This was a great running car about 165000 miles but I had to do my NY State inspection and took the car into BadYour service center and was rewarded with the guy putting the thing on the lift and pushing the floor pan up in the front driver and passenger sides. It looks not soo bad but now there is a massive amount of road noise and the shop of course claims to not done the damage even though I witnessed it happen. Guy lifts the car from the wrong spots in the front till he hears pop stops and goes to the front of the car rocks it around and than drops it and puts the lift on the lift points than re-lifts it. My auto insurance will do repairs or total car which I suspect from what I have heard will be totaled due to the cost of a proper repair. Would this be a correct assumption? What should I expect when the claims adjuster shows up? The sad thing is this car has been maintained well since new and almost operates as well as it did new.
Did you file an complaint with the garage owner or manager? The shops insurance company should be involved in the process as well. Tell your adjuster how this happened and the name of the shop and your insurance company will most certainly look to get someone else to pay this.
He did not want to report to his insurance and claimed it was his word against mine. Its no longer a Good Year in my book after hearing that.
Yes and my insurance co will try to recoup its losses, the recommended I make the claim with them to get action.
So do it.
And then they’ll inspect the damage, see it for the kind of damage that happens when technicians misplace lift arms on a car, and then go looking for the last place you brought it to.
I had no idea this was a common thing. i cant understand how they could have someone in an auto shop that can not even put a car on a lift correctly. Especially a car that has clear jack points like my 2000 civic.
You are absolutely correct @ErnieBoxer. The shop manual for the car lists the lift points. Repair, inspection, emission shop, they all have access to this information in their own manuals, or via the internet. There’s no excuse for this to happen. A shop that lifts the car anywhere other than the manufacturer’s reocmmended lift points should be responsible for any damage. That’s only fair.
This is sort of like if you go to Target and ask the employee who’s been working there for 10 years where the toothpaste aisle is located, and they tell you it is at the back of the store, when it is at the front.
The problem as you likely already know is that life isn’t fair. I do think you have a valid complaint. Whether you’ll be able to get it rectified to your satisfaction is another matter completely.
If it were me, I’d contact my insurance company, get their opinion. 2nd, contact the gov’t office that licenses the inspection stations, and get their opinion. Finally, don’t deal with the shop staff at all; instead, contact the manager and owner of the repair place directly, and calmly explain what you observed, and that you feel they should make it right, so that you can recommend their shop to your friends, relatives, and co-workers.
You need to document exactly what happened in a letter, forward it to your insurance company with a claims form, forward a copy to the office that regulates the inspections (department of Motor Vehicles, Bureau of Motor Vehicles, whatever it’s called in NY), find out from the shop what their formal complaints process is and follow that, and perhaps even ask the shop for their insurance information and forward a claims form with them.
This is inexcusable. Mechanics should be taking the time to use proper lift points, and if one screws up they should acknowledge responsibility. They carry insurance for these situations.
I had no idea this was a common thing.
It isn’t, but mistakes in general are more common at chains than at local independent mechanics. You should stop using places like that.
@GeorgeSanJose -
Not only is there no excuse for the laziness of not looking up the right info, but it’s downright dangerous for their own employees to be lifting the car from the wrong points.
I would think the owner would want to correct this to keep the customer happy and get rid of the employee that did this before they have an accident in the future that drives the employer’s insurance costs sky-high. It isn’t like a claim on a 12 year old Civic with 165k will even cost them that much.
This happened to my aunt on a Camray she had… I went to visit her, and she asked me to take a look at her car. She said the carpet was getting wet when it rained… So first thing I did was look under the car (looking for rust), what did I find… A big upward dent with a rip in the center… Who knows who did it, or how long it was like that… But I banged the dent down and JB welded the hole. It was fine for years after…
hello, certified master automotive technician here, thought i’d chime in…
lifting a car after 15 years of doing so, at least five days a week, is kinda a natural instinct…
most cars indicate the lift points with a notch on the pinch point of the cars uni-body frame,this includes your Honda… what you witnessed likely was the technician using the correct lift points FIRST which are right on the pinch points,right on the arrows and or notches right on the car and clear to see…
in this business its called a crunchy. at least down south. now, (however, first started in Michigan which is way north. this is the sound of old once stronger metal crunching under the weight of the car… sometimes its rust,sometimes its just poor design… however, further under the car there are ridges in the floor pan area commonly referred to the frame. purely due to its resemblance to an older car which actually has a steel frame and a body over it(not your Honda). so on the first lift, on the points, which failed due to age rust or design, whatever, an inexperienced technician always try the points first. when the car is off the ground… he shakes it. this is for safety. he wants to know that car is stable before he risks his life under it… he perhaps thinks it does not feel right… brings it down… repositions it… he likely hit the inner points on the front…and then its up again…
this is common practice and if those front points caused a bend in your floor then the structural integrity of your car was seriously compromised long before this guy ever got to it. maybe it was every tech that ever got your car,knowing to lift at inner (non official and technically incorrect points) because your real points are simply just worn out. i challenge anyone with a high mileage uni body car to simply look at the pinch point underneath. some will be bent,folded flat,rusted away,scratched all sorts of harmless damage…
did you do the under body wash every spring like the factory manual recommended? did the previous owner? too many questions… the only thing i would have done different, was to stop and grab you out of the customer waiting area and give a verbal disclaimer as to the condition of your car’s under body… that was the technicians mistake… everything else was dead on…
If it isn’t too big of a hole, someone with a welder can probably cut it out an lap weld a square home made patch panel over it. Since it doesn’t show, it wouldn’t require true body work. Some rustbullet paint over it and you’d be done.
Some tech high schools where they teach automotive technology can probably do this for you for cheap and do a decent job.