT REPAIR YOUR CAR!!!! These companies have these "preferred shops" for a reason. If you don't know of a good shop, ask around. Someone has had good, quality repairs done by someone. Good shops are out there.

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95 SL500 Smoke Silver, Parchment 64K
07 E350 4matic Station Wagon White 34K
02 E320 4Matic Silver/grey 80K
05 F150 Silver 44K

X2. Try and be more reasonable with them than I would.

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"It's normal for these things to empty your wallet and break your heart in the process."
2012 SLK 350
1987 420 SEL

All good advice, above.

However, at this point, I need to add the critical item of having all communication in writing from this point forward.

Make sure you document every single item that is not to spec in writing and send it to the shop via certified letter. The insurance company gets a copy of this document.

If they take the car back and make a half-assed attempt to fix it............send another letter and carefully document what was done............and what was not done. It's the only thing that you'll have to fall back on.

Whether Progressive gets behind you and withholds the money from the shop will be the real question. You really don't want to be taking the shop to small claims court (if the value is even below the small claims limit).

Thanks for the help guys. I understand that usually the color is hard to match on a 16 year old car due to fade, but my car is white. It should not have faded so much that it is impossible to get a close match. The color on my door now is a cream color that makes it noticable across a parking lot. It is not just a small difference in tones.
I would normally be willing to give the shop a chance to fix their mistakes, but now that all the electrical problems have come into play and things like my airbags are potentially at risk, I want to have a mercedes dealer fix all problems henceforth as I don't trust this guy with my life. I will wait until Wednesday for a reply from Progressive and then see what they have to say.
I am sure that the airbag issue and the lack of a car alarm right now will pursuade them to help me out.
Leo

I agree that generally a shop has the chance to repair their mistakes. A mismatch from across the parking lot seems like possibly a good example of a shop that has not made a good faith effort.

Tom W

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[SIGPIC] Diesel loving autocrossing grandpa Architect. 08 Dodge 3/4 ton with Cummins & six speed; I have had about 35 benzes. I have a 39 Studebaker Coupe Express pickup in which I have had installed a 617 turbo and a five speed manual.[SIGPIC]

..I also have a 427 Cobra replica with an aluminum chassis.

Color match is very seldom a problem as we 99% of the time we blend the adjacent panels, even whites, as they are usually a real PITA to match. With an older car it usually takes away all matching problems. I doubt that Progressive pays for blending to their "preferred" shops though.

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95 SL500 Smoke Silver, Parchment 64K
07 E350 4matic Station Wagon White 34K
02 E320 4Matic Silver/grey 80K
05 F150 Silver 44K

Take as many pictures as you possibly can. Write down every little thing they did wrong. Document everything.

Leo, that really sucks. All I can do is parrot the document everything advice. Fortunately for you, our Attorney General never misses a chance to get his mug in the news especially when their is a big name company involved. It would never hurt to send him your story and any attempts by the body shop to pass the buck or otherwise get out of repairing it properly.

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1980 300TD-China Blue/Blue MBTex-2nd Owner, 107K (Alt Blau) OBK #15
'06 Chevy Tahoe Z71 (for the wife & 4 kids, current mule) '03 Honda Odyssey (son #1's ride, reluctantly) '99 GMC Suburban (255K+ miles, semi-retired mule) 21' SeaRay Seville (summer escape pod)

And to be blunt, the "reason" is that they were bribed.

It goes for glass shops too.

I say it because I was in the business as a physical damage claims adjuster a long time ago for a company all of you would recognize.

They had to clamp down on it in that area (SF Bay) because one night after a full out party on the yacht (that's right) of a body shop owner, huge party, food, boozefest, hookers, everything, one of the cliams adjusters had a HORRIBLE DUI wreck in one of the Insurance Company's company cars, that had been issued to him.

Pick your OWN body shop or glass shop. It is your ABSOLUTE right.

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1991 560 SEC AMG, 199k <---- 300 hp 10:1 ECE euro HV ...

1995 E 420, 170k "The Red Plum" (sold)

2015 BMW 535i xdrive awd Stage 1 DINAN, 6k, <----364 hp

1967 Mercury Cougar, 49k

2013 Jaguar XF, 20k <----340 hp Supercharged, All Wheel Drive (sold)