Chipsaway recommendations

[RichardC27]

Has anybody used Chipsaway or a similar sort of company to do small paint touchups on their car? I have a couple of small ish scrapes on my bumpers that I'd like to get sorted if the cost isn't too great. Any ideas on the ballpark costs?

[HoHoHo]

£70 and two attempts to get it right.

£800 for a professional re-spray of the affected area to get it back to as it was prior to being fked up by the local bodgers who are..... Chips Away.

My advice.......Rearrange these five words

Pole barge a don't with touch!

[snuffle]

Chipsaway are a franchise, some of them are excellent , some couldn't match the 2 halves of their own ase .

A better question would be,

I live in (insert area), can anyone recommend a smart repairer.

[RichardC27]

snuffle said:

Chipsaway are a franchise, some of them are excellent , some couldn't match the 2 halves of their own ase .

A better question would be,

I live in (insert area), can anyone recommend a smart repairer.

I did wonder if their quality was a tad variable, being a franchise. I live in Cheshire, so any recommendations for this area would be brilliant

[Anatol]

Alan Murphy had over 20 years in bodyshops before joining ChipsAway. He runs the car care centre in Stockport. I've known him many years and can personally vouch for his skill and attitude.

http://www.chipsaway.co.uk/carcarestockport

Full disclosure, my business is part of the same co-branded network, but has no legal or financial links with his.

Tol

[Anatol]

HoHoHo said:

My advice.......Rearrange these five words

Pole barge a don't with touch!

If you're going to ignore the name and shame rules, please at least have the courage to identify the individual who you have experience of. Bodywork is a skilled trade, and blanket advice that isn't based on experience of the work the actual guy or gal who'd be behind the spraygun is at best unhelpful and at worst, downright misleading.

I'm part of that network, and I take a lot of pride in running a professional, skilled team. To the best of my knowledge you've no experience of the work of my technicians and business, but you're giving advice as though you can speak to the repairs they turn out, and our commitment to quality and service. To a professional and fellow PistonHeader, that's quite insulting, chap :-). We only employ qualified former bodyshop techs (or new recruits on a formal Apprenticeship) and actually also own and run a bodyshop with full spraybooth facilities. If you're ever passing, stop in and I'll be delighted to show you around (and we have very good coffee) :-)

ChipsAway businesses are franchised and co-branded, but vary structurally quite significantly. One may be an owner-operator working from a van, another a several thousand square foot bodyshop employing only former bodyshop techs. Advice that suggests they're homogenous doesn't help the OP (who has a local operator with vast prior bodyshop experience before opening his ChipsAway centre).

The network has pretty robust complaint and guarantee policies - if you ended up personally out of pocket in the circumstances you describe, then that absolutely shouldn't have happened, and if I can put you in touch with the team at our Head Office who can help resolve the matter, let me know?

Tol

[HoHoHo]

Anatol said:

HoHoHo said:

My advice.......Rearrange these five words

Pole barge a don't with touch!

If you're going to ignore the name and shame rules, please at least have the courage to identify the individual who you have experience of. Bodywork is a skilled trade, and blanket advice that isn't based on experience of the work the actual guy or gal who'd be behind the spraygun is at best unhelpful and at worst, downright misleading.

I'm part of that network, and I take a lot of pride in running a professional, skilled team. To the best of my knowledge you've no experience of the work of my technicians and business, but you're giving advice as though you can speak to the repairs they turn out, and our commitment to quality and service. To a professional and fellow PistonHeader, that's quite insulting, chap :-). We only employ qualified former bodyshop techs (or new recruits on a formal Apprenticeship) and actually also own and run a bodyshop with full spraybooth facilities. If you're ever passing, stop in and I'll be delighted to show you around (and we have very good coffee) :-)

ChipsAway businesses are franchised and co-branded, but vary structurally quite significantly. One may be an owner-operator working from a van, another a several thousand square foot bodyshop employing only former bodyshop techs. Advice that suggests they're homogenous doesn't help the OP (who has a local operator with vast prior bodyshop experience before opening his ChipsAway centre).

The network has pretty robust complaint and guarantee policies - if you ended up personally out of pocket in the circumstances you describe, then that absolutely shouldn't have happened, and if I can put you in touch with the team at our Head Office who can help resolve the matter, let me know?

Tol

I'm pretty sure you and I have had this discussion before - my 996 which was 18 months old in the job was done 2004 (ish). I live north of Worthing and had two very bad experience.

I did contact the head office at the time and they simply offered a second attempt at the job which I accepted which didn't rectify the problem. The car then went to an OPC to have the work put right.

If you remember our previous conversation some time ago, half through one of the jobs the operator informed me through very nervous teeth he'd only been on his own for a matter of weeks!

Sorry, but from that experience CA will never get any of my business and I won't be recommending them to any friends/associates be it on PH or within my social circle.

No offence meant to you personally, I'm sure you're a craftsman, however as they say, once bitten.

[Anatol]

HoHoHo said:

I'm pretty sure you and I have had this discussion before

That sounds like me ;-)

8< snip >8

HoHoHo said:

No offence meant to you personally,

Thank you :-)

HoHoHo said:

I'm sure you're a craftsman, 8< snip >8

I wouldn't claim that - I just administer the business, the techs are the guys (and gal) with the real skill. I do take some pride in the what we put our name to though.

And I fully support your decision as to where to take your business having had a bad experience - it's a fact of licensed branding that not all the reputation that goes with it is good. I do twitch if anyone gives advice not to use the entire network, our branch included, based on experience of one individual's work. I was treated with the worst service of my life in a Halfords once. And that does affect my buying decisions for the future, but I wouldn't suggest to someone asking that my experience means that similar service can be predicted at their other branches.

Fortunately, the commercial benefits of licensing the dominant brand far outweigh the occasions when it's a downside. It seems to be a feature of how people write up their experience that positive feedback is often linked to the individual "Bob in Sheffield did a cracking job for me!" but bad experience is presented as having wide predictive powers "They are all bodgers with no training and less experience! My experience proves it! Avoid like the plague!" ;-)

So I do keep banging my drum, and chipping in (heh) on bodywork threads where we can offer some professional advice in the hope of reassuring the community that, as in any automotive business sector, there are some real petrolheads among us :-)

[HoHoHo]

Fair play

Shame as I'm sure there are some who know what they're doing and do it well.

I simply can't take that risk again

[Anatol]

I admire your intellectual honesty - I've had some people I pick this fight with absolutely refuse to accept that their experience cannot be expanded out to people not involved in it.

Next time you acquire a scuff, come and visit (good coffee and WiFi in the waiting lounge - or a lovely city to tour) - and I'll put my team to work on it (at no cost to you) and hopefully see if we can leave you with some fonder memories of our brand than your current ones :-)

[HoHoHo]

Anatol said:

I admire your intellectual honesty - I've had some people I pick this fight with absolutely refuse to accept that their experience cannot be expanded out to people not involved in it.

Next time you acquire a scuff, come and visit (good coffee and WiFi in the waiting lounge - or a lovely city to tour) - and I'll put my team to work on it (at no cost to you) and hopefully see if we can leave you with some fonder memories of our brand than your current ones :-)

Thanks - I've not my 'intellectual honesty' admired before and I appreciate your sentiments!

Hopefully next time I'll see the bollard behind my car, won't bash the bumper and won't need to visit! Rest assured that if I do, I will take you up on your offer and hope that the coffee is hot and milky, the wifi is fast and I can view my favourite european channel and the repair can't be seen

[snorkel sucker]

OP - Where did you go in the end?

I am also in Cheshire and have a scuff on the understide of my front bumper which needs sorting.

[ConorNZ]

I'm in south east London and used them to touch up a few places on my old Virage before going to auction. Was very pleased with the result and the cost. Would certainly use again.

[sospan]

I went to a Chipsaway demo a few years ago.
A main VW dealer brought a new car in.
Someone was given a stone to scratch it. We watched the repair start to finish
In the end you could not see any signs
Took about an hour -ish.
The scratch was through the paint fully.
The repairer had a fixed site in Cardiff and was about to expand to vans as well
From what i saw i would have no worries with that standard of repair

[SeanCW]

I had a small scratch on my Metallic Grey Jag XKR rear quarter panel, got various quotes(£750 main dealer), went to a bodyshop in Dukinfield after recommendations.

The guy resprayed the whole side of the car for £400. There were other minor chips on doors etc. He said to get a proper blended finish this was the best solution. The XKR has no body strips or lines in the body work

The nose probably needs doing also - £250 to remove, paint and refit.

I did'nt know until he told me, but bumpers etc are plastic so there are no blending issues the paint takes a slightly different tone anyway.

I would have though a typical bumper might be significantly less. I dont think that chip repairs are totally satisfactory and for an extra few quid the bodyshop approach and facilities make sense.

Try some near you or I can provide details if requires

[70proof]

Anatol said:

So I do keep banging my drum, and chipping in (heh) on bodywork threads where we can offer some professional advice in the hope of reassuring the community that, as in any automotive business sector, there are some real petrolheads among us :-)

and i can vouch that you are a petrolhead indeed, and would whole heartedly recommend you and your team....

[pikeyboy]

HoHoHo said:

£70 and two attempts to get it right.

£800 for a professional re-spray of the affected area to get it back to as it was prior to being fked up by the local bodgers who are..... Chips Away.

My advice.......Rearrange these five words

Pole barge a don't with touch!

Don't expect any sort of decent paint work a bloke who blows a bit of paint on under a pop up awning proper paint shop al the way anything else is a waste of time and money.

[7even]

boy said:

Don't expect any sort of decent paint work a bloke who blows a bit of paint on under a pop up awning proper paint shop al the way anything else is a waste of time and money.

That's perhaps a bit of a generalisation, I quite happily run both operations in tandem, and tbh some of the trickier jobs can come out better without the aid of a spraybooth and artificial lighting. That and the fact that there's a lot of time served painters choosing this way of working after many years in a booth, means that's its not all about a bloke under a pop up awning, as you put it, plenty of highly qualified individuals out there. As always recommendation is the best route in finding a mobile technician near you, if you have no luck in that department there's always the smartmap.

[70proof]

Works both ways.... Ur car could be sprayed by an apprentice in the bodyshop, or by a seasoned pro in a van..... For info chipsaway cambs have a bodyshop, and I have seen others the same, similarly, bodyshops adopt smart repair techniques too!

[atob]

boy said:

Don't expect any sort of decent paint work a bloke who blows a bit of paint on under a pop up awning proper paint shop al the way anything else is a waste of time and money.

Seems a little ironic this, bearing in mind your forum name!