I was a former customer of Hustead's Auto Body of Berkeley. Here was my experience with them. In March 2017, I had a car accident. I contacted Hustead, and they immediately arranged to toll my car to their shop. I was grateful that Hustead took my car in even their shop was closed on Saturday.
I later talked to an agent assigned to my case and expressed my desire of damaged parts to be replaced by OEM parts. I received no update of the estimate for weeks. In April 2017, I received a phone call from the assigned agent. During this phone conservation, he did not explicitly ask for my permission to start the repair and my understanding was that this was a courtesy call for an update. I made it clear in this conversation that I would wait for the full estimate in writing from my insurance company and would discuss in detail of which OEM parts to be installed before the authorization for the fix. To my surprise, Hustead had gone ahead to fix the car with aftermarket parts. To change out the aftermarket parts with OEM, the Berkeley office manager stated that because their agent made the phone call (even without my authorization), I was responsible for the cost of the OEM parts and labor (cost of $854.23). I firmly believe that the agent was at fault fixing my car with some aftermarket parts without my consent.
After the repair was done, I called two times to make sure that my car was ready for pick up and both times the agent on the phone assured me that it was ready. However, when I picked up my car, I found that the battery light and AWD lights were lit. The car had to return to Hustead's for repair. Three days later, I was notified that the car was ready for pick up, but this time I found that the air conditioning was not working. I had to return the car back to Hustead's for yet another repair. Five days later, I went to Hustead's to pick up my car and found that the fog light was not working, and the bumper paint job was of poor quality. After more than a month since the accident, I was still without my car.
Out of frustration, I contacted the owner of Hustead's Autobody. The owner took responsibility to make sure that my car was fixed correctly after the fourth/fifth visit at Hustead's, and he took the vehicle to a Honda dealer for a thorough check-up before delivering the car to me (1 star goes to him).
Hustead's motto is professionalism, attention to detail, and ability to efficiently meet the needs of customers. My experience at Hustead's Berkeley office was just the opposite. The communication with the agent was vague, and the fix with aftermarket parts was performed without my consent. The quality of the repair from Hustead's was poor. No one at the shop bothered to check if the repaired parts were in working order prior to notifying the customer. The whole process with Hustead's not only cost me downtime from work, but it also generated tremendous inconvenience and stress.
My experience with the owner was positive. He genuinely wanted to make things right, and I appreciated his effort. I hope that after my complaint, Hustead's has improved their communication with customers and the QA/QC of their repair jobs. read more