Auto Body Shop Rip-Off Attempt

[DerbyDad03]

I'm still wondering what race or country of origin has to do with any of this.

[clare]

We call it a "drunk irishman" fix - - - -

[clare]

To be fair, it required about half an hour of work and about $20 worth of "hardware" - so it REALLY required about a $75 repair.

To do it RIGHT would require about half an hour more to repaiy the torn out screw-hole, and a bumper repair kit - I use Dynatron 660 and I'd likely add a plastic washer to the 2 part mix to re-enforce the patch insteasd of adding a hole to the body. A "fair" repair cost would likely have been about $150, breaking from a big job to work it in.

[Taxed and Spent]

maybe that was the previous teenie bopper, and he figured they are all the same.

[DerbyDad03]

"Previous teenie bopper"? "All the same"?

What gave you the impression that my daughter is a teenie bopper?

[DerbyDad03]

I knew you couldn't resist.

[Taxed and Spent]

"A reputable person would see a young girl with a problem that they could help with at minimal cost."

[Ed Pawlowski]

That was me that said that. Young is relative. I'm 71

[DerbyDad03]

Did I say that? Nope.

Is every "young girl" a teenie bopper? Nope.

[DerbyDad03]

Young *woman* may have worked better. ;-)

[Richard Cranium]

[CRNG]

On Mon, 27 Mar 2017 15:39:06 -0700 (PDT), Uncle Monster wrote in

+1

[trader_4]

I'd say they should have at least offered the options:

A - Full restoration to like new, $600

B - Fix along the lines of what you did, $XXX

You also didn't say what year it is, but the older the car is, the more acceptable B becomes.

[DerbyDad03]

Well, the year, make and model do all enter into it, but so does the condition.

The vehicle in question is a 2007 Honda Civic Sedan that is in excellent shape. One could easily justify the $600 fix except...

Unless you crawl under the car and look up into the wheel wheel, there is no visible difference between the full $600 bumper cover replacement and the single blank zip tie that provides a secondary holding point as insurance should the cracked screw hole fail. In fact, since it's the original bumper cover, one could argue that a replacement bumper cover would be noticeable, i.e. too perfect.

I can't imagine that anyone with a lick of financial sense and a minimal amount of DIY knowledge would pay $600 - or even $150 - for this simple fix. In fact, you don't even need the DIY knowledge, you just need to know someone (e.g. Dad) that you can ask before you authorize the "perfect" (read: $600) fix.

I find it ironic that many of the responses in a DIY group are actually calling the DIY fix a "hack". I wonder how many of them would have spent the $600 - or even the $150 number that's been tossed around - as opposed to fixing it their driveway in a similar manner as I did.

[trader_4]

I would have done and have done what you did many times. But you're also hitting on the other part of the problem that I think Ralph pointed out. You questioned how many people would pay $150 for the simpler repair That's getting close to what a shop would charge for the repair that you did. IDK the last time I've gotten out of an auto repair facility where work was done and it was less than one hour of labor billed, which is ~$120 here now. You'd think they could do that kind of repair in 30 mins, but I wouldn't be surprised to see it cost an hour. Maybe Claire can weigh in.

[Ed Pawlowski]

I'd have done the same. Not a hack, a practical solution.

OTOH, as a teenager I had cars were I'd have left the tie as the permanent fix and it would look like it fit in.

[Frank]

I worked with a white guy born in African from an American missionary couple. Should have asked him if he considered himself an African American.

Then there was my Mexican coworker born in New Mexico of Mexican parents from generations before born there when New Mexico was part of Mexico. Asked him if he considered himself Hispanic and he said he never thought about it.

[clare]

I'd have bought the snaps and fixed it in the driveway. - about $20 - and I already have the urethane repair kit so I would have also fixed the torn hole.

[clare]

The only cars I've driven where it would have fit in are the '72 Renault rally car (where it would have been "100 MPH tape) and the '67 Peugeot after the accident in Zambia where I drove it with no paint on the front half for a year

[clare]

A "black American" family came to Zambia as missionaries when I was there - they thought they would "fit in" and were shocked to be referred to as Msunga (WhiteMan).