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At Earl Scheib's Ya Get What Ya Pay For!Nov 26 '00 Write an essay on this topic.Boy, 'aint that the truth! I recently learned this lesson when I decided to have my vehicle painted. Here is my story..... my warning to you. I Love My Chevy! I own a 1989 Chevy Astro Van. I absolutely love this vehicle, and it's in excellent driving condition.... thanks to my mechanically inclined husband. We know that we will continue to get many years out of our trusty friend. Black Paint & Sunlight Do Not Mix! Although it runs great, the paint was showing it's age. I live in Las Vegas, where the sun's strong rays beating down upon a car can cause some serious damage. Plus, "black" is not a good color here in the desert as it attracts heat in the summertime. I've been wanting to repaint my van for quite some time now, and I've always said that should I hit a jackpot at the casino that's what I would use my winnings for.... a new paint job. My Lucky Day! Two weeks ago, amazingly, I hit 3 jackpots in one day. Playing a quarter video keno machine, I hit 6 out of 6 numbers for $800.00 each time! A friendly security guard escorted me and my $2400.00 to my vehicle at the end of my gambling spree. I could hardly wait to arrive home and tell my husband the good news..... "we're getting the van painted!"! Choosing The Best Paint Shop. Attempting to be a smart shopper, I asked all of my friends if they could recommend a good paint shop here in town. Unfortunetly, none of them had any suggestions. After doing some research on the internet, I discovered that Earl Scheib's had been in business for many many years, and had 170 locations in the United States. That was good enough for me! I preferred to use a well-known company, assuming that they must be reputable to have so many chains across the country. Welcome To Earl Scheib's. My husband and I drove our van down to the paint shop to get an estimate. I was assuming that it would cost about $1000.00, and hubby thought it would be more. We met with a very friendly manager. He was very helpful as he went over our options with us. They offered many different packages with various prices. The shop was clean, and was conveniently located. We viewed many samples.... various colors and styles of paint. We picked a beautiful metallic silver to replace the original black color. The manager "threw in" the black pinstriping for free. We were also getting a special sunblock to protect the paint, and keep it looking newer longer. We were amazed, and pleasantly surprised, when the quote was a mere $600.00! Not only was it inexpensive, but we were promised our van in only 2 days. We were to drop it of the following day, a Wednesday, and was told it would be done by Friday. We left the paint shop feeling as though we were getting such a great deal. The Whole Sha-Bang! Since our paint job was much cheaper than we had anticipated, we decided to get our seats reupholstered. We asked the manager at Earl Scheib's if he could recommend someone. He gave us a business card and sent us just down the street to an upholstery shop. Once again, we were given a great estimate, and decided to go ahead and have the seats redone. An added bonus was the fact that the owner of this shop would do the work while the van was being painted. He would remove the seats, reupholster them, and replace them back into the van. Hence, no extra trips for us.... and our van would be like new when we picked it up on Friday! Wow! A new paint job and new upholstery! What more could a girl ask for?! The Big Day! On Wednesday, we dropped off our van at Earl Scheib's. We instructed the manager to please call the upholstery shop so that they could come and retrieve our seats. "Sure, no problem", he told us. And with that we went on our merry way.... counting the days until our vehicle was restored to "new"! Friday finally approached, and I excitedly nagged at my husband to call the paint shop to see if we could come pick up our vehicle. I was horrified to learn that the manager at Earl Scheib's had forgotten to call the owner at the upholstery place! Not only that, but our van hadn't even been painted! Luckily, it was my calm and rational mate who had made the phone call! I would not have been so nice about the matter! Making an already long story a little shorter..... our van was not completed until the following Wednesday! A whole week after we had dropped her off, and was promised a finished job in only 2 days! The Results. The owner of the upholstery shop called us when he had finished his work. We eagerly drove over to his shop to see our "beautiful" van. While we loved the new color, the quality of the paint job was awful! They did not pay much attention to detail, did not clean it up at all, and the door jams were horribly painted! There were a lot of flaws on the passenger side, as well. I still can't beleive that they would have even let it out of the shop in this condition! There wasn't any pinstriping, either! (on a happier note: the new seat upholstery was fantastic!) Solving The Problem. The following day my husband took the van back to Earl Scheib's to discuss correcting the problems. Being the smart woman that I am, I opted to stay home and as far away from that place as possible! I don't want to get nasty until after the job is completed to my satisfaction! The manager was not there when hubby arrived, so he had to speak with a different employee. He was told to bring the van back the week after Thanksgiving, which is two weeks away from now! After they repaint the door jams, and do some touch ups, we would have to bring the van back, yet again, several days later for them to apply the pinstriping! Just how long will they keep it this time???! Final Thoughts. If you haven't guessed by now, I am not a happy customer! Yes, it was an inexpensive job. However, $600.00 is still $600.00. What I expected to be done in 2 days is taking more than 2 weeks! A crappy paint job and horrible customer service is what I got from Earl Scheib's! No apologies, an "oh well" attitude, no offers to reduce the price or pay for a rental car, and lots of frustration. There's so much paint dust inside my vehicle that I'm going to have to pay to have it detailed. Also, we're going to have to carefully hand wash the exterior because my husband is afraid to run it through a mechanical carwash. In 2 days we leave for a 5-hour trip, and we'll have the pleasure of inhaling paint fumes the whole way there! Now I can only pray that they will make good on their word and correct the crummy job that they did. At Earl Scheib's ya get what ya pay for!  |
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