False Creek Collision (Negative Experience)
 

In 2015, I had chosen False creek collision as I saw online that majority were recommending them for painting BMW's.

It was an ICBC claim, a traffic pylon was hit by another car sent directly into my 1994 BMW E34 530i. $3500 quote.

- The Hood needed to be resprayed, and front bumper + Foglight needed to be replaced.

- Upon delivery, a friend spotted out that the entire left side of the hood had dust under the clear, and looked very obvious. The E34 was my only car at the time and I could not be without a car - I was also travelling last year, and was not able to warranty the hood until now. (I have a daily I can use now as well.)

- Bernard without hesitation took me in on Tuesday and offered to wet-sand the hood.

- A day later, they called me and told me they had to re-clear the hood. I definitely had my concerns, as I don't agree with "re-clearing" but rather just re-spraying the hood. But they assured me it won't be an issue.

- Got car back an hour ago, I counted 4 areas with nibs in the paint, bad orange peel on the entire good, the BMW roundel was not removed prior and just masked - therefore the clear around the roundel is now peeling off (Probably happened when they pulled the tape) :heckno:

- The windshield washers also have the same issue above but have runs/clear build up around them.

- I spot these issues and he then tells me "Well the initial paint job did not meet our quality standards, how can I be certain you did not have it resprayed?" We go back and forth... They were indeed the last ones to do any work regarding body work. He tells me to bring it back next week. This is incredibly frustrating as I am in school & work retail, 7 days a week. I don't have time for this BS.

I will upload pictures as soon as possible.

I know the painter there. Sorry you had this experience.

Shitty to hear they have good google reviews

This one however made me LOL

Cynthia Zou

a year ago
Worst place ever. The company would hold your car until you pay an insane price. The company ruined the reputation of Germany.

Well at least he's willing to deal with you and not telling you to F-off. Especially when it's from 2015. It's now October 2016.
Feel fortunate he's still answering your calls imo.

It's frustrating to see bad body work on your own car. Hope it gets ironed out.

Uh, they've done a shitty job and wasted significant amount of customer's time. There's nothing he should feel fortunate about.

If you want to be an ICBC approved shop, you have to adhere to their quality standards.

In this case, and as mentioned by the owner of False Creek (without me even asking), I have a lifetime warranty. That is a standard ICBC upholds, and I can very well make a complaint if this goes south.

I am fortunate for ICBC backing me on this. Not fortunate for the shop even taking a step towards quality control.

I don't know why they didn't remove the roundel; it takes like a couple minutes to remove. That would raise red flags for me, what other corners are they cutting. Well hope it gets all sorted out.

You waited at least 11 months to complain about this?

:suspicious:

It was my only car for a majority of the time, and the other half the car was off the road. Now I have a daily I can use and can be without this car.

As I mentioned above, ICBC certified shops have lifetime warranties. I am taking advantage of this. Same way as if the clear coat started failing.

Does any of the ICBC certified shops actually go with their lifetime warranties though? I know it sucks being in your position, but the shop does have a point... if it has been a year since you had work done and you waited until now to complain, how can they be certain that you didn't get into an accident and had the hood resprayed by another shop?

Imo, in the future you should go and complain to the shop right away if their job doesn't meet your expectations. It's not their fault that you don't have the time to bring the car in, if you were really picky about it you should have just dropped the car off to them again and either rented a car or borrow a friends car. Best thing to do is to inspect the car while it's still on the shop property before even leaving.

You are lucky that the shop had even agreed to take your car back in to do free work on it after such a long period of time. Not entirely sure, but would painters tape really rip off clear coat? Unless it was already chipping beforehand, I thought that painters tape doesn't really tend to stick onto anything

^Depending what tape they use, some paint tape is pretty strong. I use 3m green tape at my work and it sticks quite well to things.

Yes they do, if you have an actual complaint and the shop doesn't warrant it, you can go back to ICBC. You can arrange to have the vehicle taken to another shop and icbc will doc the original shop of some labor to fix the problem. However you need to give the shop first opportunity to rectify the situation.
If a vehicle has not been prepped correctly tape will peel the paint off like you wouldn't believe.

typically you really want to avoid large organizations. the workers there are often high turnover with no sense of any pride as they are not owners nor paid enough to care about your specific job.

the other thing is that lack of training but this has to do with canada's gdp. In China, workers are trained inside manufacturer factories. they have first hand in depth knowledge about repairs and procedures. this has to do with investment which canada rarely gets any. in China workers have exposure to latest technology and full fleet of tools and equipment straight from world manufacturers. Canada is falling behind in so many ways... its shocking

all my bodyshop friends, they sourced painter straight from Shanghai General motors and others from FAW

My shop definitely stand's by our warranty, we make it clear that we offer a life time warranty on our work and that if there's anything wrong, bring it back. I work at a family own shop, and although we're 100% production, we value the quality of our work. I've taken back customers from 2014 that had a door moulding tape give out, peeled and scratched the front door - we ended up repainting that door and replacing the moulding that got bent. If a shop is offering lifetime guarantee(must for icbc express shops) than they should stand by it. Next time though, bring it back and show it to them, you don't have to get it done right away but at least show proof for down the road.

P.S nib's are inevitable, every paintjob will have it no matter how much you prep. It's just in the detail stage that most of them are taken out.