L and I Eaton in Perth
Discussion
Today I had a bump in the Monaro, a lady ran up the arse of me at a roundabout in Dundee. My insurance want to send my car to a body shop in Perth (I'm in Aberdeen) called L and I Eaton. Does anyone have experience with this bodyshop and if so how do you rate them. So far the reviews I have seen have been mixed with the majority being negative over all.
Thanks
Allan
Thanks
Allan
Sorry to hear about this - are you insured with Direct Line by any chance?
I only ask as I have a situation where a suspected uninsured foreign vehicle caused (admittedly mild) damage to my wife's car....she's with DL and was recommended the same bodyshop. As has been mentioned, you're entitled to use anyone, they'll give you all the bull about non-approved not being warranted etc but it's all tosh. Go to someplace more local you know and trust.
I only ask as I have a situation where a suspected uninsured foreign vehicle caused (admittedly mild) damage to my wife's car....she's with DL and was recommended the same bodyshop. As has been mentioned, you're entitled to use anyone, they'll give you all the bull about non-approved not being warranted etc but it's all tosh. Go to someplace more local you know and trust.
Hi, thanks for the messages. I'm with Privilege on my Monaro, due to one too many negative reviews and after a little further research into that particular body shop I have declined using them. My insurer however have been very good (which is nice when dealing with this sort of thing) whilst they don't have any network body shops in Aberdeen they are happy for me to choose my own and the assessor will go to that particular body shop to asses the damage and confirm/deny the quotation given. I'll let you know how it goes but so far the support from Privilege has been first class although may only be getting this sort of experience because it wasn't my fault and additionally the damage isn't irreparable.
Don't touch them with a barge pole.
L&I Eaton wrote off my car which was being repaired for a minor scratch, then offered me peanuts in compensation - I lost over £9,000 on an accident that was entirely due to their negligence in sending out a new transporter driver on this first day without any instruction or support. They treated me very badly throughout the whole thing leaving me suffering from stress and depression. They obviously have no ethical standards - avoid like the plague.
L&I Eaton wrote off my car which was being repaired for a minor scratch, then offered me peanuts in compensation - I lost over £9,000 on an accident that was entirely due to their negligence in sending out a new transporter driver on this first day without any instruction or support. They treated me very badly throughout the whole thing leaving me suffering from stress and depression. They obviously have no ethical standards - avoid like the plague.
Apologies for resurrecting, but after my recent experience of L&I Eatons in Edinburgh, I thought it was worth posting a little description of my experience with them in case any other forum members have them as a choice of repairer in future...
When someone ran into the NSF of my Dacia Duster back in December, I got a couple of quotes from trusted repairers who I knew would do an excellent standard of work at a reasonable cost. Unfortunately neither were on my insurer's 'approved' panel. In hindsight I should have gone with my own repairers and paid the extra excess as the driver that hit me admitted liability quickly and I would have recouped all of my outlays from them regardless. As it was my first claim in 29 years of driving cars/coaches/HGVs and riding bikes, I naively assumed that as an 'approved' repairer, Eatons would do the work to a reasonable standard. Now I know it's a Dacia Duster and not a Ferrari, and I'm not precious about it, but the car was in mint condition pre-accident and I expected to get it back from repair without it looking like it had obviously been involved in an accident. Unfortunately L&I Eaton weren't up to the task.
When I collected the car, the obvious things that stood out were the insecure fog-light and the unrepaired scrapes to black plastic lower front bumper. To be fair to Eatons, they got on the case and I collected the car later that afternoon.
On looking at the repair in proper daylight the following day, it was obvious that the good aspects of their work were offset by the scrappy amateurish aspects of it...
The front bumper had been re-fitted fine on the NS (the repaired side), but was very obviously out of line on the OSF.
Screws that secured the bumper were either loose or hadn't been put in straight.
Whilst the paint-job on the bumper was to a good standard, the prep work in terms of the masking-off of the lower black ABS plastic part of the bumper was poor, with scrappy flaking paint along the border.
Their painter did a good job of the wing, but the apprentice (I'm assuming) that bolted it back to the car either didn't replace the rubber/foam weather strip at the rear of the wing properly, or did but then poked it out of the way when they realised they'd lost the wiring for the side-repeater somewhere down the inside of the wing and had to go fishing for it.
The NSF steel wheel was refurbed and would have been a good job except they repainted it in an obviously different shade of silver to the rest of the wheels.
Basically, their painter knows what he's doing in terms of quality, their mechanic knows what he's doing; but they must have a first week apprentice doing their prep and reassembly, and Stevie Wonder doing their colour-matching and QC as it was dire.
With parts prices from Dacia being relatively cheap, the fact that Eatons chose to refurb parts like the wheel rather than simply replace them surprises me... particularly when they couldn't even do it in a matching shade. It smacked of extreme cost saving. I know these repair centres have to do the job as cheaply as possible, but it shouldn't be at the expense of handing the customer back a car which looks like the owner has done a DIY job. Hindsight's a great thing.... looking at the premium price Eatons are charging the insurer, I should have gotten them to have quoted for the job and then taken cash-in-lieu, done the work myself and made a few bob into the bargain. Eatons were the most expensive by quite a lot.
In terms of timescale, they had my car for 4 weeks for what should have taken a few days. The two other garages I would have used would have ordered new panels in advance, painted them, and then I would simply have dropped my car off for a few days for stripping and refitting. Eatons are part of the Vizion network of repairers and they have an online 'Repair Tracker' allowing you to see the % completeness of the repair. Their algorithm increases the repair progress by a few % each day.... even when Eaton's bodyshop was closed for 6 days over the festive/new-year period, the repair tracker was still increasing. Maybe Santa Claus popped in to have a shot at fixing my car in their absence. Still, I suppose being able to 'track' your repair 'progress' on your 'smart'phone gives Generation-X something to cream themselves over.
Every day is a school day though, and every cloud has a silver lining! Should I ever find myself in the unfortunate position of my car requiring repair as the result of an accident again, I now know exactly what sort of standard of 'repair' the 'approved' centres will provide. And as I was thinking of changing the Dacia for something a little more PH oriented, my experience with Eatons gave me that final motivation. I couldn't be bothered dealing with them further, so took the hit and moved the Dacia on via a well known car buying service.
My advise to any PH'er requiring an accident repair would be to go with your OWN choice of repairer regardless of how convenient it might appear to be to use the insurer approved one, as there's too many vested interests in terms of driving down costs/maximising profits when you don't.
When someone ran into the NSF of my Dacia Duster back in December, I got a couple of quotes from trusted repairers who I knew would do an excellent standard of work at a reasonable cost. Unfortunately neither were on my insurer's 'approved' panel. In hindsight I should have gone with my own repairers and paid the extra excess as the driver that hit me admitted liability quickly and I would have recouped all of my outlays from them regardless. As it was my first claim in 29 years of driving cars/coaches/HGVs and riding bikes, I naively assumed that as an 'approved' repairer, Eatons would do the work to a reasonable standard. Now I know it's a Dacia Duster and not a Ferrari, and I'm not precious about it, but the car was in mint condition pre-accident and I expected to get it back from repair without it looking like it had obviously been involved in an accident. Unfortunately L&I Eaton weren't up to the task.
When I collected the car, the obvious things that stood out were the insecure fog-light and the unrepaired scrapes to black plastic lower front bumper. To be fair to Eatons, they got on the case and I collected the car later that afternoon.
On looking at the repair in proper daylight the following day, it was obvious that the good aspects of their work were offset by the scrappy amateurish aspects of it...
The front bumper had been re-fitted fine on the NS (the repaired side), but was very obviously out of line on the OSF.
Screws that secured the bumper were either loose or hadn't been put in straight.
Whilst the paint-job on the bumper was to a good standard, the prep work in terms of the masking-off of the lower black ABS plastic part of the bumper was poor, with scrappy flaking paint along the border.
Their painter did a good job of the wing, but the apprentice (I'm assuming) that bolted it back to the car either didn't replace the rubber/foam weather strip at the rear of the wing properly, or did but then poked it out of the way when they realised they'd lost the wiring for the side-repeater somewhere down the inside of the wing and had to go fishing for it.
The NSF steel wheel was refurbed and would have been a good job except they repainted it in an obviously different shade of silver to the rest of the wheels.
Basically, their painter knows what he's doing in terms of quality, their mechanic knows what he's doing; but they must have a first week apprentice doing their prep and reassembly, and Stevie Wonder doing their colour-matching and QC as it was dire.
With parts prices from Dacia being relatively cheap, the fact that Eatons chose to refurb parts like the wheel rather than simply replace them surprises me... particularly when they couldn't even do it in a matching shade. It smacked of extreme cost saving. I know these repair centres have to do the job as cheaply as possible, but it shouldn't be at the expense of handing the customer back a car which looks like the owner has done a DIY job. Hindsight's a great thing.... looking at the premium price Eatons are charging the insurer, I should have gotten them to have quoted for the job and then taken cash-in-lieu, done the work myself and made a few bob into the bargain. Eatons were the most expensive by quite a lot.
In terms of timescale, they had my car for 4 weeks for what should have taken a few days. The two other garages I would have used would have ordered new panels in advance, painted them, and then I would simply have dropped my car off for a few days for stripping and refitting. Eatons are part of the Vizion network of repairers and they have an online 'Repair Tracker' allowing you to see the % completeness of the repair. Their algorithm increases the repair progress by a few % each day.... even when Eaton's bodyshop was closed for 6 days over the festive/new-year period, the repair tracker was still increasing. Maybe Santa Claus popped in to have a shot at fixing my car in their absence. Still, I suppose being able to 'track' your repair 'progress' on your 'smart'phone gives Generation-X something to cream themselves over.
Every day is a school day though, and every cloud has a silver lining! Should I ever find myself in the unfortunate position of my car requiring repair as the result of an accident again, I now know exactly what sort of standard of 'repair' the 'approved' centres will provide. And as I was thinking of changing the Dacia for something a little more PH oriented, my experience with Eatons gave me that final motivation. I couldn't be bothered dealing with them further, so took the hit and moved the Dacia on via a well known car buying service.
My advise to any PH'er requiring an accident repair would be to go with your OWN choice of repairer regardless of how convenient it might appear to be to use the insurer approved one, as there's too many vested interests in terms of driving down costs/maximising profits when you don't.
L and I eaton in Edinburgh replaced a wing mirror and repainted the drivers door for me over christmas. Everything went perfectly well. The courtesy car I got was a new corsa which was ok. The paint is a perfect match as far as I can see. I would recommend them to anyone. Even the polish and the valet they gave the car was worth the price of the excess.
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