What You Should Know About Body Shops

When taking your car to a body shop to get repaired from a collision there are a few things you should know and keep in mind both when dealing with insurance or paying out of pocket for body shop repairs. Body shops are one of the few businesses that surprisingly don't make tons of money like you would think, unless it's a very big body shop. With the amount of time and labor to pay workers and the extremely high cost of materials and parts there isn't much room for error on the part of the body shop. Most body shops will try to get by with repairing as little as possible to either save on parts, materials, or labor. You especially have to watch small body shops very closely, because these are the ones that are most likely going to ask you for more money in the middle of the project.

If you are having insurance work done on your car by a body shop be sure to make a point to tell the body shop that you only want some parts installed that come from the manufacturer of your vehicle. No Keystone or Body Parts of America, these parts do not hold paint very well and will most likely begin to flake as well as not fitting properly. Make sure and call the body shop that you are dealing with to make sure that they are sticking to the predetermined timeline that they have laid out; if the body shop goes past that make sure that they reimburse you for your rental car as your insurance company will only pay for you to have one for so many days.

Make sure to tell the body shop that you're dealing with that you don't want to see any overspray on the trim, trash in the paint, or excessive orange peel. Basically you want the paint to have a good reflection when you wave your hand past it and it should not be totally distorted to where you can't make out that it's your hand. If you see that or things in your paint that look like specs of sand demand to have the car cut and buffed, but make sure to make arrangements to bring the car back approx. two weeks after the work has been completed. This gives you ample time to ensure that all of the solvents have evaporated and that anywhere body filler work has been performed and the combination of materials have had time to settle.

All in all, just be careful with what body shop you choose, definitely don't go to the cheapest body shop because in the world of paint and body you get what you paid for and sometimes not, so watch yourself. Word of mouth is a great way to choose a body shop, just ask around for who's the best while being the most affordable body shop around.