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Sad Tale with a Lesson

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CJD

CJD

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Met up with a fellow gearhead this week and got a real horror tale. It was not a Triumph, but carries a lesson for anyone farming out restoration work.

Chuck had a 1970 slit bumper Camaro that he bought in high school in 1978. Forthose that don't follow Chevy's, this is a pretty rare car. The car was running, but he decided to take it to a local shop here in Keller TX to have the body and interior cleaned up. As he was in no hurry, (and thinking that fact would ensure the shop would take their time and do a better job) he let them work on the car...for a year...and a second...and...

Well, by now Chuck was married and started having kids, so the car became even less important. Every few months the shop would request a grand for this part or that. Chuck never thought much about it, assuming the car would be immaculate when finished, and gave the checks.

...and a fifth year...and a sixth...and a seventh...

Well, now we are into summer of this year, 2012, and year number 8 since the car was dropped off! At this point Chuck had given the guy that owned the shop about $8k for parts. Chuck was ready to see what progress was made, so he started calling the shop. But there was no answer. When he stopped by, it was always closed, with a particularly nasty pit bull on guard.

Chuck took about an hour to expalain what then happened, but I'll sum it up in a few lines.

He hired an attorney, who filed a claim for a $2400 retainer. Since the shop owner never showed at court, they got an uncontested judgement to reclaim the car and damages. The local constable was chased off from the shop at gunpoint when he tried to serve the judgement, but the sherriff returned with an army and confiscated the contents of the shop...to be auctioned against Chucks claim.

When they wheeled out Chucks car, it was nothing but a shell. No engine, fenders, tranny, interior...you get the picture. Chuck was so devastated he told the wrecker company to keep it. The attorney felt as bad as attorney's do, and charged him another $800 for expenses in serving the judgement.

And to cap it off, the contents of the shop, including 2 car lifts, a full compliment of body and mechanic tools and tool boxes - sold at auction for $800!!! Chuck says the wrecker that hauled his car off is still calling to get the $100 towing fee and storage at $200 per month for the car.

I don't know about you guys, but I take several good lessons from Chuck's story.

1) If a shop keeps your car for more than a couple months, something is going on.
2) If you have to think about hiring an attorney, you have already lost.
3) By all means, do not let anyone do your work unless you can check on their reputation.
4) Never pay until you see the results up front. Otherwise you are being used as an ATM!

John
 
Sadly, it's the sort of story I've heard too many times over the years. And I actually was a part of such a story many years ago, involving an MG-TD owned by a friend of mine. Long story short, my friend and I managed -- in a couple different venues and times -- to "steal" the car back from the guy who was...uh..."working" on it. Luckily, and perhaps not surprisingly, the guy who was "working" on the car never pursued the issue further. My friend did ultimately get 99.5% of his car back but finally sold it off years later (and the new owner, who was also the previous owner, did get it restored again and enjoyed it briefly)!
 
Earlier this year I purchased a project TR3A that had been through a lengthy restoration process finally sidelined by a divorce. The car came with several binders of receipts, which I tried to tally - I never finished. The lesson I learned, especially for paint and body, is to pick the shop carefully and not let it drag on multiple years. And get a fixed price estimate if at all possible. The car had $18K + in paint and body receipts over a 5+ yr stretch and it is nowhere near completion yet. Painful!
 
Aside from not checking on the car for several years, I wonder if the owner checked on the reputation of the shop before he dropped it off.

Tom
 
GBRandy said:
Trust everyone.....but follow up.

Sorry, but this is 100% the car owner's fault. He was lazy and was taken advantage of. Should have caught it sooner before this kind of damage was done.
Click to expand...

While I agree with your sentiment, it was actually 100% the fault of the shop that ripped him off.
 
In the past I was one of the "expert witnesses" in a judgement trial a negligent "restorer" was sited in. Car was an older LBC, supposedly being "rebuilt". It came to our shop (after some police involvement) mostly in buckets of fasteners and parts. Short block and trans were supposedly redone, on inspection the "redone" was rattle-cans of various color paint! All had to be torn down to component level and rebuilt. Due to photos we took along the way comparing what we got to work on, to what was returned as the final resto, the owner won a hefty judgement... but the original "restorer" went to bankruptcy. feh.

In this instance the owner was able to have the work done and got the car back, restored.
 
The owner may have been foolish, but as described the shop was criminal. There is a difference.
 
Well Maybe .However, a fiduciary responsibility exists when:

One individual in whom another has placed the utmost trust and confidence to manage and protect property or money. That person has an obligation to act for anothers benefit
 
Yeah, just cause the guy is trusting doesn't mean he deserved it. How often you check on safe deposit boxes? Bottom line, you shouldn't have too...
 
In 2000 while contemplating the restoration of my 54 TR2, I interviewed six different shops. At the follow up interview with the two finalist, I asked for and then interviewed their recent ground up restoration customers. I selected the finalist when he said he was not interested in crash work because the mind set between crash work and proper restoration is huge. For the following year I made the bi weekly 130 mile round trip to check on progress. Gee, doesn't everbody do it this way?


Lou Metelko
Auburn, Indiana
 
I had a friend that was in the restoration business. He and his brother did most everything by hand, so the were not fast. Thus they always had a good back log. A lot of customers used them as free indoor storage. They would send them the car and let them get started, then they would stop paying and the car would just sit there.
 
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