Cliffs: Brought car in for exhaust to be welded that I had already clamped, just needed a bead of weld. Hour later I get car back with damaged driver fender, shop refuses responsibility, we're going to court.
Well I'm uncertain how mad I should be since the issue is still unresolved. I have never taken my vehicle anywhere to have work done, so this was my first experience with any shop outside of an inspection. I don't have access to a welder at the moment, and had to cut the exhaust on this vehicle to drop and swap a transmission. I made up some adapters to link the exhaust back up and clamped it, but being where the tubing was on a bend, and due to the size of the pipe it didn't seal...so I took it to MEINEKE @ Highway K and 70 in O'FALLON, MO to have the pipes welded up. They said $40, I agreed and then it took them an hour and 45 minutes to tell me I'm done and pulled the car around with a nicely new dented and scratched fender. I informed the manager and he invited me to look in the bay and see how anything in there could of scratched it...so obviously I was like hey man, I'm not a detective, I don't think I can, nor want to, identify what did it...I just know it wasn't there before and now it is, and something needs to be done about it. So I have to talk to the owner tomorrow...I hope he handles it alright.
I bought the car to fix and resell for some cash, so I had taken pictures of it on July 2nd...waiting for the holiday weekend to end before sealing up the exhaust for good on the day of reopening of July 6th. There is no way I can prove for 100% certain they did it, but I would have noticed it driving the vehicle up there...I know they did it. The manager said the worker is very honest and would have said something, I said that I am not calling him a liar, but perhaps he didn't realize he did it.
Has anyone had a similar thing happen? Was it handled okay? I really don't want to go to court, but will if I need to.
Obviously if this is handled well I will have no problem supporting this shop, they welded the exhaust fine...but at the moment, not too happy.
