Bad Experience and Review of Ballade Collision in Garden Grove
05-23-2017, 04:54 PM
#1
Bad Experience and Review of Ballade Collision in Garden Grove
I am the owner of a low mileage GPW AP1. It is an 01 with under 30k miles and was in mint condition with only 1 prior owner and no accidents. On Superbowl Sunday 2016, a kid high on who knows what hit my S in his jacked truck and ran away. I caught him but due to Police incompetence, a lot of him lying to his insurance company, and an administrative mistake within mine. Long story short he got away with it. Needless to say, I was upset about my car and needed a place to take it for quality repair work.
I decided to repair the vehicle and sell it. I had heard about Ballade Sports via s2ki and saw they recently opened up a quality body shop, so I took my car there. I let them know I would be selling the car soon and it was going through insurance, so if there was a chance for them to make money, I'd be glad to support them by bringing my claim to Ballade Collision and seeing their shop and meeting the guys there.
I dropped my S off with them on February 15th. It had damage to the rear quarter, trunk, tail light, and bumper. It was going to need a new fender and I was adamant with my insurance company that a new OEM fender needed to be used, because I was concerned about fitment. I also let the shop know this. It was also due for a top replacement, so I decided to go ahead and get a new Sierra top installed.
A month after the S had been dropped off, I started to get impatient and wonder how progress was going. I already spent a lot of time with my insurance company getting the check, so there was not much left to do except have the work done and make any adjustments for anything that came up. At this point I requested some pictures of the repair status, and I received some. Parts that had been painted and were ready by to go on my car.
But wait. The trunk going on to my car had holes in it. I called to let Ballade know. I believe my exact quote was "look, I'm all about you making money here but if my insurance company required you to get that trunk, tell them my car doesn't have a ****ing spoiler on it, that the spoiler looks like absolute shit, and I don't want a ****ing spoiler on my ****ing car and that they can suck my dick." It was at this point that Alex told me that he had gotten the trunk with the spoiler thinking I would be happy to get a free spoiler. That's like telling someone they got a tattoo of their cock on your face while you were passed out drunk because they thought you'd be happy to get a free tattoo.
That said, we worked it out. I didn't want to cause grief for the new and growing Ballade Collision and it was explained to me that this was part of getting a brand new rear quarter, so I figured I could deal with it. Alex noted that the car was going to be sold anyway, so he figured it would help the sale. I thought that was considerate of him and was happy to have the new quarter, so I praised his efforts. If I only knew. I went ahead and also talked to him about replacing the top, and despite my wanting a Sierra top as per JPMCoachworks' recommendation, Alex really pushed the Robbins top as it's easier to install, so I said OK.
Now comes the fun part. Picking up my car. I was SO excited to have my car back. I was tired of driving the GTR and was missing my six-speed roadster. Since getting home with it, I haven't touched it. I parked it behind my Odyssey so I don't have to look at it. This is why:
In early May my car was "ready." Finally. I don't know what took so long, but I'm generally laid back, so I didn't care. I'd been considering selling it but in the last month after being defrauded on another car I bought, I was leaning towards keeping it and staying with something inexpensive. Until I went to pick my S up.
I get to the shop and go to inspect the work that was done on my car. I didn't tell the shop this, but I used to be a car designer. I've got a lot more experience than your typical Joe, and have eyes as good as any at any professional detail shop, but that should have been non-issue because this is an enthusiast shop right? Nope. There is visible adhesive under the paint in the door jamb. My door jamb stickers are missing. The rear quarter that was supposed to be "new" is not. There is evidence of repair on the quarter at the bottom where it meets the rocker. There is evidence of prior damage on the quarter where the rain-rail meets the rear quarter. The bumper doesn't sit flush and is offset from the fender by at least 3-4mm. I'm not talking bumper gap here, I'm talking the parts being flush. There are bad sanding marks underneath the paint on the trunk panel, where someone decided to cut corners and be lazy about sanding before painting. There is missing paint along the edge of the trunk, with just primer showing. There is a paint drip along the wheel well. All pretty shoddy work. Not to mention that the tail light installed on my rear driver's quarter is from an '02 and has pressure cracking in the polyurethane. Ugh.
In addition, the new soft top I was paying $1100 for isn't even the right top. It is a robbins top, but there is no defroster. My car has a factory hard top, so it is wired for the defroster, and the button is right there next to the shifter. Why the top with the defroster wasn't installed is beyond me, but I'm too frustrated to even think about it as the body work was so bad. The shop said they didn't realize it. I'm sitting there looking at him like, am I at a Ford dealership? I brought my car to Ballade because they are S2000 specialists who understand these things? Apparently not. That said, ALL of this was correctable and forgivable in my mind. Miscommunications happen. Mistakes happen. People are just human, right? It's just a car. I'll probably be selling it anyway. Plus I told him I was selling it. Plus it was through insurance and I guess that's difficult to do (according to them). I'm a generally friendly and forgiving dude, but there are a few things I don't.
One of those things is being lied to. And I was being conned. I was going over the car trying to figure out why the repair was so shoddy, and I couldn't get away from the fact a used quarter was installed when I was told I was getting a new one. Not only this, but the fitment was wrong! This is Ballade. How the hell? I asked Alex twice - did you put a new quarter on? He told me yes twice. I knew it wasn't new. I could see the chips and missing paint under the new paint. I could see the repairs made to it where it met the rocker and where it met the tail-light. So I asked his body guy what fender he put on there. He looks at me and says the new one. I ask again, he says the new one. Then I ask a third time, making it clear I'm not going to stop asking him the same ****ing question over and over until he tells the truth. He looks at Alex for help, then looks back at me, and tells Alex he put the blue one on there. So now I have a problem. I'm no longer a human being engaged in a mutually beneficial transaction, but I am now just a profitable object. What a terrible, terrible feeling. I hate that feeling.
The questions are racing through my head. What do I do? Do I call my insurance company? They will just tell me it is between me and the shop. Do I talk to Alex about it? Do we work it out? How do I know he will honor his word? I can't trust anything he or his body guy says. They've been embellishing quite a bit, trying the typical body shop tricks to get out of a shit repair, but they're flat out lying too. Was the body guy lying to Alex? Were they colluding? I don't know the answer to any of this, and honestly I don't care because none of it is going to be an answer I want.
I called him on it. Thank god he apologized and offered to re-do the work. There was hope for an amicable conclusion. I didn't want the work re-done by the same moron who was going to **** it up again, and Alex openly admitted that he didn't know if it would meet my standards even if he had his body guy re-do it. I knew it wouldn't. So we talked compensation. The major issue for me is that when I go to sell my car, I'm going to get ****ed if the repair quality isn't good. Alex understood. We came to an agreement and as part of it, he agreed to address the problems I discovered. I told him I didn't want to even talk to him or think about it for 2 weeks and I'd contact him when I was ready to pick the car up.
So then I go to pick the car up. He fixed some of what he could fix. I take my keys, he gives me a partial refund on the body work, and I leave. Then my seatbelt light won't turn off. Are you kidding me? Luckily I'm not far away and I can drive back. This ****ing shop is over an hour away from me and I'm not thrilled about having to drive over 2 hours to come here over and over. So glad I'm not even on the interstate yet.
They test the issue and find that the connector is filthy. There's also some kind of cut in the wire from something. We don't know why, the car only has 30k on it, and I notice my floor mat is also filthy. It was almost brand new when I dropped the car off and now it looks like a dog took a shit on it. We converse about what we think the problem is, the body guy all but confesses that he made the plug filthy, which is a good thing for his sake. Alex grabs me a new connector and I make it very clear I don't want to leave my car there or spend any time there ever again. He is very clear that he wants the car gone and out of his shop as my effort on talking to him about how to keep a scenario like this from happening again is met with "I don't want to talk about it." I said no problem and left.
That's my experience. Not the worst outcome, and the quality would have been good enough had it been out of pocket and inexpensive. But I'll take a hit on it when I go to sell it, and I am really picky with my cars, so I won't be keeping it. I have a collector grade GPW at home, so I guess that's it for now, and I'll be driving the GTR until I find a replacement. Not exactly something to be depressed about.
That said, I would never take a car there again. Less than stellar work? Too lazy to sand down used parts? 3 months turn-around? Being LIED to, and not about service time but straight up about physical parts? Paying for quality and getting less? Getting my car back ONLY TO HAVE TO DO MORE WORK ON IT to fix what the shop broke? There are too many proven shops in this city to give Ballade Collision a second chance, and I should have chosen one of them the first time around.
I decided to repair the vehicle and sell it. I had heard about Ballade Sports via s2ki and saw they recently opened up a quality body shop, so I took my car there. I let them know I would be selling the car soon and it was going through insurance, so if there was a chance for them to make money, I'd be glad to support them by bringing my claim to Ballade Collision and seeing their shop and meeting the guys there.
I dropped my S off with them on February 15th. It had damage to the rear quarter, trunk, tail light, and bumper. It was going to need a new fender and I was adamant with my insurance company that a new OEM fender needed to be used, because I was concerned about fitment. I also let the shop know this. It was also due for a top replacement, so I decided to go ahead and get a new Sierra top installed.
A month after the S had been dropped off, I started to get impatient and wonder how progress was going. I already spent a lot of time with my insurance company getting the check, so there was not much left to do except have the work done and make any adjustments for anything that came up. At this point I requested some pictures of the repair status, and I received some. Parts that had been painted and were ready by to go on my car.
But wait. The trunk going on to my car had holes in it. I called to let Ballade know. I believe my exact quote was "look, I'm all about you making money here but if my insurance company required you to get that trunk, tell them my car doesn't have a ****ing spoiler on it, that the spoiler looks like absolute shit, and I don't want a ****ing spoiler on my ****ing car and that they can suck my dick." It was at this point that Alex told me that he had gotten the trunk with the spoiler thinking I would be happy to get a free spoiler. That's like telling someone they got a tattoo of their cock on your face while you were passed out drunk because they thought you'd be happy to get a free tattoo.
That said, we worked it out. I didn't want to cause grief for the new and growing Ballade Collision and it was explained to me that this was part of getting a brand new rear quarter, so I figured I could deal with it. Alex noted that the car was going to be sold anyway, so he figured it would help the sale. I thought that was considerate of him and was happy to have the new quarter, so I praised his efforts. If I only knew. I went ahead and also talked to him about replacing the top, and despite my wanting a Sierra top as per JPMCoachworks' recommendation, Alex really pushed the Robbins top as it's easier to install, so I said OK.
Now comes the fun part. Picking up my car. I was SO excited to have my car back. I was tired of driving the GTR and was missing my six-speed roadster. Since getting home with it, I haven't touched it. I parked it behind my Odyssey so I don't have to look at it. This is why:
In early May my car was "ready." Finally. I don't know what took so long, but I'm generally laid back, so I didn't care. I'd been considering selling it but in the last month after being defrauded on another car I bought, I was leaning towards keeping it and staying with something inexpensive. Until I went to pick my S up.
I get to the shop and go to inspect the work that was done on my car. I didn't tell the shop this, but I used to be a car designer. I've got a lot more experience than your typical Joe, and have eyes as good as any at any professional detail shop, but that should have been non-issue because this is an enthusiast shop right? Nope. There is visible adhesive under the paint in the door jamb. My door jamb stickers are missing. The rear quarter that was supposed to be "new" is not. There is evidence of repair on the quarter at the bottom where it meets the rocker. There is evidence of prior damage on the quarter where the rain-rail meets the rear quarter. The bumper doesn't sit flush and is offset from the fender by at least 3-4mm. I'm not talking bumper gap here, I'm talking the parts being flush. There are bad sanding marks underneath the paint on the trunk panel, where someone decided to cut corners and be lazy about sanding before painting. There is missing paint along the edge of the trunk, with just primer showing. There is a paint drip along the wheel well. All pretty shoddy work. Not to mention that the tail light installed on my rear driver's quarter is from an '02 and has pressure cracking in the polyurethane. Ugh.
In addition, the new soft top I was paying $1100 for isn't even the right top. It is a robbins top, but there is no defroster. My car has a factory hard top, so it is wired for the defroster, and the button is right there next to the shifter. Why the top with the defroster wasn't installed is beyond me, but I'm too frustrated to even think about it as the body work was so bad. The shop said they didn't realize it. I'm sitting there looking at him like, am I at a Ford dealership? I brought my car to Ballade because they are S2000 specialists who understand these things? Apparently not. That said, ALL of this was correctable and forgivable in my mind. Miscommunications happen. Mistakes happen. People are just human, right? It's just a car. I'll probably be selling it anyway. Plus I told him I was selling it. Plus it was through insurance and I guess that's difficult to do (according to them). I'm a generally friendly and forgiving dude, but there are a few things I don't.
One of those things is being lied to. And I was being conned. I was going over the car trying to figure out why the repair was so shoddy, and I couldn't get away from the fact a used quarter was installed when I was told I was getting a new one. Not only this, but the fitment was wrong! This is Ballade. How the hell? I asked Alex twice - did you put a new quarter on? He told me yes twice. I knew it wasn't new. I could see the chips and missing paint under the new paint. I could see the repairs made to it where it met the rocker and where it met the tail-light. So I asked his body guy what fender he put on there. He looks at me and says the new one. I ask again, he says the new one. Then I ask a third time, making it clear I'm not going to stop asking him the same ****ing question over and over until he tells the truth. He looks at Alex for help, then looks back at me, and tells Alex he put the blue one on there. So now I have a problem. I'm no longer a human being engaged in a mutually beneficial transaction, but I am now just a profitable object. What a terrible, terrible feeling. I hate that feeling.
The questions are racing through my head. What do I do? Do I call my insurance company? They will just tell me it is between me and the shop. Do I talk to Alex about it? Do we work it out? How do I know he will honor his word? I can't trust anything he or his body guy says. They've been embellishing quite a bit, trying the typical body shop tricks to get out of a shit repair, but they're flat out lying too. Was the body guy lying to Alex? Were they colluding? I don't know the answer to any of this, and honestly I don't care because none of it is going to be an answer I want.
I called him on it. Thank god he apologized and offered to re-do the work. There was hope for an amicable conclusion. I didn't want the work re-done by the same moron who was going to **** it up again, and Alex openly admitted that he didn't know if it would meet my standards even if he had his body guy re-do it. I knew it wouldn't. So we talked compensation. The major issue for me is that when I go to sell my car, I'm going to get ****ed if the repair quality isn't good. Alex understood. We came to an agreement and as part of it, he agreed to address the problems I discovered. I told him I didn't want to even talk to him or think about it for 2 weeks and I'd contact him when I was ready to pick the car up.
So then I go to pick the car up. He fixed some of what he could fix. I take my keys, he gives me a partial refund on the body work, and I leave. Then my seatbelt light won't turn off. Are you kidding me? Luckily I'm not far away and I can drive back. This ****ing shop is over an hour away from me and I'm not thrilled about having to drive over 2 hours to come here over and over. So glad I'm not even on the interstate yet.
They test the issue and find that the connector is filthy. There's also some kind of cut in the wire from something. We don't know why, the car only has 30k on it, and I notice my floor mat is also filthy. It was almost brand new when I dropped the car off and now it looks like a dog took a shit on it. We converse about what we think the problem is, the body guy all but confesses that he made the plug filthy, which is a good thing for his sake. Alex grabs me a new connector and I make it very clear I don't want to leave my car there or spend any time there ever again. He is very clear that he wants the car gone and out of his shop as my effort on talking to him about how to keep a scenario like this from happening again is met with "I don't want to talk about it." I said no problem and left.
That's my experience. Not the worst outcome, and the quality would have been good enough had it been out of pocket and inexpensive. But I'll take a hit on it when I go to sell it, and I am really picky with my cars, so I won't be keeping it. I have a collector grade GPW at home, so I guess that's it for now, and I'll be driving the GTR until I find a replacement. Not exactly something to be depressed about.
That said, I would never take a car there again. Less than stellar work? Too lazy to sand down used parts? 3 months turn-around? Being LIED to, and not about service time but straight up about physical parts? Paying for quality and getting less? Getting my car back ONLY TO HAVE TO DO MORE WORK ON IT to fix what the shop broke? There are too many proven shops in this city to give Ballade Collision a second chance, and I should have chosen one of them the first time around.
05-23-2017, 05:35 PM
#2
Sounds like you have valid reasons to never want to go back there.
(But as an aside: you also aren't laid back.. a laid back person doesn't recap a negative situation in the manner you did. Not a big deal, just saying: you're type-A..
)
(But as an aside: you also aren't laid back.. a laid back person doesn't recap a negative situation in the manner you did. Not a big deal, just saying: you're type-A..
)
05-23-2017, 05:47 PM
#3
It'd be like if you said you were laid back, and then I slapped your girl across her face, and then you got mad about that. Would I be justified in telling you that you weren't a laid back person for getting upset with me? Hardly. You could get upset and still be a laid back person on the whole.
05-23-2017, 09:24 PM
#4
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Thats so crappy to hear. I'm not surprised either since there are many of these types of stories that i read online about them. Quality car shops are getting harder and harder to come by these days.
05-24-2017, 04:49 AM
#5
as an aside?? Lol, if you were lied to blatantly, held car less for months, and given a crappy product he has every right to feel exactly the way he does.
05-24-2017, 05:35 AM
#6
Yeesh. What a mess. Sorry that this happened to you.
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05-24-2017, 03:49 PM
#10
I had some paint done at Ballade. The price is reasonable, but the quality is so-so to meh. I was sold about some special process based on their experience and knowledge of jdm frp/cf products. I doubt they sanded down the previous layer of paint seeing as the frp still exhibits the same wavy features as it had before. It also has areas of peeled clear and dimples.