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Paint Experts - Need help with Damage Claim


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I had a customer claim that we damaged his car in multiple spots on the driver side rocker panel during an oil change.   We don't lift vehicles for oil changes, so at best, the closest we come to touching the rocker panels is entering the vehicle.   One of our shoes might get caught when entering.   This is an elderly gentleman and I do think he's being honest, but also think he is confused.    He saw some of our guys milling about near his car (actually working on computer in the bay) and thought they were looking at some damage on his car.   So, when he got home, he inspected it thoroughly.  This guy waxes / polishes his car daily, but has problems bending over anyway, so I don't think he's paid strict attention to the rocker panel.  In fact, he blamed us for some road tar that we were able to scrape off.   Not sure that his vision is great either.   But he loves his car.

In our observation, it looks like a scuff mark maybe from hitting rubber debris on the road, but at the same time, it appears to be under the clear coat as it won't rub off.   See the attached pictures.  I'm hoping someone that knows paint might be able shed some light on what I'm seeing.   We've only taken pictures and tried to rub it off with fingers and fingernails.  We have not tried any solvents or cleaners.   I'm sure he would bring the car back for another inspection.

2013 Mustang Scuff 1.jpg

Edited by bantar
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  • 3 months later...

I keep several things handy. A wax stick will take off tar and scuffs without damaging paint. A very good polishing cloth and some machine polish will remove light scuffs and scratches. Anything deeper then that needs to see a body shop. I always try first and am able to remove most anything but a scratch you can feel with a finger nail. A 3M headlight polish kit has everything you need to remove light scuffs and scratches.

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Hey, thank you for the guidance.  We did try to remove it with fingernails, but this blemish was under the clear coat it seemed.    Body shop told him it needed to be repainted.    I told him that it wasn't our doing and was subsurface.  He left (back in April), was a reasonable guy all things considered, and I've not seen him back nor heard from him.   Hopefully this is over at this point.

Just yesterday, we received a threat to call the police for damage to a car while in my care.  We reviewed the security camera footage and I had video of her driving away with no damage.  She did have real damage - a glancing blow to the rear bumper... just not by us.  Explained this to her, gently and calmly and I think this one is done too, but video is archived just in case.   And a few weeks ago, one of my guys "stole" some paper plates out of a car.  These plates were on a different car later that day on the tollway and photographed.   After some digging, he called me back and said that the last digit was garbled and he was charged by accident... we didn't take the plates.   Again, he was really just giving me a heads up of possible shenanigans, but it's nerve wracking.   On the flip side, if we had been responsible, I would want to know about it.     Sadly, I can keep going.  

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This experience taught me a lessen on human nature.

As I'm inspecting the paint on a first time customer with a Porsche Turbo, the customer says, "I see you found my 2 nicks."

I said I found 4 and pointed them out to him. He was shocked and surprised.

Point being: he came in believing he had 2 nicks when he had 4.

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  • Have you checked out Joe's Latest Blog?

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      Auto shop owners are always looking for ways to improve production levels. They focus their attention on their technicians and require certain expectations of performance in billable labor hours. While technicians must know what is expected of them, they have a limited amount of control over production levels. When all factors are considered, the only thing a well-trained technician has control over is his or her actual efficiency.
      As a review, technician efficiency is the amount of labor time it takes a technician to complete a job compared to the labor time being billed to the customer. Productivity is the time the technician is billing labor hours compared to the time the technician is physically at the shop. The reality is that a technician can be very efficient, but not productive if the technician has a lot of downtime waiting for parts, waiting too long between jobs, or poor workflow systems.
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      Another common problem is not understanding how to bill for jobs that require extensive diagnostic testing, and complicated procedures to arrive at the root cause for an onboard computer problem, electrical issue, or drivability issue. These jobs usually take time to analyze, using sophisticated tools, and by the shop’s top technician. Typically, these jobs are billed at a standard menu labor charge, instead of at a higher labor rate. This results in less billed labor hours than the actual labor time spent. The amount of lost labor hours here can cripple a shop’s overall profit.
      Many shop owners do a great job at calculating their labor rate but may not understand what their true effective labor is, which is their labor sales divided by the total labor hours sold. In many cases, I have seen a shop that has a shop labor rate of over $150.00 per hour, but the actual effective labor rate is around $100. Not good.
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