I first brought my car to Five Star Collision on 10/19/2021. I was told my repairs would be completed by 10/29/2021. On 10/21/2021, I asked for an update and was told that my new completion date was scheduled for 11/2/2021. When I asked why, they stated it was because Geico had made changes, and we now had to wait for the new parts to come in. I was told everything was going well and that we were on track to meet the completion date of 11/2/2021. However, on 11/2/2021, I received notice that my vehicle would now not be ready until 11/5/2021. Five Star claimed this was due to Geico not sending in their approvals on time. Then, on 11/5/2021, I was informed that my vehicle would now not be ready until 11/10/2021 because one of my doors was delivered to the wrong Five Star location. It turns out, Five Star had known that the door was delivered to the wrong location for 5 days at that point and had done nothing to get the door delivered or picked up in a timely manner. It was only after I raised my concerns that they were able to get the manufacturer to go pick the door up and deliver it to the right location. On 11/8/2021, the door was delivered, and my estimated completion date was now 11/12/2021. On that date, I was able to retrieve my vehicle, however, the work was not complete. The parts department failed to realized that the correct trim package did not come with the parts, and they were unable to finish the trim around my back door window. They told me that it would only take a couple of days for the trim to arrive. In addition to that, they had installed the mirror on the drivers side door incorrectly. The top of the mirror was not flush against the door and the mirror wobbled slightly while driving. Finally, by having to disrupt the sensors that go through my drivers side door, my radio was no longer On 11/17/2021, I was able to retrieve my car a second time, but, again, the work was not complete. They were unable to fix the mirror because the plastic was "warped" from sitting on the car like that, so they had to order an entire new mirror. I was told that the mirror shouldn't take long at all to come in and they may have it on 11/24/2021 or 11/26/2021. However, they did not receive the mirror until 12/1/2021. After multiple calls into the shop, I was finally able to schedule a time to come in on 12/7/2021 to replace the mirror, fix my radio, pay my deductible, and finally be free.
Five Star does not do work on the weekends, which I think significantly impacted how long this process took. So, counting business days, other than Thanksgiving, this repair took about 35 days. I was frustrated with this process or a number of reasons, and most centered around communication. I am well aware that companies can't do anything about the supply chain issues right now. So, while I was frustrated that parts took a long time to come in, I don't fault Five Star with that. However, I do fault Five Star with their seeming inability to identify an issue and resolve it quickly. There were numerous errors in my repair process that could have been taken care of much faster if I hadn't been the one to point them out and those with actual body repair experience had noticed the issues on the front end. With communication, I had to repeatedly follow up and ask for updates; I wouldn't have gotten any information otherwise. Five Star always tried to pass the blame onto Geico in the beginning by saying Geico was not sending them over information in a timely manner, but there were a few times where I had to tell Five Star that Geico had sent information over 4 and 5 days ago. Miraculously, Five Star was able to find that missing information soon after I checked in with Geico. After they could no longer use Geico as an excuse, they relied on the supply chain issue to pass off their own misrepresentations. I would never recommend Five Star to anyone. I would give negative stars if I could due to the lack of professionalism, timeliness and communication issues, and insufficient repairs. read more