///Nick

this is just a rant. im very unpleased. i would not go here unless you have lots of money.


OK! so, first off... when i was in college at SSCC for autobody, our class took a tour of this shop, as it was a recommendation from our teacher at the time as a "good" shop. i was impressed and saw it as a shop i would go to if my car was ever in an accident.

now. my 99 honda civic ex coupe was just recently hit in an accident. the accident wasnt my fault but this picture shows what it was like afterwards..







my car was still perfectly driveable after the accident. i drove it to hinshaws honda body shop to get an estimate.. the estimate was not a complete estimate because the hood latch wouldnt open and the estimator could not see if there was any more damage. but basically, wrote up for the whole core support, hood, fenders... everything that needed to be done WITH my request that everything be replaced with OEM HONDA parts. the estimate came up to 3,800 before taxes and such. so i said no problem.

insurance cut me a check for 4,900 dollars. 300 of which would pay for my rental car (of which i didnt need). of course now i got a letter in the male from the dmv saying i had to go in and pay for a rebuilt title (so much for having a clean title car lol!).

so with the money in hand i took my car down to the shop and they started working on it. the estimate said it would be 6 days to repair... a couple days into the repair they call me and say that the total for the repair on my car is going to be 5,800 dollars! way more then insurance gave me... and more then what i bought the car for! i told them that wouldnt work and told them the amount of money insurance gave me to work with. they were able to make me whole still at the request that everything be replaced with OEM honda parts.

i go to visit my car to see what it was like all torn down. they took me out to the back lot where my car was sitting outside with a bunch of other cars. my car was sitting there without a hood. mind you this was during the snow/rain and wind storms. i asked them if not having a tarp or anything to cover the engine would hurt it. they said it would be fine.

well about 3 weeks later (repair should have been 6 days) i get a call that my car is done so i go to pick it up and it looks decent. i payed 4800 cash for it and i had them adjust a few things on it and i took it home. to cut back on the price they repaired my fenders instead of buying new ones (fenders were slightly damaged) but they are OEM.

the flaws i noticed with the car, the hood is not oem, the hood latch is not oem, and the paint blend they did on the passenger fender has a poor paint blend that you can only see from a certain angle. but it doesnt bother me

NOW HERE IS THE STUPID PART

as i was driving my car home from the shop that day (my mom was following me in her car) as soon as i get off hwy 18 my car starts stalling, backfires then dies. i call the shop and they send a tow truck to pick my car up and take it back. after they take it back the shop finds the problem was water inside the plugs and condensation build up in the dizzy cap. so they fixed it and it drove perfect after that.

here is pics after the repair.









WELL... after a few days my check engine light comes on. i get it checked at autozone. the code was catalyst efficiency below threshold. i cleared the code thinking it would go away.. it came back after the next 2 days.

i was thinking to how this is related to when my car bogged and back fired due to the smart techs at hinshaws leaving my car outside in the rain without a hood.

so today i went to hinshaws honda body shop, told them whats wrong with my car, told them the story, told them how my car ran perfectly fine before they "fixed it" and all they could say was "nothing we did could have caused this" and they refused to fix my car...


DONT take your car to hinshaws honda body shop! i am so pissed and thinking of taking them to small claims court. a new cat for my car from honda is about 1k and i dont want to pay for mistakes that i didnt make.

gutted-dx

iTrader: (1)

Hold long did it drive while it was mis-firing?

///Nick

drove perfectly fine from the shop up until i hit that light getting off hw18 into federal way. started bogging really bad and misfiring. i limped it to the crossings parking lot and had it towed from there

raverx3m

iTrader: (1)

did you sign any papers with insurance yet?

the insurance pretty much faqed you.

the policy is to "bring your car to prior to collision state" meaning if the car doesnt have same value after repairs as it was prior to accident the insurance "adjusted you from behind"

and clean title costs a penny also. did you say you want clean title when talking to adjuster or did they say they gonna total the car out?
where are you located anyway?

washington state doesnt go by the blue book value we go by the market value in the area( whatever the autotrader and local dealership and craigslist prices for identical car)

some more info on the accident would help as well. maybe your cat got banged up in the accident and a piece broke off and clogged it.

///Nick

no, when i drove my car home the ish back fired and stalled. the backfire caused damage to my catalytic converter... simple enough. my car was in perfect mechanical condition long before any of this happend. im suing hinshaws honda for the repairs of my cat. enough said... these people dont know how to properly store a car without a hood. because the repair process of my car was 22 days (instead of the 6 days on the estimate). from the time my car was being repaired to the day it was finished.. the weather forcast was rain for the whole 22 days of being repaired. and my car was stored outside during the time it wasnt being worked on..

///Nick

im in the federal way area too fyi.

CrashAndBurn

I would call your insurance to see if they can still cover the cost. The worse thing they can say is no.

///Nick

i was given enough money through insurance to get my car fixed... i wanted to go through my insurance but i only had liability and comp.

///Nick

taking to small claims court to sue for cost of getting cat replaced. not looking to make any extra money but looking to be made whole. my court date was set on april 8 but was moved to april 24th... my birthday. sweet deal huh

rice_classic

You will most likely lose in court. It's hard to think of what work they could have possibly done that would have cause the cat to fail.

Often times when you have an impact or accident in car but the mechanicals "seem" OK, they are indeed not and the problems from the accident manifest at a later date.

Since I'm not intimately involved with this specific situation I'm not going to say exactly who's wrong or right but I know how cars work and replacing a hood, bumper and various front end body bits vs ruining a catalytic converter are 2 very different things. Even leaving it out in the rain without a hood wouldn't do that.

From what you say about the non-OEM parts when you specific about that point, I can safely say you have a right to be pissed off.