Body Shop Advice (Los Angeles)

[jet_dogg]

^sadly this right here

You'd think that it'd be easy to find several superlative body shops in the mecca and birthplace of car culture but that simply isn't true. In fact it's quite the contrary as my dude above posted.

In a city with tons of money, everyone is out here hustling and unfortunately the consumer is often footing the bill and being taken advantage of.

Re: body shops, kings is average and from the sound of it abs doesn't want to honor the quote so he's brushing you off, classic business tactic given the evidence.

[Icecream]

Dude, Scandinavian Coachcraft. I went to many shops looking for someone to do the roof and all I got was so much bullsh*t, shady places and corner cutters and excuses. I didn't want to leave my car with any of them. Ymmv, but I'd at least stop by. I also went in and told them take as long as you need as long as it comes back looking good, so no guarantee on how long it will take . They were super responsive and easy to work with the entire time.

[ATB88]

Update: Thanks for the recommendations, everyone! Scandinavian Coachcraft was tempting, but I ended up taking my car to Kings, felt best about them after talking to them vs everyone else. Car's been there for 2 weeks now and it's being painted. In total I am fully repainting: Entire passenger side (door, sideskirt, front fender, rear fender), front bumper (with refurbish), rear bumper, hood, and trunk. Really looking forward to seeing the results! Either way this will serve as a good recent datapoint on Kings that forum members can use to help them decide on a shop.

This is the very first time I've ever had body/paint work on a car, and I'm not 100% sure what to expect. I would like to ask for any tips on what to look out for when I go and inspect the car when it's done? I worry that due to my lack of experience and knowledge that I might miss things about the paint and assembly work that might be subpar, but I might not notice unless I know to look for it. I worry that if I miss these things when I pick it up I'll be SOL on getting them to fix it. I'm paying a lot for this work, and do want to make sure that I know how to get my money's worth!

[Nate047]

I had King’s do two small jobs for me. Paint match a CSL style diffuser and clear coat some carbon fiber wing risers for my e36. The masking on the diffuser left a little something to be desired, there’s a little spot where they messed up the tape, and there are small bubbles in the clear on the carbon pieces. The price was cheap though. Proportionate to the quality I guess. The wait time was about 4-5x longer than they initially estimated. But literally every body shop is like that. Overall the experience was “fine” but nothing to get excited about.

[Nate047]

As far as what to look for, make sure to look at the areas they worked on in the direct sun. Or with a really bright light if it’s cloudy. Look at the edges of everything, look for paint runs, look for areas that look more dull than the rest of the car, orange peel look, make sure all the trim is reinstalled properly, make sure the bumpers don’t sag, etc…

[ATB88]

I had King’s do two small jobs for me. Paint match a CSL style diffuser and clear coat some carbon fiber wing risers for my e36. The masking on the diffuser left a little something to be desired, there’s a little spot where they messed up the tape, and there are small bubbles in the clear on the carbon pieces. The price was cheap though. Proportionate to the quality I guess. The wait time was about 4-5x longer than they initially estimated. But literally every body shop is like that. Overall the experience was “fine” but nothing to get excited about.

Interesting re: price -- they were actually my most expensive quote ($2.5k more than one other place)

[ATB88]

As far as what to look for, make sure to look at the areas they worked on in the direct sun. Or with a really bright light if it’s cloudy. Look at the edges of everything, look for paint runs, look for areas that look more dull than the rest of the car, orange peel look, make sure all the trim is reinstalled properly, make sure the bumpers don’t sag, etc…

Thanks! Going to pick up the car this morning.

As for paint match, they've repainted everything EXCEPT the driver's side front/rear fenders and door. Should I be expecting a perfect match to the original paint on those panels, and if not, to how high a standard should I be holding them? If I can see the difference, should I be asking them to repaint? I have no idea of what's reasonable here. But if it's supposed to be damned near perfect then I think that's important to know before I pay them.

[Nate047]

I mean, let's see the invoice and the car, and then decide LOL.

[ATB88]

I mean, let's see the invoice and the car, and then decide LOL.

Invoice will be ~$6k for repainting both bumpers, hood, trunk and passenger side fenders door and sideskirt. Includes $400 for a fender, and also refurb/repair labor on the front bumper. I'll see the car in 20 minutes...

[Nate047]

Mmmm yea I guess that's about half the car, let us know how it looks. Make sure you don't take the car and leave if there are any issues.

[Chas3n]

https://absautorepair.com/

They work on tons paint and body for M cars and they do other collision work as well. The owner Kevin is a good dude (and he has a 997 GT3). The painted and installed my CSL front and hamann wing. Tell him Jim with the LSB e46 sent you.

I would run from ABS. They had my car, and 3 others I referred over there.

Last I heard the owner of the 3 other vehicles left that shop very upset.

I wasn't thrilled with the length of time or the quality of work either. Leaking CSL roof (twice) and paint chipping from front bumper.

[old///MFanatic]

As for paint match, they've repainted everything EXCEPT the driver's side front/rear fenders and door. Should I be expecting a perfect match to the original paint on those panels, and if not, to how high a standard should I be holding them? If I can see the difference, should I be asking them to repaint? I have no idea of what's reasonable here..

You seriously think someone can perfectly match 20 year old original paint? The difference in the clear coat break down alone will give a different sheen. What color again is the car?
You have to be reasonable with painting, it should look good-great. Doing different panel gets tricky and need to be blended. Which is as good as can be if you don’t completely respray car. As has been mentioned before it will never be perfect.
You should expect to leave happy. If you see flaws bring it up and ask. They are legit.

[ATB88]

You seriously think someone can perfectly match 20 year old original paint?

I don't seriously think anything, I have no idea! That's why I'm asking I don't have any fixed expectations here and I'm just asking questions to make sure that I'm setting my expectations in the right place. Car's carbon black metallic.

Mmmm yea I guess that's about half the car, let us know how it looks. Make sure you don't take the car and leave if there are any issues.

Just checked the car out. Overall it looks very nice! The paint match looks good so far from the time I spent looking at it. I spotted a few little white spots or white lines at different places near edges/interfaces, and they assured me that this was just leftover compound from polishing and they could easily take care of it. Due to a small miscommunication, they painted the trunk lid, but not the trunk lid handle (I had a fresh matte primed one installed on the trunk, that I thought they would paint along with the rest of the trunk, alas I was not explicit to them about that). No biggie, though, they're happy to do it.

There was only one thing that seemed like a real issue I noticed in any of the paint -- I asked for the driver's side mirror to be repainted (and the passenger mirror was also repainted along with the rest of the passenger side). The passenger mirror looks great, paint has a smooth mirror finish. The driver's side had a thick and noticeable orange peel texture. Could physically feel texture running my finger over it. Pointed it out and they said they'll take care of it. There was some minor orange peel in the front/rear bumpers but it looked okay -- only the mirror seemed problematic. Is orange peel more of an issue when painting angular pieces like bumper covers? All of the flatter panels (fenders, door, trunk lid, hood) look very nice to the extent that I inspected them.

Anyway, so far so good, I think? I'm glad they were receptive and accommodating about the issues that I pointed out. Excited to have the car back totally finished in a few days!

They've also been impressively fast, I dropped the car off only 16 days ago.

[Nate047]

I would run from ABS. They had my car, and 3 others I referred over there.

Last I heard the owner of the 3 other vehicles left that shop very upset.

I wasn't thrilled with the length of time or the quality of work either. Leaking CSL roof (twice) and paint chipping from front bumper.

I just picked up my hood from them yesterday, October 23rd. I dropped it off August 9th LOL. The hood is a Motorsport24 carbon fiber hood, they were having issues with the get coating or something like that, there were some small cracks that took them a while to fix. Did they need 2 and a half months to do that? Absolutely not. Did they put my job on the lowest priority of all their projects? Absolutely yes.

In the end it looks "alright," there's orange peel obviously, there are little air bubble spots and possible sand/dirt contamination spots in a couple small areas. The color also looks a little bit lighter than it should, but I could only give them the gas lid to match from.

I didn't want to split hairs, because I need the hood to be done, and just move on and be okay with it. I paid $800.

Will I go back to ABS or King's? I mean... *sigh* Yea, probably. Every body shop I have ever been to is like this. Some are also way worse... I have literally NEVER walked away from a body shop experience fully, actually satisfied. So unless you want to shell it out for a master craftsman, paint and body wizard to do your whole car, you gotta manage expectations.

[old///MFanatic]

Cool. You spotted some things you weren’t happy with and they were receptive and didn’t hassle about re-doing.
If you’re happy that’s all that matters. Glad you’re getting your car back with excitement. It’s a great feeling having a clean looking car.