Reasonably priced body shop in East London / Essex?

[domb84]

Hi all,

just wondering if anybody can recommend a decent and reasonably priced body shop in the East London / Essex area? My local wanted £500 to repair a tiny scuff on the rear bumper which was absurd.

i actually want a few touch ups done, So if anybody can recommend anyone that would be great.

 

[DrSimon]

I'm taking my car to Autocrash Accident Repair Centre in Forest Gate next week for some minor stone damage to my wheel arch. They were recommended by one of the guys at Porsche East London. I'll post my thoughts when I get the car back. They seem to get good reviews online.

Simon

 

[domb84]

Thanks for the response. How did you get on? I’m getting a quote from XXXXXX in Brentwood tomorrow as they are a specialist with their own bodyshop. Will see how they do for pricing.

 

[DrSimon]

Apologies for my tardy update. I took the car in last week and was suitably impressed. KP is the chap in charge and he kept me updated throughout the process by sending me photos via WhatsApp. He's a great chap and clearly takes great pride in his work. He's used to doing high-end cars: there was a lovely Boxster, plus a couple of Range Rovers there when I went to pick up my car. Don't be put off by the rather shabby locale - it's a classic backstreet spray shop setup - but he's obviously good enough for OPC East London to trust him with some of their cars. One word of warning: you need to navigate your car up quite a tricky bump to turn into the road. I just about made it in my 997.2 turbo but you'd definitely scrape a splitter in a GT car unless you have front lift. Apart from that I was really impressed and I'm going to take the car back later this year to have a more prominent scratch done on my passenger door.

Simon

 

[domb84]

Mind me asking about pricing and what you had done?

 

[DrSimon]

It was just a small stone chip on the inside of one of the wheel arches, although it had spread to about the size of a 5p piece. The car's GT silver. The cost was £100. For the larger scratch on the door he's quoted approximately £500. This compares with approximately £1500 from M&A Coachworks. Admittedly, I'm sure the latter would do an amazing job and you'd probably get your car back fully detailed and spotless, but I was really impressed with Autocrash. I'm rather fussy about the appearance of my car and was nervous about anyone going near it but I'm happy to use them again. I'll post again once I go ahead with the larger scratch.

When I have a bit more time I'll attempt to post some pics on here to give you a better idea of the size and position of the job. Just out of interest, what colour is your car? KP was honest about the difficulties in attaining perfect colour matches on silver cars but I'm confident he'd do a good job.

Simon

 

[domb84]

Mines Seal Grey But I need a bit of stone chip repairing that’s out of site underneath so shouldn’t have thought colour match would be as bad as somewhere more obvious. The other parts are the corrosion from both bonnet catches. Again out of site. i did have a crack myself to be honest. Bonnet was ok at best but colour match was poor. Stone chip I just patched up temporarily to protect it but the stone chip I used ironically got stone chipped on the first drive. Wouldn’t recommend it... Only other bit is a scratch on the rear bumper plus some peeling lacquer where the plate is, but you would never notice these unless it was under intense inspection.

Most important thing for me is getting the bare metal protected from the stone chip, if that’s going to be £100 ish then sounds like great value. I’ll see what I get quoted tomorrow and if it’s daft i’ll take it down to forest gate.

thanks for the tip!

 

[DrSimon]

Keep us posted. It's always useful to have other options. I love seal grey! My Boxster was that colour. It's great for accentuating those rear-end curves!

 

[domb84]

I've ended up going with XXXXXX as the price seamed reasonable seeing that every bit of work is on a different panel plus they are a specialist. Will let you know how it comes back in a couple of weeks.

 

[domb84]

So... XXXXXX... theres a company I wish I never used. This has not gone well. Firstly when they sent pictures of the work before i collected I could still see the blend line I left when I did a bad job. I asked for that to be fixed before I collected it, to which they agreed. All fine there. On collecting the car today I see on the bumper that had a complete respray, a paint crack and a big blob of paint. On pointing These out to one gentleman he was fine and said they would do it again. When it came to not wanting to pay until it’s done another gentleman comes out (I assume he was the owner), and instead of apologising for the shabby workmanship, proceeds to tell me that I should expect this sort of thing. A crack and a paint blob on a resprayed bumper?! Needless to say I was furious.

The car car is going back for them to have yet another go at getting it right. Let’s see how that pans out.

 

[domb84]

Just to follow this up, they did eventually resolve it and I’m happy with the finish. So that’s some good news.

What I’m not happy with was having to complain about 2 of the 3 bits of work and have them done again, the car being in the shop for a total of 2 weeks for what is 2 days work at best. Having to argue with who turned out to be the owner about the quality of work, when clear as day the finish was poor, and him trying to argue that a crack in fresh paint and a big blob is acceptable. Not one apology either by email or in person. Really strange attitudes from everyone I met there. Granted i was grumpy, but a simple ‘sorry about that, thats clearly not acceptable and we’ll get that resolved ASAP’ would have gone a long way.

All in all a very bad experience with XXXXXX. Would never use again and leaves me questioning the work they’ve done in the past if they let a car out the paint shop like that. I’d steer well clear.

One last thing, they didn’t honour the 5% discount they promised either with PCGB membership. Genuinely had enough of dealing with them so cba chasing them up on it. Small price to pay for not having to deal with them again.

 

[Tuc]

DrSimon , Did you get yours done at the auto crash centre? Looking to get my bumpers resprayed (Bexleyheath, Kent, area) but East London isn’t too far..

 

[DrSimon]

It was indeed Auto Crash Accident Repair Centre in Forest Gate. The (very small) job they did was excellent and I was kept up to date with how it was going, including being sent step-by-step photos by KP, the proprietor.

I would certainly take my car back there for larger repairs I’m not sure if he still does spray work for Porsche East London but I know he used to.

If you use them I’d be interested to know how you get on. The only thing I would warn you about is as you turn into the street where he has his workshop there’s quite a nasty ramp. My turbo made a slight scraping noise but my front splitter wasn’t harmed (well, no more than usual in speed bump infested London!) but anyone with a GT3 might suffer unless you have a front lift system.

 

[Tuc]

Sounds good to me - I’ve just been down there to get a quote, no issues with the hump on my car (981 Cayman). Ended up asking for a quote for the full front end, side sills and rear bumper (All stone chips). He gave me confidence though, just need to wait for the price to come back. Haven’t heard any bad reviews so fingers crossed will all be good. Thanks for getting back to me so quickly!

 

[DrSimon]

You're welcome. Let us know how you get on. I'm thinking of using them for a larger scratch in my passenger door and I'd be interested to know your feedback.

Simon