Body shop reccomendations?
 

Looking to get some paint & body work done in the near future, just want a shop that can perform quality work at a competitive price (doesn't need to be the cheapest). Would prefer somewhere in the east/south bay but willing to go elsewhere if its worth it. Previously Creative Kustoms in San Jose was my go to shop for out of pocket paint work and TGIF in Fremont for insurance claim work. I'll still get a quote from TGIF since I was very pleased with their work.

Did a search but didn't come up with anything current for shops in the area.

What I'm looking to get done...

Fix very small bend in back left corner of hood
Repair 2-3 very tiny dents in back left corner of hood
Paint hood, scoop, vents, fog covers, bumper vents (not pictured) factory RBP
Repaint grille and bumper cover factory RBP
Repaint fenders factory RBP if necessary to match (I'd rather avoid [I]if[/I] possible)

Where would you guys recommend and why? Any pics of before / after would help too.

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I get my body work done at Yeaman in Palo Alto. Call and talk to Jeff.

[url=http://www.yabinc.com/]Yeaman Auto Body | Auto Body Shop Palo Alto CA | Collision Repair 94303 | Auto Paint Shop Palo Alto CA | Windshield Replacement 94303 | dent removal Palo Alto CA[/url]

Right on, forgot about them... my buddy had a hood painted there, came out flawless.

If you could, let me know what kind of price quotes you're getting. I too have a JDM aluminum hood that has a couple small dents, and needs fresh coat of paint. I've heard that fixing dents on the aluminum hood is hard/costly so I haven't had the urge to get it sorted out yet.

Yea I'll see what they come back with and let you know. I should at least have a window of time on Thursday to stop by TGIF in person for an estimate.

I had some work done here before.

[url]http://www.yelp.com/biz/minhs-auto-body-and-paint-san-jose[/url]

Cheap and good enough.

[QUOTE=Silver Mojo;3596156]I had some work done here before.

[url=http://www.yelp.com/biz/minhs-auto-body-and-paint-san-jose]Minh?s Auto Body & Paint - Body Shops[/url]

Cheap and good enough.[/QUOTE]

+1 for Minh's

we use michael j's body shop off almaden expressway for our subaru dealership. They do some pretty good work

[QUOTE="x002x;3596182"] +1 for Minh's[/QUOTE]

What kind of work did you have done there?

[QUOTE="stg2lgcy00;3596225"] What kind of work did you have done there?[/QUOTE]

Some douche keyed my wife's Lexus, had them full in the scratch and blend the paint in

Thx, good to know they're good at blending since I might need that done on my fenders.

I'm gonna try and go get 3 quotes on Thursday and report back.

Ok got 3 estimates today:

TGIF - $1600 (w/out blending the fenders & lifetime warranty)
Minh's - $1200 (including blending on the fenders & 5yr. warranty)
Yeaman - $2387 (including blending on the fenders & lifetime warranty)

Pretty easy decision if you ask me lol.

Who are you going with? I work down the street from TGIF so I might get a quote from them too since you said they offer lifetime warranty.

Minh's, I think I would have gone with TGIF if their price included blending.

Plus I still have other mechanical repairs I need to do on the car in the near future and could use the cash saved toward those.

Ive had Yeaman do a few jobs on my STI. They aren't cheap, but the work tends to be very good. The folks there seem like very good people.

On the flip side, not all of the work has been [I]perfect[/I] (remember, not cheap) and the scheduling has been a bit off. Multiple times I called in the day I was told the car would be done and it wasn't, and it was me calling them to find that out. I was told it was because they had a lot of work on, but I'd been scheduled in well ahead of time and they clearly had a mechanism for assigning staff ahead of time to manage the workload.

So while I feel happy to say with Yeaman you'll get your car back in good shape, you might not feel it's [I]as[/I] trouble-free as you'd expect for the money.

I used Pan American in San Jose (Monterey & Curtner) to redo my STI - they did really nice work

Pulled the trigger today and dropped the car off at Minh's, I'll post back the results once I have it back.

hopefully things work out! they haven't done me wrong and my friends either.

I meant to update this earlier but it took longer than anticipated. Overall very happy with the quality of work & price at Minh's however there were a couple imperfections that I noticed after washing the car the first time afterwards. Had to bring the car back a second time for them to touch a few areas up, which they took care of for no extra cost to me. Needless to say, I'm really stoked how it all came out though... first time ever having new paint on the front end of the car since buying it in 2004.

Probably hard to tell in the pics but the paint still needs to be buffed/polished/waxed, so I think I'll just get a full paint detail in the near future.

After my experience at Minh's, I'd definitely recommend their shop if you're paying for paint / body work out of pocket. If I was going in for collision repair I'd just go somewhere closer out of convenience.

Anyways, onto the pics! :)

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glad it worked out for you and it turned out nice!

Im trying my hand at TGIF body shop down the street from my work (previously suggested). Just dropped the parts off this morning. Hope everything goes well! *Fingers crossed.

[QUOTE=pho_shizzle;3600130]Im trying my hand at TGIF body shop down the street from my work (previously suggested). Just dropped the parts off this morning. Hope everything goes well! *Fingers crossed.[/QUOTE]

I think you'll be really happy with their work when its all done, what all are you getting painted?

[QUOTE=stg2lgcy00;3600144]I think you'll be really happy with their work when its all done, what all are you getting painted?[/QUOTE]

One Fender, side skirts, side view mirrors and fog light surround trim. Getting her back to tip top shape.

Wow they just called saying my parts are painted and ready to be picked up. Dropped it off monday, that was a 2 day turn around time. Thats pretty fast.

Nice, post up some pics once you got it all on!

Lol...... So I went to pick up my parts today before they closed. They let me inspect the parts first. So everything looked good, then I asked them where is my fender. They had completely forgot to paint my fender and it was still sitting outside on the rack with unpainted parts.

They said they will have it painted tomorrow and give me a call.

That explains why they had called me so quickly, they painted all the small stuff. Fender was the biggest part.

The wait continues lol.

Ah lol, figures... always something haha.

So finally picked up the fender today.

On the fender there were roughly 3 areas that had dust debris cling on during their base coat or clear coat stage. They told me to put it on and they can cut and buff it out.


One of the side view mirror bases has orange peel on one of the outter edges. The rest of it was fine.
[url]https://www.dropbox.com/s/t75mr6daissxiqn/IMAG1983.jpg?dl=0[/url]
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Both of the side view mirrors had orange peel on the top outter edge. Looks like lack of consistent spray leading to the end of the surface area. Looks like they may have lifted the trigger early before completing the pass or mounted it in a way that made it hard for even coverage. One mirror has a larger orange peel area than the other, but both have it in the same area. If it was under the mirror, I wouldn't mind as much.

[url]https://www.dropbox.com/s/bymg5229gvf1m5v/IMAG1976.jpg?dl=0[/url]
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Fog cover surrounds came out good. Too small to mess up, so I expect nothing less.


Overall, the paint quality feels good and the coats feel thick. Thats a good thing that they added a thick layer of clear coat to make room to fix errors.

I will take the mirrors back and have them look at it to see if its worth repainting or just to fix. Knowing body shops and paint, I am very confident they will say a wetsand and "buff" will even out the orange peel. The only downside is that the orange peel is on areas with contours and not on a flat spot, so its easier to level the clear coat layer unevenly; permitting uneven clear coat failure in the future.

Did Minh's do metal work to the small dents on the aluminum hood, or did they just fill it with bondo?

Hm, actually not sure what they did but it came out clean.

Previously the furthest back corner of the hood (the pointed part) was bent downwards and there were a few small dings in the hood right in front of that.

Can't tell any of that was ever there now.

Alright so dropped off the mirrors and bases. They decided to re-clear them for me instead of just sanding and cutting it (which as I stated will thin out the clear coat layer). Good call. They came out great, no more orange peel on that top corner.

Now just gotta install the fender and have them sand and cut a few areas where airborne dust particles clinged onto the paint.