The true test of a business comes when things do not go exactly as planned, and is judged by the corresponding response and willingness to stand behind the quality of work and make things right. I, and my extended family, live locally in the Acton area and surrounding towns, and have used Ernie's for the better part of 20 years. We will not be giving them any further business.
My wife and I had the unfortunate experience of a front end collision, and brought the car to Ernie's to replace and paint the hood, bumper, and passenger side front fender. The work was completed, and the car was back on the road. However, after a short period of time driving on the highway, we noticed severe stone chipping ONLY on the panels with had been replaced/painted by Ernie's, where the white color coat chipped off to reveal the black underlying electro primer coating. The exposed portion of the front end that remained untouched with the factory paint (driver's side front fender and lower bumper lip trim) had no such issues. This is clearly an issue with bonding between Ernie's paint and the parts they installed, typically exacerbated by either not properly cleaning the parts before paint, not mechanically prepping the surface to be painted adequately to ensure adhesion, or faulty/improperly mixed paint materials.
The issue was brought to Ernie's attention, and the car was brought in to look at. The initial response was that there was no issue here to put them at fault for, and that the chipping that existed solely on the panels painted by Ernie's was due to driving and considered "normal". I'm not sure what the definition of "normal" is that was used here, since the chipping was very severe and noticeable over the little mileage driven by that point, and dramatically worse than the condition of the factory paint which had served for over 60k highway miles at the time. After further discussion, they were willing to discount a small portion of a repaint, and the effected area would need to be stripped down completely (an indication that their initial paint application may be problematic after all). This was unacceptable, to have to pay twice to fix an issue in workmanship.
A second and third opinion was sought through our insurance adjuster, as well as a second bodyshop. Both parties determined that this was a workmanship defect resulting poor paint adhesion and susceptibility to chipping when driving, and the only fix was to completely remove the paint Ernie's had applied, and start from scratch to correctly fix the underlying workmanship issues and match the quality of the factory paint. Ernie's was informed of this, and the woman on the phone became extremely rude and condescending, hanging up the phone. At this point it became obvious that the situation was going nowhere and Ernie's was not willing to stand behind the work done. Our insurance co, while they could give their opinion, could not force a warranty on the work, since Ernie's is not a 'preferred' shop. I could have sworn they were years back, but perhaps that had changed. Either way, that is our fault for not confirming to go with a shop that we would have some leverage with in case things went bad.
Speaking further with the ins adjuster, our only recourse now is small claims. At any rate, we certainly won't be back to Ernie's again for any additional work, and neither will anyone that we know. read more