JBG

Ok, please bear with me for a little background on this travesty.

A couple of months ago I was leaving work and while walking to my car I noticed a fist sized dent on the seam of the driver's side front and rear doors. Using uninsured/underinsured motorist covereage, I put in an insurance claim and had it repaired at the Mazda body shop hear in Corpus Christi. The first repair was horrible, as there was an obvious problem with the two doors not matching up. So, I had them try again, and again no luck. They then decided that, since these are aluminum doors, maybe if the replaced the front door they could match the back door to it. Again, no luck. Finally, I had the rear door replaced as well and after being without my 8 for well over a month I got it back Saturday night.

1) The interior of the driver's door has not been reattached to the door frame and is rattling and bouncing around.

2) the driver's seatbelt was unattached to the bar it runs along at the base of the doors and that bar was actually unattached at the rear side.

3) Power mirror controls no longer work

4) There is a big glob of sticky, black, tar-like stuff all over the driver's window (I assume from tinting it?!)

THIS IS REDICULOUS. Am I crazy to take my MAZDA to a MAZDA body shop? The people appear to be so incompetent that they can't even clean/return a car to drivable condition after making a repair for the FOURTH TIME.

Sorry for venting, but I'm seriously considering writing a letter to MNA about this.

Aseras

well your problem is that you ONLY use a dealer for warranty work. they are perfectly worthless for anything else. Call mazda and bitch. 800 222 5500

Clavius

Definatly write to them my friend.. jesh..

Now how were the doors not matching up? Was it the paint job off slightly (unsure of your color) or were the seams completely off? If the seams how can they mess that up? Loosen a bolt here, tighten a bolt there its body shop basic's hell they stress this on any car project show every time they slap on a panel or door. But I hear you on them being well stupid, had my own problem with them which I'm putting off on complaining again. How hard is it to sand down a area then paint it and slap a coat of clear coat on?

Keep us informed on whats going on.. oh and how much have you had to pay out for this??

JBG

Luckily, it hasn't cost me anything other than the loss of my car for over a month (and, of course, the initial insurance deductible). The problem wasn't the color, it was as you guessed, the seam was not matching up correctly. reflections had a severe jag in them and you didn't have to look very hard to see the size of the gap between the doors varied significantly. To be honest, I'm shocked that they actually returned my car to me in the condition it was in. NEvermind the fact that it took them FOUR attempts to get the repair right, every time attampted the repair, it came back with problems that weren't there before I dropped it off to them... Good God this is frustrating.

Clavius

Have any pictures of the misalignment?

I think you should tell Mazda Corp that they should require their bodyshop guys to wath basic car project shows so they can learn the basic's again. I could see a severe problem if "You" ordered a aftermarket door (which I dont think we have lol) with gaps but they ordered it from Mazda. To my knowledge if you have gaps as I stated again you loosen some bolts and tighten others. If that doesnt work you can either do some real "custom" work or use some shim's. I doubt that the Mazda bodyshop is going to go the custom route so you'd think they'd slap on a shim here or there. Ugh I watch to many car programs.....

Aseras

I hope you are taking pictures and documenting all this too...

RX8Maine

Most body shops operate on the principal that MOST customers are either unobservant, not picky, too shy to complain, etc... they pay vocational school dropouts to do the work and the master tech only gets involved if work has to be redone for a customer complaint. The difference between the $80 per hour they charge and the $15 per hour it costs to pay retards and maintain equipment is pure profit.

The classic line when you complain is "Oh, that guy is new and should never have worked on YOUR car." The line is designed to reassure you that your car is special, and that MOST of the people working there are competent.

I have had plenty of body shop experience over the past 3 years (uninsured drunk **** sideswiped BOTH of our cars when we had to park on the street in 2001, deadbeat neighbor's tree fell on BOTH of our cars when we finally bought a place with a driveway in 2003, dumbass threw his truck in reverse without looking because he was in the wrong toll lane last spring.) I used a different body shop each time because I never found one that did it right the first time. They all used some rendition of the line above when I pointed out how much they sucked.

Shinka-Dono

Holy crap that sucks. Will your insurance company allow you to take it elsewhere as these people are clearly incompetent and/or can't be bothered to do anything right? I mean it seems useless to continue with these idiots.

new2me

hey i bought my 8 in corpus last week...kinda off topic but i didnt see any 8's when i was there...maybe cause urs was in the shop, duh! but ur problem is the exact reason i dont mess with shops down there. as soon as i finalized the deal i took it straight back home. i hope ur situation gets better

BunnyGirl

Wow. What a nightmare. I had taken my car in for a baseball-sized (their description) rock dent on the hood. After the insurance company stopped being a bunch of ******** I got it fixed, looks great, no indication there was ever anything there. The paint even matches perfectly. I couldn't get a paintless repair because the dent was too deep to take out without ruining the paint and it was already cracking in the very center of the dent. Since it was repainted I had to wait 30 days to get it resealed with that teflon stuff. About a month after that I noticed what looked like little "bubbles" or spots of some sort in the general area of where the dent had been although in a lower position. I called the body shop to see about having them look at it because I was concerned that possibly my paint was bubbling because the insurance adjuster had ripped all the insulation loose from my hood to "check" my dent. The body shop reattached it and it looks good as new. When I brought it in the guy looked at it and said "I know exactly what happened there. Dust got into it when the coating (my teflon) was drying." He said they could buff it out no problem. I took it in the next week. They ended up keeping it overnight since I didn't have the time to wait that day. They buffed it out, reapplied the teflon to the hood again, which I knew they would do. Then, surprise, they fully detailed my car for my "inconvenience." The "spots" are gone and they haven't come back.

Before I picked my body shop I called the one associated with my dealership, which would have been the other of my two choices, and they said they didn't have equipment to repair aluminum so they would just replace out the hood.

CelticFan

Is this an actual Mazda dealership shop or one that they send their work to? Most small brand dealerships don't have a body shop that's part of their dealership. But they have to have one to do the work for them. And some of the independent shops are rather bad. But normally dealership shops are better because the pay is a little better so the best bodymen work at them.
I don't understand the door "matching issues" and what aluminum has to do with it.

swerver

Some bodyshops suck, some take pride in their work. ..period..........For a very long time, I have always taken my vehicles to one place because they are artists in what they do......(and fortunately they are acredited and recognized by insurance like people)....

On the rare occasion when I need work done, I go there and get a very fair estimate. If somebody else's insurance company balks, I go a get a ridiculously high estimate from another dealership or otherwise. But I always take my vehicle to these guys................

Its like everything else in life; some doctors suck, some dentists suck, etc............you just have to be aware of this know who to trust your car to.......................

Easy_E1

iTrader: (2)

I would call my Insurance Co. and tell them they are Screwing your car up,, and only making it worse every time they touch it.
I would start BITCHING to the Dealer, Insurance Co.,and the Attorney General.
Tell the dealer that you are going to sue them for damages to your car.
And TAKE PICTURES.

DOMINION

Yeah they have a hard time doing there own work as it is. Never use anyone they recomend. Use your ins. co.