Many years ago, I had a legendarily terrible experience with an auto group in the seacoast area…read morethat shall remain unnamed because it's irrelevant to this review. I honestly believed the utter incompetence would remain unmatched until the day I died.
And then I had the misfortune of having to deal with R&J Auto Body and I was proven wrong.
I can't fault these people for the body work. They did the work, apparently properly, and it looks like the damage that occurred after my vehicle was stolen out of my yard and later recovered never happened. The problem is that what they told me would be a two and a half day job ended up taking just under three weeks, and even then it took me threatening to have the vehicle towed somewhere else for them to get it done.
Customer service is an absolute joke to these people. They don't care how long it takes, they don't care how much hardship they cause you, and they don't care how they're perceived. I can only assume this is because they've somehow weaseled their way into being a "preferred" garage with at least one insurance company, so they figure they don't need repeat customers.
Honestly, I should have known this would be an issue on day one, when I was told they would call me to schedule an appointment as soon as my insurance estimate was approved. After not hearing from them for six days, despite knowing the estimate had been approved, I gave up and called to make an appointment myself. They gave me one- for two weeks later. This wasn't a huge issue for me, since I understand it's a busy time of year, everyone is short handed, blah blah blah the usual.
The day I finally dropped the car off, I was told it would be ready "at the end of the week." I heard nothing at the end of the week, so I called on Friday and was told "The lock set had to be sent back so as soon as that gets here today, we'll get it installed and tow it to the dealership to be reprogrammed." They told me they would call me back and let me know when it had been towed. I did not receive a call.
I called again the following Monday to inquire and was told "The lock set is being installed today and then they have to tow it to the dealership to be reprogrammed." There was no explanation as to why this was not done on Friday when I was told it was being done, no apology for the delay, nothing. They told me they would call back as soon as they knew when the vehicle could be reprogrammed. I did not receive a call.
I called again the next day and basically got blown off, so I called again a few hours later and mysteriously, the car "ready to be picked up." I drove over after work after arranging a second person to drive back from the garage. Upon pulling into the lot, we saw my car sitting right up front- with the key in the ignition and no one in sight, so that's neat when I've already recently had my car stolen once. We looked inside, and the interior detailing that was part of my estimate had not been done. The car was filled with trash and upon opening the door I was smacked in the face with the reek of cigarettes, exactly as it had been when I dropped it off.
I walked in and inquired as to why the car was still full of trash and smelled of cigarette smoke and Jim's immediate response was "That's not on my estimate!" When I responded with "Well, it's on mine," he suddenly found the time to shuffle through the paperwork and see that, in fact, it was on the estimate and he had "missed it because there was a zero on that line."
A quick rewind regarding this statement- the day I received the estimate, we heard Jim tell LJ, "Put a zero on that line and write 'per invoice' because we don't know what the final cost on the detailing will be" since the detailing is outsourced to someone else. Now, all of a sudden, Jim didn't see the detailing on the estimate even though he was the one who indicated there should be a zero on that line, so one assumes that's a regular practice? Interesting.
Anyway, Jim told me he would call the detailer and find out when he could get the vehicle in for detailing, and indicated he would call and let me know. I left, still without my vehicle, and in case you haven't already been noticing a theme, I did not receive a call.
On Wednesday morning I called AGAIN and was told, "I THINK they're on the way to drop it off to be detailed now." I specifically asked them to call me when the detailing was done and the car could be picked up. I did not receive a call.
Long story short, at this point the next time I called it became a screaming match, he made more excuses and told more lies, and I finally got the vehicle back after threatening to have the vehicle towed somewhere else to have the work completed. I will not ever be back and I will make a point of telling everyone I know to go somewhere else.
