I have another story to make you feel better ( about the time at least ). I took my car in for hail damage this past month, and after waiting a full month for the appointment, I brought my car in and dropped it off. Let me describe the hail damage to you- 3 very small, pea sized dents on the hood, one small dent on the roof, and one very small dent on the back hatch (I have a MINI Cooper S). I got a quote from them for $1,100, no joke. Of course my insurance was paying this but still. So I end up waiting a week, don't hear anything. Wait another week, don't hear anything. I call them and they say "Yeah we're working on it." They call me a week after that JUST NOW asking for the keys to my roof rack so they can work on my roof. Another week goes by and they tell me my car will be ready in a day. THEN they call me asking for MORE MONEY! Insurance approved it. Another day goes by, and my car is still not ready. Finally, after 3 days they call me and say my car is ready. Luckily, there was no mileage increase (or I would have been furious), but it was STILL ridiculous and I can relate with you!

 

If they had a legit excuse for the 5 weeks and the 300 miles, they would have told you upfront and avoided any controversy.

If they don't answer your calls, that says somwething negative, doesn't it?

I suggested that you go there in person and get an answer. Still the best idea.

-m (not a moron, sorry)

 

Before you do anything drastic just calm down a bit and talk to them in person. Try to get an idea of their end of the situation. If things look a little sketchy, then take action.

 

I'd be furious too about the 300+ miles, but you should probably also go down there and get the whole story first. It's easy to duck calls and not get back to you, but what are they going to do when you go down there? Close up shop? First things first, find out why that happened.

 

I wouldn't say people are morons for being concerned at a large delay in the return of the vehicle and an additional 300 miles. I would most certainly contact the insurance company and repair shop to inquire why there was such a delay and miles put on the car before posting anything negative online. But if their reason is "we had to test drive it", you bet your ass I'd be posting negative reviews online.

Your lawsuit would cost you far more than it was worth to fight a negative Google, BBB or Yahoo internet review. That's just silly.

 

300 Miles is a lot of driving, there's no repair that would need the car to be driven that much to test. If 300 miles where put on your car it means they took it for a joy ride, a long joy ride. I'd be pissed.

 

Large delay and additional mileage vs. damaging a brand online. You can run the figures on which has more damage costs to the respective parties and determine the differentials very quickly.

The people are fools, as is anyone who suggests damaging a companies reputation without all the facts.

As we know from this post:
1. Longer than OP expected - most people are stupid. I suspect there is a valid reason. I had to wait 1.5 weeks for Honda to make a part available to my body shop.
2. Miles - have a retail cost of 55c/mile, so the 300 miles is worth $165. You're willing to damage a companies brand over that? You deserve to be sued.

FYI - depending on the size of the company, the connection of the owners and their position on defamation of character and damages you might be surprised. A company in business with new negative feedback, might see a large drop in sales. If you're miss informed when you make your rant online you are responsible for the damages. I could tell you that for a 600k to $1.5 million dollar body shop this is probably worth fighting. They could get their legal fees recovered and have the feedback removed.

What's more important is that the shop isn't the only one out money. You the poster of this content are going to have to get a lawyer, miss work and travel to court. $15k in legal fees for a $1million dollar business not so hard to swallow. To the individual, probably worth more than their car. All in all, a business of any size is going to get out a head in all of this and may even have a lawyer on retainer.

If you look into online reputation management it's a growing field just to stop morons like the above who posted from ruining perfectly good business.

 

Haha do you work for this body shop or something? Sure sounding like it. Not sure if serious or just trolling though..

 

Are you basing the mileage off the repair work order or are you sure it had that many miles when you dropped it off? Perhaps they just wrote it down wrong when they wrote up the paperwork. Did you look when you dropped it off to confirm?

 

yea no joke