Where do I stand with my insurance repairer

[V6_Man]

Folks, need some advice re: an insurance claim on my B7 A4.

My wife was hit by a lorry back in Feb earlier in the year and we got the car fixed by the approved repairers. I was insured by Aviva at that time (renewal in March), and their repairers are; Liam Kenney who are approved Audi/MB/Jag repairers in Oxford. It was a no-fault claim and all sorted now.

The insurance work was done on the driver-side rear door and the panel (pics attached).

Non Insurance Related work

• At the time, I also asked them to paint the front bumper as someone in one of the supermarket parking lot decided to reverse into the car and I wanted to get it fixed while the car was in.
• The alloys were kerbed so I thought why not get all of it done in one go.

For both of the above they quoted me £480 and I paid them £450.

Car Pick Up Day
The insurance work is or perhaps spotless until I noticed something yesterday, which I will cover in a minute. But here is to what happened between my last visit to them and as of yesterday.

On the day I picked up the car I noticed the front bumper and the side panels didn't match. When I asked they said it is plastic, which is difficult to match and therefore I should give it good couple of months and it will. This was completely different to what they told me initially and said that the bumper would match. I accepted their explanation and came back and gave it good couple of months but the colour difference is still the same. Again, pics for your reference - I am sure you'll be able to see the difference in colour between bumper and the side panel. It is the same on both sides however, if you look from the front the colour blends in.

So, I called them back in June as I wanted them to have a look. When I got their they agreed that there was a difference and wanted me to pay them another £150 to blend the colour, i.e. bumper and panels. My argument was that this is something they should have done as the price I was quoted included the blending and they denied it. And I am afraid I don't have any written records of this apart of the telephone conversations that we had, which the guy couldn't remember. His argument was the my car was too old for them to do the blending and there would always be difference no matter what.

Alloys
Just around the same time while I was washing the car and hit the alloys with Megs Wheel cleaner and started rubbing them with CYC detailing brushes I noticed the colour come off. I mentioned that to the guy at LK Motors and asked about the refurbishment process as well as why the colour was coming off.

To this, his reply was; they pushed the tyres back and lacquered front and half-an-inch of the inside of the alloy, let it dry, filed the tyres back at original tyre pressure and job done. I was SHOCKED.

We started arguing about the refurb processes and his view was that this is exactly what refurb was and that I was lying about paint coming off and that my wife had kerbed them. Called customer a liar; some might argue that he was entitled to but I don't think he was. You don't call your customer a lair even if they are - and trust me guys I am not lying.

So, I then made calls to couple of places in front of him from my mobile phone (search refurb places on my phone and dialled) and even when they explained he was adamant everyone had a different view on refurb and that he what he did was what they at Liam Kenny called as refurb. So, I called them unprofessionals and ones who con their customers to get the business and once they do - screw them! At that point the owner came and asked me not to talk to his employees rudely to which I pointed out that it was his employee who called me liar which I found rude and offensive and therefore I had every right to talk to him as much rudely as he was talking to me. Anyways, I returned as they were simply not willing to do anything re: the alloys as well as the colour difference unless I paid them extra for the colour to match.

And I wasn't going to do that, at all!!!

Back to Problem with Insurance Work
So, yesterday I spent nearly 7 hours on the car doing a 2 stage correction and found out that the area they painted inside the door panel where you have the hook for the door lock has got small bubbles. My view is that it is due to the quality of paint or .... And I ****** want it perfect. They charged £1500 for the work they did on the car (off course I didn't pay but insurers did) and you don't expect the bubbles to start appearing. Clearly looks something has not been done properly.

Now what I want to ask you guys is where do I stand with them. Should I go back to Aviva and tell them abut the work as I am sure there must be warranty on the repair works or shall I go back to them directly. Also, rather than going back to them, can I call Aviva and tell them my experience and ask them I want to go to anyone but them. What would you guys suggest?

Would appreciate your help with all of the above matters. Thanks.

Tash

 

[Dani_B19]

I did call aviva. Any insurance approved work should come with a warranty for x period.

 

[V6_Man]

Proof of bubbles appearing on the paint work

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[martin1984]

For the insurance work go back to aviva they will happly book it in again as wont cost them anything but as so say you have fell out with so garage you could adk for a differnt garage to do the work but might not be possible dont expect too much had mine car repeared through a audi approved paint shop it went back 3 time for almost the same thing as when they blend the clear coat onto the pannle i got real bad orange peal it still there now but there said thats the best they can do and the insurance are happy they tried 3 times to fix it.

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[V6_Man]

Cheers mate. It is ****** annoying. Every time I look at the front number and the alloys, which I'm pretty much al of them the lacquer has started to come off it boils my blood. It is £450 down the drain.


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[martin1984]

How did you pay the £450

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[V6_Man]

Card payment and it made in March this year. Will have proof some where.


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[martin1984]

Cheers mate. It is ****** annoying. Every time I look at the front number and the alloys, which I'm pretty much al of them the lacquer has started to come off it boils my blood. It is £450 down the drain.


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I now how you feel when i look at mine to me i can still see all the small inperfections.

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[martin1984]

Bank or credit as if credit you could try the garge saying look the wheels shouldnt be flakeing bubbling a few months can you redo free of charge or ill have to take it with credit card as the service wasnt fit for purpose its hassle but the card company normal get the money back

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[V6_Man]

Luckily it was credit card. I will do it once I have spoken to Aviva and got the paint flakes fixed.


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[V6_Man]

I did call aviva. Any insurance approved work should come with a warranty for x period.

Cheers mate. Don't remember exactly how long but it did come with the warranty on the fix.


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[V6_Man]

Another view of difference in color. Or perhaps tell me if there is one because a few of moly friends there isn't much I am like it is like day and night difference

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[martin1984]

Did you get any paper work as that doesnt even look the same colour try asking insurance for copys of work carried out and see what colour code they used then check it against your cars colour code

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[V6_Man]

Did you get any paper work as that doesnt even look the same colour try asking insurance for copys of work carried out and see what colour code they used then check it against your cars colour code

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They said it was the same color they used and showed me the paper work as well. Unfortunately, the bumper wasn't covered under insurance work, this was I asking them to do it and I paid the money for this fix and the alloys.

To match the bumper with the panels they wanted another £150. They said they'll blend in the panels with that of the bumper not all panel but half of it. And I am like no way I am letting you touch the car again as you guys promised it will all blend in in first place and that clearly it doesn't.


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[Charlie Farley]

thats a much darker shade , not even close to yours, a decent paint shop will be able to do a correct match , that most certainly is very poor work.

 

[V6_Man]

thats a much darker shade , not even close to yours, a decent paint shop will be able to do a correct match , that most certainly is very poor work.

I know @Just Rob. but both the guy dealing with the case and the owner were adamant that due to bumper being plastic, they did a brilliant job and were pointing towards all the 16/66/17 reg Mercs and Jags they had in the lot that they were asked to fix and that they knew what they were talking about.


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[Charlie Farley]

just because its plastic shouldn't make any difference, I have had some plastic parts repainted recently in a really hard to match colour of light blue , the guys did it no problem and the bumper valances and trims are an exact match in any light or angle, cant see why they cannot do it....

 

[V6_Man]

Exactly. And I am perhaps struggling to convince them to say that when they painted the number, they should taken in to account the blending and the area on the bumper next to panels should have blended in.


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[V6_Man]

But they were adamant that because it was an old car, the panels had orange peel due to the age of the car and it needs to be repainted to match.


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[Charlie Farley]

i suspect that maybe they just went straight ontop of your exisiting bumper paint and that's why it is darker , I was allways under the impression that the darker the base colour is, the darker the final top coat shade will be especially with lighter shades of paint....just my input but I've never had any issues with paint guys matching paint on whatever material it was made of ....

 

[martin1984]

Ive had my rear bumper repainted last year here the puc colour match should be easy i think there painted it the wrong colour and want the £150 to put it right mare

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[Charlie Farley]

when I get bits painted either on or off the car or bike I allways say to the guys I want it to match the exisisting paintwork and they never let me down.....

 

[V6_Man]

Tried Aviva claim team but they are closed now. Will call them tomorrow and get the pain flake sorted first and then call the credit card company and find out if I could reverse the payments. Fingers crossed.


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[Mart838]

I have just sent my wife's car back as I wasn't happy with the repair. Had to argue with the insurers as they didn't want to do it.
Me being me I went to an independent repaired and got a cost from them. I rang the insurers and said if they didn't do the work then i would get it done then take them to court for the cost.
Amazingly it went in 2 days later for the repairs to be repaired.

 

[Mario]

Not read every single post, but for the insurance work, your contract is with Aviva, and their contract is with the bodyshop. You deal with Aviva and Aviva deals with them, just like if you buy a Samsung TV from John Lewis and it breaks. You deal with John Lewis and John Lewis deals with Samsung.

As for your own private work, well you really are on your own with regards to that. However if you paid by credit card you have some protection and can argue they get involved as the service completed was not as agreed. Legally speaking, anything to a value over £100 is 100% the credit card companies liability, even if you only put a £10 deposit on the credit card, as long as the total value is more than £100, which it is in this case. Also, you have 6 months from completion to raise a claim with your credit card company, so you are still within that time frame.

Call them and explain what has happened and that the bodyshop are not playing ball with you and that now you want them to step in under Section 75 of the Consumer Credit Act.

 

[V6_Man]

Not read every single post, but for the insurance work, your contract is with Aviva, and their contract is with the bodyshop. You deal with Aviva and Aviva deals with them, just like if you buy a Samsung TV from John Lewis and it breaks. You deal with John Lewis and John Lewis deals with Samsung.

As for your own private work, well you really are on your own with regards to that. However if you paid by credit card you have some protection and can argue they get involved as the service completed was not as agreed. Legally speaking, anything to a value over £100 is 100% the credit card companies liability, even if you only put a £10 deposit on the credit card, as long as the total value is more than £100, which it is in this case. Also, you have 6 months from completion to raise a claim with your credit card company, so you are still within that time frame.

Call them and explain what has happened and that the bodyshop are not playing ball with you and that now you want them to step in under Section 75 of the Consumer Credit Act.

Cheers mate. Calling Aviva shortly and get them to deal with the body shop.

I will raise a call with Barclays as well however, I will mention that I want the credit back once the insurance work is done as I do not want them to hold the car, which they might if the car is with them for insurance repairs and they realise my payment has been taken back - would it be sensible?


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[Mario]

They cannot hold your car ransom. That is theft and against the law. If they try it, call the police, simple. The dispute with the credit card does not allow them to steal your property. Also, Barcleys will do an internal investigation before simply refunding the money. This all takes time for them to do.

 

[V6_Man]

Quick update:
Spoke to Aviva and explained the situation including the quality of work that I paid for. The rep took the notes and said she is going to call Liam Kenny Motors and will ask them to get in touch with me. She also said she will call me C.O.B today and give me an update. However, neither of them happened and I understand things can sometimes take longer than we anticipate. She also mentioned that if Liam Kenny decided not to do anything she will escalate it to her manager.

I also asked the question that it took only 4 months to show the quality of work on the car and what if they decide to do the repairs again and same thing happens again, where would I stand after 10-12 months. She said it was a valid point however, if this happens again they will send an independent engineer to asses the situation and look in to the quality of work. Again, fair point I think. It should be a third party to asses the work.

I also said that I was also happy to send them pics of the work they carried out from the day I picked up the car and they could clearly see the difference in colours to other work they did. Therefore I was slightly concerned that knowing the history between us they might do another crap job and if Aviva would consider me going to repairer of my choice. Again, she said they would prefer Liam Kenny to fix it but would look in to it as an option.

I am thinking of taking my car to Audi / another local paint shop and ask them to asses the work and if possible give me a report, which I would send over to Aviva even if they send me back to Liam Kenny just so that they have it on the record and we can compare it against what LK do to fix the existing issue.

Yet to call Barclays to initiate recovery of payment, which I am planning on doing first thing tomorrow. So, fingers crossed.

And once again, many thanks for all your help with the issue.


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[V6_Man]

Another quick update:

Car booked in with the repairers on 31st. They were very apologetic and have also agreed to repair the front bumper as well. I didn't ask about the alloys as for me paintwork is more important than the alloys. This also means that I don't have to go to Barclays to initiate the payment recovery (for now at least). Plus, my missus the alloy the other day. It only lasted four months


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[martin1984]

Another quick update:

Car booked in with the repairers on 31st. They were very apologetic and have also agreed to repair the front bumper as well. I didn't ask about the alloys as for me paintwork is more important than the alloys. This also means that I don't have to go to Barclays to initiate the payment recovery (for now at least). Plus, my missus the alloy the other day. It only lasted four months


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Thats good

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[KrisKrk]

Feel you pain, mate.

Been reading your posts with disgrace to these people who repaired/repainted your car.

When I had my A4 in silver done in the rear, managed to get my insurer to do the car at my mates garage. Within same cost he did the front bumper and the whole passenger side of the car, as someone keyed it few weeks before rear collision.
After he's work my car looked like 50 shades of grey. You could see difference from driver side. Rear bumper did not matched the side and the front at all.
I'm no longer mates with this guy who painted it as he also told me it will settle in shade. It didn't and I end up selling the car.
You can find pictures of it in my gallery. Deliberately I've taken the pictures in the shade but if you look closely, you'll see the shade difference everywhere.

New owner did not complained so all hunky dory.

This silver is far the worst colour to repair/repaint. It is silver with purple-ish glaze.

Glad you got what you wanted as a result of this issue.

When you get the car back, double and triple check it before accepting it. Make sure there is enough sun light to check all shades.
Show us the result also.


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[V6_Man]

Feel you pain, mate.

Been reading your posts with disgrace to these people who repaired/repainted your car.

When I had my A4 in silver done in the rear, managed to get my insurer to do the car at my mates garage. Within same cost he did the front bumper and the whole passenger side of the car, as someone keyed it few weeks before rear collision.
After he's work my car looked like 50 shades of grey. You could see difference from driver side. Rear bumper did not matched the side and the front at all.
I'm no longer mates with this guy who painted it as he also told me it will settle in shade. It didn't and I end up selling the car.
You can find pictures of it in my gallery. Deliberately I've taken the pictures in the shade but if you look closely, you'll see the shade difference everywhere.

New owner did not complained so all hunky dory.

This silver is far the worst colour to repair/repaint. It is silver with purple-ish glaze.

Glad you got what you wanted as a result of this issue.

When you get the car back, double and triple check it before accepting it. Make sure there is enough sun light to check all shades.
Show us the result also.


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I wouldn't be friends with the chap anymore if I was you @KrisKrk. Lol.

It was and still is annoying, every time I look at the car it bugs me. And I am definitely nit picking up the car even if there is a slight difference in the paint - learnt my lesson the hard way. The trick is never get over excited when you go and pick up the car from a body shop. The extra gloss that they put on definitely fooled me.

Will definitely keep you guys posted with the results. Fingers crossed!


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[Mario]

They were very apologetic and have also agreed to repair the front bumper as well.

I'm willing to bet that they changed their tune purely because the insurers got involved. They have infinitely more leverage than you or I, as they can simply remove the body shop from their approved list and literally make them lose out on tens of thousands of £££ a year. That kind of leverage give you a MASSIVE advantage over any company you deal with

Hope it gets sorted in the end.

 

[V6_Man]

Repair Update:

Right folks, so picked up my car Friday last week from Liam Kenny in Oxford. The car was supposed to be with them for a week between 31/07 - 4/08 but I received a call from them on Friday for extra time due to increased workload. After couple of phone calls on Monday 7th followed by one on Wednesday 9th I got a call from them on Friday 11th August (2 wks after dropping the car) that it was ready for collection.

So, I went in and as I mentioned above I spent nearly 15-20 mins with the car first before letting know that I was there analysing the paint work from all the possible angles. And I must admit that it looks fine now. I won't say perfect because even now when I look at it I can see some differences but I also know it is a) psychological and b) depends on the light and angle you are looking from.

Overall verdict is that the bubbles in the door paintwork are now completely gone and the paint is smooth round the edges. The bumper now matches the side panels as well.

Before and after pictures of the bumper:

Before:

After:

Let me know what you guys think.


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[Dani_B19]

100 times better but the colour match on the passenger side still isn't perfect. Maybe just the lift and angle though but definitely a shade different.

 

[V6_Man]

Cheers @Dani_B19. It is a shade different I agree and I think it is due to the angle. There was no car around it when I picked it up and shame I didn't take a picture then and took only when I reached home. You move slightly to the right and the bumper and panel match but not the bonnet. A little bit more to the right and the passenger door and panel blend in with bonnet but not the bumper or the passenger side pillar. And it is the same with the rear bumper as well. And it is the same on both the sides.

This colour is a proper pain. As you can see from the picture that there was a silver car parked next to it when I took the above picture, below is another example:

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[KrisKrk]

Tashfeen, it does look better but still visible difference, imho.

This car have loads of angles and the shade will change with every single one of them, as you look.

It is difficult colour to match up after some body work.
You'll just have to live with it.

If you plan to drive it until it's death do you both apart, than think of wrapping it maybe.


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[Charlie Farley]

Repair Update:

Right folks, so picked up my car Friday last week from Liam Kenny in Oxford. The car was supposed to be with them for a week between 31/07 - 4/08 but I received a call from them on Friday for extra time due to increased workload. After couple of phone calls on Monday 7th followed by one on Wednesday 9th I got a call from them on Friday 11th August (2 wks after dropping the car) that it was ready for collection.

So, I went in and as I mentioned above I spent nearly 15-20 mins with the car first before letting know that I was there analysing the paint work from all the possible angles. And I must admit that it looks fine now. I won't say perfect because even now when I look at it I can see some differences but I also know it is a) psychological and b) depends on the light and angle you are looking from.

Overall verdict is that the bubbles in the door paintwork are now completely gone and the paint is smooth round the edges. The bumper now matches the side panels as well.

Before and after pictures of the bumper:

Before:

After:

Let me know what you guys think.


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looks better but still a darker shade, I 'd be more anyoyed about the bumper - bonnet gap on that side to be honest, its a mile out......did they rmove the bumper, if not then you need to get it adjusted chap.....the front end looks all out of alighnment now..

 

[V6_Man]

looks better but still a darker shade, I 'd be more anyoyed about the bumper - bonnet gap on that side to be honest, its a mile out......did they rmove the bumper, if not then you need to get it adjusted chap.....the front end looks all out of alighnment now..

Trust me @Just Rob it blends in perfectly and depends on the angle. I'll upload couple of pictures of rear bumper (untouched) and how it changes shades/colours depending on where you are standing. I also took a colleague at work with me to check and we both spent some time looking at the car from different angles. The below picture was taken while the car was parked next to a blue mini and see how different the colour looks on the panel from the bumper. The car is parked in a shade in my work car park and the bumper looks completely different colour. It has to be parked in perfect light all around to be able to tell the difference. You can only tell whether it blends or not if it is parked either on the grass or perhaps where there is sunlight all around - pain to find.

Re: the bonnet gap, I agree. I missed it, completely. I have looked at some of my old pics and have just gone out to check and yes the gap is there and it needs to be aligned. I might take it to another body shop and ask them to look at it rather than taking it back to Liam Kenny - done with them!


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[V6_Man]

Pictures of the rear bumper taken just now

And another silver audi @work. Look closely at the difference

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