wrecked my wife's car..... body shop recommandations

Dude slid through a stop sign and t-boned me.... thankfully I was able to speed up and avoid taking it right in the doors! Wasn't hurt but bummed i trashed my wifes new car (thats what I get for taking her car to run errands rather than brushing the snow off my work truck!)

Cummings desiel with huge grill gaurd.... zero damage (silver paint added to his grill gaurd)
Mazada CX-7 see below


As long as they do good work I am ok with it. His insurance will be paying for my rental car in the mean time, so time is not as big of a factor....but it would be nice to find someone that can do good work in a reasonable amount of time.

I love the work Big Sky Collision Center does, but they are not the quickest. If you are not worried about how long it will take I would highly recommend them. I would guess a month at least.

I take all my stuff to american auto body. they do very good work. i was without my car for less than aweek. it had about the same amount of damage as yours.

Damn right his insurance is taking care of it. Sorry to hear about it man. How old was the guy? (not that it matters too much, just wondering).
Just make sure if you take it to big sky collision that you don't leave any money outside the change bin in a cupholder or something.....

I work at Big Sky Collision Center and I'm pretty sure we're booked out about a month or so because of all this snow! IMHO I would take it to American Autobody, it'll get done faster and with less BS! But you didn't hear this from me.

So I have been given the thumbs up to take my car anywhere in Billings for repair. I have already talked with American Autobody and they said that it is a 3 week waiting list.

So Progressive Insurance has a relationship with the following and says they can usually get their cars in quicker. So anybody have good or bad to say about the following.

Chassis works
Carstar
Archie Cochran Ford
Trackside Autobody

I am going to call them to see availability.

I would avoid Archie Cochrane.

They are very nice people. Don the manager over there is a nice guy.

The work OTOH is not so impressive. I had mine over for a windshield. They scratched it putting it in. Then they scratched the car putting the second one in. They filled the scratches in but never finished the job - didn't polish after they buffed the paint. So now I have this nice dull spot on the top of my car where the scratches were. Very unimpressive job.

Of those I would consider Trackside. I've always heard Hank's is the best in town but I see it's not on your list.

IMO, I would stay away from trackside..... Some of the repairs I have seen come out of there have been marginal. Lots of over-spray on the cars, and not the quality of work I expect. Not worth the wait.....

Trackside does GREAT work! The techs there are all friends with the techs at Big Sky. Hell a couple of them left the BS here and went there! LOL.

Also it is VERY TRUE that shops will push a Progressive job though faster. This is because the insurance adjusters (usually a guy named Mike Moore) job is to be a fucking asshole prick to the body shop and force them to shove it through, no matter how much loss it causes to the shop. All the while screwing the customer with crappy aftermarket parts and screwing the shop because they REFUSE to pay for any good parts (or the $3 difference for an OEM over aftermarket) or give enough labor to the tech doing the job! Everyone in the shop dreads when a Progressive job comes in lol. But on the plus side, since they are such pricks. The job gets done right and quickly because we don't want to have to deal with it anymore lol.
/rant....... sorry, bad days at work sometimes.

Happy hunting!

looks like chassis works is the non bagged on surviver of this thread, looks like a sure bet, but it probably wont be unfortunately.

I dropped the car today off at Carstar. They provide a full warranty on their work as well as Progressive covers all the work. So lets hope for the best, I had some work done there years ago and was happy with them so lets hope it is still the same. If not I guess I will have to become a prick and make sure it gets done right.

I however already have a bad feeling about dealing with progressive. The claims adjuster (Mike) just called and said I need to bring in the peices of the rear bumper that I have becasue they want to see what parts they can use off of it. I threw the scrap peices from the accident in my truck just so I could clean up the scene... but I can't wait to see his face when I drop off a box of shattered peices and tell him to sift through it. Is it honestly worth the $.50 to try and save some plastic clip.

them guys are horrible about trying to refurbish used junk to save a buck. im sure there is some loop hole somewhere that states they get to keep whatever isn't spent on the repair. bunch of repair nazis

I told you man! Mike is paid to be a prick! (Outside of work he's a coold guy though, I'm not knocking on him personally) Instead of ponying up the $2 for a new bracket or something He'll go through all the trouble as to tell you to bring shattered pieces in, just to save a buck. It's understandable but at the same time...... how is that good "customer service"?

On the bright side though...... it's shit like that that keeps my rates so low

Also curiosity is getting the best of me..... Is the moron using a "LKQ quarter panel cut" and "Reconditioned/Aftermarket" Bumper pieces and taillights?

Just curious to see if he tries to screw the shops in town "equally" lol

I requested all oem parts only. So the guys at Carstar said thats what they were ordering even though mike wanted to get an aftermarket tailight. The carstar guy seems really legit and cool. He told me that at any time I was more than welcome to come down and check out the progress and they would be happy to explain to me what they where doing and what they had left. So far no complaints with carstar.... only progressive.

Awesome man!! Glad they can take care of ya! Lemme know how the repair goes

ZipDriveX wrote:

Trackside does GREAT work! The techs there are all friends with the techs at Big Sky. Hell a couple of them left the BS here and went there! LOL.

Define "GREAT" work....

(begin rant)

Does it include the following?
Overspray all over the vehicle when you pick it up when they tell you it is done, how bout shoddy body work on repairs that you can see under the new paint that was applied, or maybe damaging your vehicle and or an item that you dropped off for them to paint for you... ( and then telling you thats the way it was), or losing parts to a project car they are doing for you because they are so disorganized its ridiculous! Or telling you they scheduled something, and then after dropping it off, it sits there for months, only to rush the job in the last couple days after you start to get tired of their B.S. excuses ( only to have the repairs messed up..). And finally incorrectly assembling a vehichle they repaired..... Too f'n lazy to make sure a door control cable is clipped back into the retainer so the door operates correctly, or better yet forgetting to tighten cab mount bolts on a truck that they said was done, and released back to a customer!!
These are just issues that I am personally aware of, so if this is a "GREAT" job, I would hate to see a bad job!!!!!!!!!!

(end rant)

god ryan, why dont you tell us how you really feel haha

I totally agree with Hollywoood...had work done on several vehicles at Trackside and the workmanship is far from being GREAT!! Never done in a timely manner and attention to detail is poor. I am a clean freak about my vehicles and they always left a mess to clean-up after the repairs.

Pretty sure no matter where you take the vehicle you will be unhappy with it. I am very anal (I am going to get alot of heat for using that word) about how my cars look. I actually took my entire interior out of my RS when I got it back from Big Sky Collision Center just because it was making a squeaking noise.

IF YOU WANT IT DONE RIGHT DO IT YOURSELF I SAY.

I have been taking my Saleen to Bob at Toxic Designs the last couple times....he has done excellent paint repair on my vehicle. And he has always delivered my vehicle back clean as I took it to him and he is always done with it in less then a week. I have had repairs done by Hank's Body Shop in the past and they were always good about cleaning my vehicle after the repairs and did nice work.

go total it and buy a new one.

DoodieHead [ADMIN] wrote:

Pretty sure no matter where you take the vehicle you will be unhappy with it. I am very anal (I am going to get alot of heat for using that word) about how my cars look. I actually took my entire interior out of my RS when I got it back from Big Sky Collision Center just because it was making a squeaking noise.

IF YOU WANT IT DONE RIGHT DO IT YOURSELF I SAY.

When I said this I was referring to putting it back together correctly, not doing the actual bodywork and paint. I wish I was able to do stuff like that.