so i brought my car to daland body shop in South San Francisco and this is what I got back. is this an acceptable job by an DALAND BODY SHOP? i think the fit is so bad, I can even see the clip that connects the corner of the bumper to the fender in the wheel well. also it sits 5mm out from the fender. when i first saw the car, it was sticking out too but they said they still had to order an OEM left side stiffener bracket to place on the bumper before it will line up with the fender. well, after they installed it, it still looked the same....

 

Not acceptable

 

Looks like they didnt fir it before painting

 

That's totally not acceptable. What exactly did you get done there? There's a chance they used an aftermarket bumper as well thus having a shitty fitment. Take it back ASAP.

 

i am pretty sure it's aftermarket. is it normally this bad even for an aftermarket bumper? i thought normally places will use a heat gun to mold it to fit flush with adjacent panels.

 

Yes aftermarket bumpers have the worst fitment. The cheaper they are the worse they fit. And Idk about the heat gun part. Was this an insurance job?

 

and the reason I ask if it was an insurance job is because insurance companies pay shops to use OEM parts but the shops try to cheat and cheap their way out and buy aftermarket so they can save the cash.

 

no, this was not an insurance job. what happened was the tow truck company damaged my car in the process of towing and the body shop and them decided to finalize an estimate. i was told that if i were to have the insurance deal with it, it can result in a salvaged title for my vehicle given it's age, because it's a 00 integra LS. the repair cost was around $2100 which is more than likely over 70% of the car's worth. the insurance company might have just given me the $2350 (original estimate by body shop with all OEM parts) and taken the vehicle.

note: the bumper cover was damaged from the cover being pulled outward in a forward direction which pulled apart the fender/bumper connection on the left side. this was from a piece of wood plank that broke from the weight of the wheel and kicked up underneath the bumper as the car was being winched onto the flatbed by the rear tow eye. only thing damaged was the bumper cover and left side bumper stiffener bracket. obviously, the body shop claimed more stuff was damaged such as the absorbers, left turn signal lens housing brackets, right stiffener bracket, left fender wheel guard plastic, front upper bumper bracket (all of which COULD be damaged if it was from IMPACT damage resulting from a collision with something)

 

The bumper is garbage, its not the bodyshop.
Try get a used oem bumper cover or a good fit aftermarket one.
Trial fit first if its aftermarket.

 

Who supplied the bumper?

 

LKQ auto parts in Stockton, CA was the one who sells the part. Daland Body Shop (the body shop in this discussion) is the one that bought the bumper

 

Who sourced the part, you or the body shop?

 

I could do better than that with zip ties! They should have test fitted it and simply sanded down the high spot to make I flush. That's a lack of workmanship I would go back up there and demand they fix it for free

 

the body shop sourced the part. they said they can try to fix it under the warranty they have with the place they got the bumper from. they said what's going to happen is they will return the bumper to the parts distributor and and have them pay to paint and install a new one. from the email conversation, seems like the shop is denying any fault on their end. if they know the bumper fits like crap, they should have reconsidered going through with the job and made the necessary changes to address the problem right?

 

Bro they know exactly what they did wrong, give me their phone number so I can talk to them lol. They like to try to take advantage of people who they think don't know about this crap. They do this stuff for a living and they buy their parts from the same place everytime. They know it fits like crap. They better get you a new bumper and paint it. That's bullshit.

 

Its just pure laziness on there part. Have the shop fix it and make sure it fits correctly before you even leave the shop with the car.

 

weak....

 

Some aftermarket companies "guarantee" fitment but thats just a marketing scam. They will roll the dice with that and take their chances.

 

Do NOT let that slide. MAKE them fix it. I would never let anything roll out looking like that, that is hideous. Is this some hole in a wall body shop?

 

same thing happened to me with my ej1 if it wiggles at all take the wheel off and run a small bolt or screw threw the inner lip. will pull them tighter together and make for a pretty clean look.

 

This dude sounds like he will get the job done. Even if you do it yourself, at least let him have his fun

 

whoever said Insurance companies pay for OEM stuff dont knwo what there talking about...If you have a fender bender with a 98 integra there paying you for an aftermartket bumper rarely will they do OEM, unless the owner or shop specifically demands OEM parts and if the car is already older good luck. that is just def a shitty bumper and no matter how much you would try to heat and mold that its impossible you can heat and mold it to in and out to the fender slightly but that is just short, your not going to stretch that corner into its place. Dont always be quick to blame the shop first what did you pay, 2nd what did it come in looking like 3rd what parts were given to them. theres a lot of factors.

 

http://daland-autobody.com/
no, unfortunately, they seem to get decent reviews here. reading the posts on yelp, most of their reviews come from people who probably but not absolutely aren't too keen on the details of their own vehicle. it's a family owned shop but IMO, their work ethics stinks.

NEWS FLASH: so I have been in contact with the person that did my estimate (Amanda D.) I questioned her as to why the cost of the aftermarket bumper was so much more than then OEM one. she responded saying that the cost included all the hardware too such as the bumper support beam, absorbers, turn signal housing bracket, license plate nut, etc. she said that all my old parts are still at the shop and that I can pick them up if I wanted. Well, I wanted to confirm if it was true, so I went pick them up. to my surprise, the bumper beam was heavily damaged from what appears to be a downforce impact. and to top it off, all the parts mentioned above are painted BLACK! my car is silver, never been in an accident and the one I have now is clearly silver! also, they threw in a license plate Y bracket which was never on my car to begin with! I asked the dude that was in today why is it black, and he responded stating that all metal parts are black and that that's how they come from the factory. I showed him the one on my car and he said it's silver and became speechless after that. He claimed to be ignorant of the case so i couldn't get him to talk much. I couldn't even talk to the one in charge because she wasn't in today.

I am speechless now, i can't believe how much they suck at trying to pulling a scam and think they can easily fool me by giving me some leftover junk from another car. obviously, they are trying to justify their reason for charging me extra for parts that they really did not order.

here is what i have now on my car. a silver beam. same beam as before


here is what they claim came off my car: black color beam. the bumper in the back is the crap they gave me.

 

If you're getting repair work done by a body shop, not on factory warranty, you can expect:

1) aftermarket parts
2) used parts in working condition

They'll buy brand new parts if you ask them to, but expect to pay extra. The only things you can really argue about are them installing a part that clearly doesn't fit correctly (or installing them wrong) and them replacing parts that don't need to be replaced.