After they had repaired my daughter’s car, their paint job was spot-on. One of the best I had encountered in a very long time. When I brought in my conversion van (all original custom work and paint performed by Southern Comfort) to fix my bumper cover and left rear ground effects panel, again the paint job was spot-on at the initial inspection after the first repair.
The issue started when I noticed that the the trim moulding was short on one side after the repair and, that they had used the wrong mounting screws to secure the bumper cover in place. The bumper cover had separated from the screws and the van had to go back in so that they could fix the problem. However, the trim moulding was still short on one side. I showed them the “before” photos that clearly showed the trim mouldings filling the gaps completely, with no spaces on either side of the trim moulding. Further, they had taken “before” and “after” photos and knew the problem already existed before I had submitted the “before” photos to them. They tried to pass this off knowing that the trim moulding was never short originally.
The answer that I received was “it shrunk”. From my viewpoint, and, after finding out that the two rear sides of the panel where the trim moulding sit were not equal in length, whichever technician worked on my van forgot the “custom” aspect of my vehicle. Instead of figuring out why the one trim molding was longer and didn’t fit the gap, I surmised that they cut the one moulding to fit the wrong side which also explains why the one edge of the trim moulding now had a sharp edge and not rounded off like the other ends were and the correct moulding trim that was supposed to go on that side was instead too short for the side he installed it in.
Not one word was said to me, but I had to notice it and bring it to their attention. Yet, I had to keep pointing it out and they kept telling me that it shrunk; this took 4 months. The first time when I was told it had shrunk, it was truly laughable, but the second and third time became insulting.
I mainly dealt with Kevin Maharaj, the D&V Operations Manager. He says he’s one of the owners. When I first brought my van in, I was mainly concerned with the amount of work necessary to fix the bumper cover, especially the large cracks along the inside corners, but he asssured me that they can handle it. Afterall, they are an automotive body shop, right? In the beginning, the relationship was very positive and communicative. As I started questioning why the trim molding was shorter on the one side, it then became hard to reach Kevin or he responded very late to my emails or not at all. I did have to bring the van back in for a crack that remerged from the original repair 4 months later, to address the trim moulding issue; and to also paint an area on the bumper cover that got damaged (but, which I repaired). I had discussed this repair with Kevin before bringing the van back in for the third and last time.
Instead of contacting me to let me know if there would be any additional cost to paint the area that I had repaired, they proceeded with the work and charged me for work that should have been covered under their warranty. After having disagreeing with the charges for what should have been covered under their warranty work and pointing out some serious flaws in their paint workmanship, Kevin basically washed his hands of me. I was told that my custom van did not have original GM parts and that they only provide lifetime warranty to vehicle/parts produced by the OEM – those were Kevin’s words. In other words, they knew my van (customized by Southern Comfort, which they knew at the onset) their lifetime warranty work (which does not have any restriction for OEM parts only, verbally or in writing) that they did to those original parts are not valid? Wow.
