Does anyone know

[reedster20]

My camaro is in the body shop for repairs to the front end. I was wondering if any professional bodyshop guys are on this forum. If so can you tell me if this bodyshop my car is at would have to use body filler to make the door and fender gap line up properly. Both the door and fender are new parts. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

This entire ordeal has been extremely stressful and has been ongoing since June 23rd. I have kept my patience long enough in fear of rushing the repairs and getting shoddy work in return.Has anyone else dealt with such a long and drawn out repair?

[ffrcobra_65]

just my 2 cents. Even if the door and fender panels are new, there is a possibility they won't line up exactly as before and this specially applies to front end collision repairs where the frame/mounting points might have gotten tweaked, even so slightly, the visual result is evident in the panel alignment. But don't discount the possibility that the panels themselves have fitment issues especially if they are not OE ones.

[reedster20]

According to the estimate they should be OE parts. Not to confuse anyone but when i say the entire ordeal i am referring to the day the car arrived at the bodyshop.

[TooCool5]

You just can't be serious??? June 23rd at the body shop?
Still there? Holy dragged out affair Batman. Your low post count makes your comments suspect.

[reedster20]

No kidding tomorrow will be 6 months. And im a new member thats why i have low post count.

[ffrcobra_65]

Originally Posted by reedster20

No kidding tomorrow will be 6 months. And im a new member thats why i have low post count.

6 months!!!! So what is stopping you from taking your car to a different shop? You dating the owner's daughter or something?

[TooCool5]

Originally Posted by reedster20

No kidding tomorrow will be 6 months. And im a new member thats why i have low post count.

Come on, we were not born yesterday.:troll:

[Big Daddy Kane]

I've been doing collision repair for 14 years now. I'm certified by BMW, Mercedes, ASE, and a few others. If your getting new GM panels, the door should fit to the quarter panel, and also the fender with no filler. The fender should fit to the hood with no filler. Maybe a slight tweak here or there, but not enough that it would need filler. If it does, then it could mean the panels came damaged or the unibody is out of whack. And that means it would need put on a frame machine to pull the unibody into specs. The only frame mounts are the ones for the front and rear sub frames. If something is out of spec with the subframes, or the mounts, then the car won't go into alignment. Hopefully the shop you have it at has a good reputation and isn't a hack shop.

So when you get your car back, all the gaps should be nice and even, just like factory. If not, I would bitch. I know my boss would do it to me if I sent a car out the door with uneven gaps. And I never had to use filler on new, factory panels to get them to line up. If the unibody is square, meaning still in factory specs, the panels go on rather easily. And line up easily too.

[reedster20]

ok had to come back to the top and apoligize ahead of time for stringing it out. didnt realize how much i had written. pretty amazing journey so far i hope no one else has to deal with this kind of heartache! my wife and i are first time new owners. has been an awful experience so far.

thanks big daddy kane just the knowledge i was hoping for! and the car is at a chevrolet dealership. wasnt quite sure where to take it since few shops have seen these cars very much. one of the main reasons for taking so long is the availability of parts/parts missed on initial estimate. the car sat on the property for about two months before all the parts arrived to begin reassembly. even then some parts managed to be left off of the claim and further delay progress.the body shop dept. closed their ticket in september according to the new bodyshop manager who took over in october. the car was then sent to their service center to install airbags, headliner, and interior trim. the headliner caused a huge delay as there were none available except what they sent to the assembly line. so finally got a headliner in early dec. now we're looking good.getting close. get that installed get interior buttoned up then attempt to start vehicle.wont start. imagine that, maybe thats why all the milage info etc. was back at zero and even onstar was not able to confirm speed at time of crash because the powertrain control module was fried supposedly from the positive battery cable being cut in the accident. get pcm and batery cable harness installed three days to get pcm programmed to the car. now its running . now they can see the power steering pump pulley is bent and the top radiator hose is leaking. get that straightened up but still dont have a new wheel/tire to replaced the front passenger that was damaged. bodyshop manager takes the car back to his shop to straighten out gaps he does not like and to repaint the trunk where the SS emblem was supposedly pried off by thieves and scratched the paint really bad. the old bodyshop manager just slapped a new emblem on no paint or anything. thats one of the reasons he is no longer employed there but thats another story. not sure if i can go into that one without getting in trouble for bad mouthing someone. and thats where we are at now. on the 24th we will have had our rental for 26 weeks which enterprise said we have the new record for longest contract . still making payments the monthly payment which i wouldnt mind if it was an at fault incident but it was another vehicle that turnes directly in front of my wife . unable to avoid collision she t-boned a mid 90's chevy 1/2 ton doing about 35. not pretty .initial estimated total repairs in august was at $17000. imo it should have been totaled especially now after all the other parts that were not in initial estimate plus rental fees. oh and the insurance company quit paying the rental at 3 months since that should have been sufficient time to complete repairs. at that time they had paid $4800 for the rental. im sure i have left out lots of info and frustration. now you see why i didnt give the complete story to begin with.

if i was going to make up a story dont you think i would have just make up some hp numbers or a ridiculous list of mods. havnt had the car long enough to mod anyway. would have been three months ownership two days after the accident. if no one reads this whole story i do not blame you i just hope you do not go through the same scenario.

[reedster20]

ok had to come back to the top and apoligize ahead of time for stringing it out. didnt realize how much i had written. pretty amazing journey so far i hope no one else has to deal with this kind of heartache! my wife and i are first time new owners. has been an awful experience so far.

thanks big daddy kane just the knowledge i was hoping for! and the car is at a chevrolet dealership. wasnt quite sure where to take it since few shops have seen these cars very much. one of the main reasons for taking so long is the availability of parts/parts missed on initial estimate. the car sat on the property for about two months before all the parts arrived to begin reassembly. even then some parts managed to be left off of the claim and further delay progress.the body shop dept. closed their ticket in september according to the new bodyshop manager who took over in october. the car was then sent to their service center to install airbags, headliner, and interior trim. the headliner caused a huge delay as there were none available except what they sent to the assembly line. so finally got a headliner in early dec. now we're looking good.getting close. get that installed get interior buttoned up then attempt to start vehicle.wont start. imagine that, maybe thats why all the milage info etc. was back at zero and even onstar was not able to confirm speed at time of crash because the powertrain control module was fried supposedly from the positive battery cable being cut in the accident. get pcm and batery cable harness installed three days to get pcm programmed to the car. now its running . now they can see the power steering pump pulley is bent and the top radiator hose is leaking. get that straightened up but still dont have a new wheel/tire to replaced the front passenger that was damaged. bodyshop manager takes the car back to his shop to straighten out gaps he does not like and to repaint the trunk where the SS emblem was supposedly pried off by thieves and scratched the paint really bad. the old bodyshop manager just slapped a new emblem on no paint or anything. thats one of the reasons he is no longer employed there but thats another story. not sure if i can go into that one without getting in trouble for bad mouthing someone. and thats where we are at now. on the 24th we will have had our rental for 26 weeks which enterprise said we have the new record for longest contract . still making payments the monthly payment which i wouldnt mind if it was an at fault incident but it was another vehicle that turnes directly in front of my wife . unable to avoid collision she t-boned a mid 90's chevy 1/2 ton doing about 35. not pretty .initial estimated total repairs in august was at $17000. imo it should have been totaled especially now after all the other parts that were not in initial estimate plus rental fees. oh and the insurance company quit paying the rental at 3 months since that should have been sufficient time to complete repairs. at that time they had paid $4800 for the rental. im sure i have left out lots of info and frustration. now you see why i didnt give the complete story to begin with.

if i was going to make up a story dont you think i would have just make up some hp numbers or a ridiculous list of mods. havnt had the car long enough to mod anyway. would have been three months ownership two days after the accident. if no one reads this whole story i do not blame you i just hope you do not go through the same scenario.

[Big Daddy Kane]

I'm not tryin to knock the shop you took your car too. But maybe I am. It just seems there are way to many problems arising, and too many excuses being used. It seems that there repair process is very sloppy.

You said that they closed there ticket in september, and the new manager took over in october. Thats great, and shit happens, but if that delayed the repair process, then why are you paying for it? Meaning the rental car fees. You said the shop manager took the car back to the bodyshop to straighten out the gaps he did not like. Now he's doing one job (aligning panels) twice. Thats taking more time and costing YOU more money. My boss would frown if I had to delay the process by doing one job twice. You say the car sat for two months while waiting for parts. I find that very hard to believe that it took that long for GM parts to show up. I don't care how new of a design the car is. We've had new style Benz's and BMW's come in and had parts on back order or not available yet. But the longest we had ever waited was 4 weeks. And these are parts made in Germany.

I think, and this is just my opinion, but the shop its self is to blame for the repair process taking so long. That shop manager would hate my ass if I were in your shoes because I would be screaming. That is completely unexceptable to have a car for that long. We had estimates on cars that cost between $40 and $50,000. Those cars are there for about 3 months. Thats just because we don't get to work on them all the time because of the other jobs we have to get done.

They noticed more parts that the car needs????? The car has been there since JUNE!!!!!! And they still don't have or know what they need to fix it right YET??? Thats there fault AGAIN, and its costing you. I would be screaming. GET ON THE PHONE AND RAISE HELL!!!!!!

[CamaroDreams07]

This is obviously fake. What Chevy dealership hasn't seen a Camaro before? If its real post the dealership. And if you left your car at this horrible of a body shop for 6 months you need your head examined.

Get another hobby. We're not this stupid

[reedster20]

Im with you big daddy kane. the dealership is having to pay for the rental fees now. no money is coming out of my pocket for repairs or rental fees since we were not at fault for the accident. and yes i do put alot of the blame on the dealership and we have raised lots of hell which is why the other bodyshop manager is no longer employed there. im pretty sure a major cause of this entire situation is because of the previously shady manager. it seems like he dropped the ball big time and has cause serious dilemas with the entire repair process. after he was fired one of my coworkers who has a cousin that worked in the bodyshop said he was up to some shady stuff at the bodyshop.

and once again if i was going to make up a story i would have just made up some false dyno numbers or a ridiculous list of mods. and i was referring to shops seeing wrecked camaros not just camaros in general. and i would rather not post the dealer until everything has been resolved. and have that about having the car taken some where else but was not sure about my rights as the consumer or what action i could take.

[Big Daddy Kane]

Glad to hear that your no longer payin for the rental car. You'll have to let us know how the car turns out when its done.