A sad body shop horror story....

[71-440]

My T/A was in the same shop for approximately 14 years and in that time they did a bunch of metal work and sent it out for media blasting and etch priming.
They originally said about a year to restore my car.
I knew after a couple years that things weren't looking good, and eventually I'd need to move it elsewhere if I ever hoped to see it done.  Shortly after my car went in, the owner's only employee moved on to another job, and not long after that, he got laid up for a while after donating a kidney to his dad, so at first the delays seemed understandable.
It wasn't until about 5 years that he really got rolling on the metal work.
In the years after he picked up the car, we had the tech wreck which knocked my stock market wealth down greatly, then a recession, and my stable employment at a solid company started looking sketchy as they started going downhill toward eventual bankruptcy.
I got downsized in 05, got another better job quickly, but that fell through end of year, unemployed 2/3 of '06.  Found a job but got canned end of 08 when the economy fell off the cliff and was out of work until late spring of '10.
The car was on the back of my mind but every time I decided I needed to get going on moving it, I'd get sidelined by another setback in life!  Plus the thought of trying to retrieve a car in pieces 4 hours away seemed pretty daunting!!  The thought of holding a gun to the guys head to get him working on it actually occurred to me, but he was too far away and I didn't want to risk prison!
Finally after 14 years I decided to move it to a Mopar shop here in IL with a record of great restorations and many cars in MCG praising how wonderful they were.  They proceeded to take me to the cleaners with overcharges, talk down to me like trash, and the car is now in another shop fixing some things they screwed up, or blew off doing altogether.
That's my heart warming restoration tale!
There seems to be a lot more resto horror stories than good stories.  The scary thing is that more than a few shops with good reputations sometimes go bad.
I just heard stories of a well known midwest Mopar restorer (not the one in IL who worked on mine), someone I've known for 20 years, getting booted from by his partners from his shop for secretly selling parts off cars he was working on, and overcharging customers.  Alcohol is a big factor.  I won't say who but he's well known.
Scary world out there!

Wow. I feel for ya buddy!

[RUNCHARGER]

It also shows poor business practices by the shop obviously. Those spaces cost money to supply and if the shop isn't making money on the space it's downhill for everyone.

[Cuda_mark]

It also shows poor business practices by the shop obviously. Those spaces cost money to supply and if the shop isn't making money on the space it's downhill for everyone.

My car has been at the restoration shop for almost 5 years now. It is completely my doing. I go over a 6 month budget with the shop owner and he works to that budget. He has a variety of customers...some like me that go nice and slow and some that he does complete restorations in a year. I feel pretty lucky that he lets me go at my pace and that he does it in a way that doesn't end up costing me more. I've always thought it would cost more to go slow because you don't get that momentum on your side but so far, it hasn't...probably due to the quality and professionalism of the shop I'm using.

[RUNCHARGER]

Glad that works out for you. That's cheap storage for sure.

[anlauto]

It also shows poor business practices by the shop obviously. Those spaces cost money to supply and if the shop isn't making money on the space it's downhill for everyone.

My car has been at the restoration shop for almost 5 years now. It is completely my doing. I go over a 6 month budget with the shop owner and he works to that budget. He has a variety of customers...some like me that go nice and slow and some that he does complete restorations in a year. I feel pretty lucky that he lets me go at my pace and that he does it in a way that doesn't end up costing me more. I've always thought it would cost more to go slow because you don't get that momentum on your side but so far, it hasn't...probably due to the quality and professionalism of the shop I'm using.

Oh for sure, I've been working on a 70 Road Runner for over eight years.....same reason, I'm working with his budget....That's not the case here with this guys GTX.

[BIGSHCLUNK]

One aspect I just cant wrap my head around is a car taking up space in the shop for that long? I go nuts with the space I have, moving stuff around all the time. 

At the same time I know how contractors in my area work..... start 50 jobs cause all they see is dollar signs... but then cant finish jack $hit.

Then again I'm not the type that allows myself to get walked (stomped!) on.............