Austin Body Shop Recommendation

[mischiefbenz]

Looking for a recommendation for a body shop to do some paint repair. Someone thought it would be a good idea to key my car on Wed. night.

[Doctor///M]

Wow, that's just wrong. Keep us posted on progress.

[SakhirM4]

Berli's is the best auto body shop in Austin by far.

http://www.berlisbody.com/

[Apollo_1092]

^^I've heard great things about Berli's. I used Round Rock Collision for when my entire left side of the car got hit by a hail storm. They replaced everything and it looked like the car just rolled off the assembly line.

[mischiefbenz]

thanks for the recommendations. i received quotes from both berli's and round rock last fri. they both were within $100 of each other. to my surprise they both are estimating 2-3 weeks to complete the job. seems like an absured amount of time to paint 5 body panels.

havent decided who im gonna use yet. berli's does great work i hear, but round rock is the only bmw certified collision center in austin.

[Apollo_1092]

Originally Posted by mischiefbenz

thanks for the recommendations. i received quotes from both berli's and round rock last fri. they both were within $100 of each other. to my surprise they both are estimating 2-3 weeks to complete the job. seems like an absured amount of time to paint 5 body panels.

havent decided who im gonna use yet. berli's does great work i hear, but round rock is the only bmw certified collision center in austin.

Completely up to you at that point. Wish I could be of more help. I'm going to push for Round Rock because I used them and they matched the paint perfectly. But others will push for Berli's. Let us know who you choose and how it goes (flip a coin?). You won't be disappointed regardless I'm sure. Also sorry to see your car got keyed. That's no good.

[SakhirM4]

I also used Round Rock collision for my 2006 M3 after it was rear ended. They had it about 3 weeks. Fantastic work!!!

Part of the time involved is just getting it in the queue. They don't start working on it when you bring it in or start getting materials or parts until you bring it in to start work.

[mischiefbenz]

So I ended up taking my car to Round Rock upon recommendation from a good friend whose an insurance adjuster. It has turned out to be quite the fiasco. He recommends bringing all vehicles (especially leased vehicles) to the factory approved body shop. This will minimize any problems you have when you return the vehicle & should you have any issues with the repair.

I dropped the car off on Sept. 28th and still don't have it back yet. They are "targeting" to have it completed by next Fri. Nov. 4th. Hard to believe that repainting 5 panel could take this long. Should be a week max to complete this job. I was told this past Monday that they had completed the paint job and that there were waiting for it to cure before reassembling. When I called today to check up on their progress, I was told that they sent the car back to the paint booth to fix some imperfections.

I really don't understand their business model. You'd think that an auto body would want to get cars in and out as fast as possible since they are paid by the job. Round Rock would rather hold your car and squeeze every penny they can out of insurance companies. For example a week after i dropped off my car, an $800 supplement was sent over to my insurance company for "extra" work they missed in the original quote. They burnt a week haggling with my insurance company over $800. In that amount of time, they could have got another car in the shop and made much more than that.

Anyway, I hope I get my car back next Fri. It will only give me a week to get my car prepped for the Texas Trifecta as its the week after.

[Austin///M3]

$800 is a good amount of money. Would you do your job for $800 less? I don't think so. There are 4 reasons why this certain job is taking so long. Waiting on insurance approvals, shop production, parts availability, and quality concerns. Shop manager could had pushed this job through after receiving insurance approval on the supplement as this car wasn't crashed. To me, it looks like they were too busy and couldn't get to it. And when they did, they had quality issues. Imagine if they shipped it back to you without correcting the issues. You would have another post about how the shop chopped up your car.

[mischiefbenz]

Originally Posted by Austin///M3

$800 is a good amount of money. Would you do your job for $800 less? I don't think so. There are 4 reasons why this certain job is taking so long. Waiting on insurance approvals, shop production, parts availability, and quality concerns. Shop manager could had pushed this job through after receiving insurance approval on the supplement as this car wasn't crashed. To me, it looks like they were too busy and couldn't get to it. And when they did, they had quality issues. Imagine if they shipped it back to you without correcting the issues. You would have another post about how the shop chopped up your car.

Instead of haggling over $800 with insurance for a week, I probably would have tried to get more jobs in the door. All said and done, the the total cost of this repair is gonna be around $4k. Majority of the body shops pay their estimators on commission, so I'd concentrate on bringing more volume in that squabbling over an extra few dollars here and there.

No parts are needed to complete the repair. Its a straight up sand prep and repaint. Something that shouldn't take any decent shop more than a week to complete. No doubt the shop is probably busy and there is some waiting time. Its actually quite concerning that the car got sent back to the paint booth. Painting is the easiest part of most repairs.