I went and bought the lip body kit along with some Eibachs from you guys. Now I'm just waiting on my side panel to come in and will install it all at once.kyle@stillen wrote:Sometimes insurance companies actually prefer it if you go with our replacement parts as they are often times less expensive than the factory part they are replacing.
Insurance really couldn't care less what you use to fix your car. As long as it's safe and you're happy, they want to save money.
Bad Luck I guess (First bad scrap/dent)
Re: Bad Luck I guess (kyle@stillen)
Re: Bad Luck I guess (Ranga14)
So I'm now a few weeks away from getting all of this finally resolved. I know, it's been 4-5 months since it happened but I have done a lot of research on what was the best route to go in fixing the car to get the best deal. I also ordered that Stillen body kit to replace a rocker that was damaged and got another item or two to put on all at the same time instead of doing it piece by piece.
Anyway, I went to various body shops recently in my area and got the following. I'll just list them by their name...
Mikes: This is a body shop but they do many other things besides just body work and I wasn't real sure they'd do the best job. Another thing I noticed was that than had 243524523 freakin BBB accredited logos hanging on their wall and one thing I remember from working on various client web sites is that the more of those that businesses try to showcase, the less legit they actually might be, however they offered the lowest price for putting on the Stillen body kit + fixing my damage for $1,356. My friend told me to avoid this place as well for he had work done on his car there and kept having to take it in because things kept going wrong with the job and they kept charging him.
4M: This shop looked better but the dude was some bald headed foreigner (Italian I believe) in his 30s and wow, he was Mr. Cocky / Talk down to you type and he told me the Stillen body kit was crap and would fall off and he only works with fiberglass. He also said Nissans were not designed well and that the cars he usually works on (Lambos) are so much better in terms of body parts. His quote was $1,400 for the Stillen body kit + fixing my damage but he said he "wouldn't" like doing the job and that no one could get the color to match so he'd have to blend it.
ProCare Collision: Maybe I shouldn't have gone here since they're more corporate but the guy I talked to there, was close to my age and seemed cool but then he said, "I'm sorry but we don't put body kits on because none are any good, only dealer kits work"... He said every kit he's ever worked with was either too short, too long, looked like crap, paint would flake off, etc... He was like, "Oh, in magazine or online these kits look awesome but installed they look horrible". So I didn't even bother getting a quote from him.
Alexa's: This was a pretty cool Hispanic dude, seemed like a decent shop but the price was a little higher at $1750 for the Stillen body kit + fixing my damage and he said he'd knock $100 off to make it $1,650 if I did this within the next two weeks.
K&W: This shop would be nice since it's literally across the street from me and the guy doing the work I talked to loves Stillen and seemed like he knew his stuff. However the "quote" guy seemed to not know what Stillen was or how they'd get the kit on, lol. Then he printed the quote out and it was $2,100 for it all so I was like FML, moving on.
Dave's: I went to this place last and was by far the most impressed since the guy there said he had a lot of experience in some big shops and he took me on a tour of their place and showed me some work they've done, some of which was on some Nissan's. The coolest thing was this Hummer from Desert storm that they had fully restored and it looked beautiful! He went through the whole process of doing the job and the guy said he liked Stillen materials and he also assured me that they would get the paint right because they would get the color codes for my car and what not. total for that is $1,949.28.
So the range so far is $1350-$2100. I'm leaning toward the last option as long as the price isn't too high. It's a little odd, the varying opinions I received regarding Fiberglass vs. Polyurethane and body kits in general from some of these places. Some places love them, some avoid them like the plague. Another prevailing theme was that "We will not guarantee the work on the body kit because it might fall off within a few years".
Modified by Ranga14 at 2:39 PM 9/10/2009
Modified by Ranga14 at 2:44 PM 9/10/2009
Modified by Ranga14 at 2:47 PM 9/10/2009
Anyway, I went to various body shops recently in my area and got the following. I'll just list them by their name...
Mikes: This is a body shop but they do many other things besides just body work and I wasn't real sure they'd do the best job. Another thing I noticed was that than had 243524523 freakin BBB accredited logos hanging on their wall and one thing I remember from working on various client web sites is that the more of those that businesses try to showcase, the less legit they actually might be, however they offered the lowest price for putting on the Stillen body kit + fixing my damage for $1,356. My friend told me to avoid this place as well for he had work done on his car there and kept having to take it in because things kept going wrong with the job and they kept charging him.
4M: This shop looked better but the dude was some bald headed foreigner (Italian I believe) in his 30s and wow, he was Mr. Cocky / Talk down to you type and he told me the Stillen body kit was crap and would fall off and he only works with fiberglass. He also said Nissans were not designed well and that the cars he usually works on (Lambos) are so much better in terms of body parts. His quote was $1,400 for the Stillen body kit + fixing my damage but he said he "wouldn't" like doing the job and that no one could get the color to match so he'd have to blend it.
ProCare Collision: Maybe I shouldn't have gone here since they're more corporate but the guy I talked to there, was close to my age and seemed cool but then he said, "I'm sorry but we don't put body kits on because none are any good, only dealer kits work"... He said every kit he's ever worked with was either too short, too long, looked like crap, paint would flake off, etc... He was like, "Oh, in magazine or online these kits look awesome but installed they look horrible". So I didn't even bother getting a quote from him.
Alexa's: This was a pretty cool Hispanic dude, seemed like a decent shop but the price was a little higher at $1750 for the Stillen body kit + fixing my damage and he said he'd knock $100 off to make it $1,650 if I did this within the next two weeks.
K&W: This shop would be nice since it's literally across the street from me and the guy doing the work I talked to loves Stillen and seemed like he knew his stuff. However the "quote" guy seemed to not know what Stillen was or how they'd get the kit on, lol. Then he printed the quote out and it was $2,100 for it all so I was like FML, moving on.
Dave's: I went to this place last and was by far the most impressed since the guy there said he had a lot of experience in some big shops and he took me on a tour of their place and showed me some work they've done, some of which was on some Nissan's. The coolest thing was this Hummer from Desert storm that they had fully restored and it looked beautiful! He went through the whole process of doing the job and the guy said he liked Stillen materials and he also assured me that they would get the paint right because they would get the color codes for my car and what not. total for that is $1,949.28.
So the range so far is $1350-$2100. I'm leaning toward the last option as long as the price isn't too high. It's a little odd, the varying opinions I received regarding Fiberglass vs. Polyurethane and body kits in general from some of these places. Some places love them, some avoid them like the plague. Another prevailing theme was that "We will not guarantee the work on the body kit because it might fall off within a few years".
Modified by Ranga14 at 2:39 PM 9/10/2009
Modified by Ranga14 at 2:44 PM 9/10/2009
Modified by Ranga14 at 2:47 PM 9/10/2009
Re: Bad Luck I guess (Ranga14)
IMO the people that tell you they hate it or it's not going to look good are the people that have too much work to do already or do not want to be bothered with that work load. It's the typical lazy approach.Ranga14 wrote:So I'm now a few weeks away from getting all of this finally resolved. I know, it's been 4-5 months since it happened but I have done a lot of research on what was the best route to go in fixing the car to get the best deal. I also ordered that Stillen body kit to replace a rocker that was damaged and got another item or two to put on all at the same time instead of doing it piece by piece.
Anyway, I went to various body shops recently in my area and got the following. I'll just list them by their name...
Mikes: This is a body shop but they do many other things besides just body work and I wasn't real sure they'd do the best job. Another thing I noticed was that than had 243524523 freakin BBB accredited logos hanging on their wall and one thing I remember from working on various client web sites is that the more of those that businesses try to showcase, the less legit they actually might be, however they offered the lowest price for putting on the Stillen body kit + fixing my damage for $1356. My friend told me to avoid this place as well for he had work done on his car there and kept having to take it in because things kept going wrong with the job and they kept charging him.
4M: This shop looked better but the dude was some bald headed foreigner (Italian I believe) in his 30s and wow, he was Mr. Cocky / Talk down to you type and he told me the Stillen body kit was crap and would fall off and he only works with fiberglass. He also said Nissans were not designed well and that the cars he usually works on (Lambos) are so much better in terms of body parts. His quote was $1400 for the Stillen body kit + fixing my damage but he said he "wouldn't" like doing the job and that no one could get the color to match so he'd have to blend it.
ProCare Collision: Maybe I shouldn't have gone here since they're more corporate but the guy I talked to there, was close to my age and seemed cool but then he said, "I'm sorry but we don't put body kits on because none are any good, only dealer kits work"... He said every kit he's ever worked with was either too short, too long, looked like crap, paint would flake off, etc... He was like, "Oh, in magazine or online these kits look awesome but installed they look horrible". So I didn't even bother getting a quote from him.
Alexa's: This was a pretty cool Hispanic dude, seemed like a decent shop but the price was a little higher at $1750 for the Stillen body kit + fixing my damage and he said he'd knock $100 off if I did this within the next two weeks.
K&W: This shop would be nice since it's literally across the street from me and the guy doing the work I talked to loves Stillen and seemed like he knew his stuff. However the "quote" guy seemed to not know what Stillen was or how they'd get the kit on, lol. Then he printed the quote out and it was $2100 for it all so I was like FML, moving on.
DJ's: I went to this place last and was by far the most impressed since the guy there said he had a lot of experience in some big shops and he took me on a tour of their place and showed me some work they've done, some of which was on some Nissan's. The coolest thing was this Hummer from Desert storm that they had fully restored and it looked beautiful! He went through the whole process of doing the job and the guy said he liked Stillen materials and he also assured me that they would get the paint right because they would get the color codes for my car and what not, but would have to e-mail me a quote today due to their computer system being down at the time so just waiting on that.
So the range so far is $1350-$2100. I'm leaning toward the last option as long as the price isn't too high. It's a little odd, the varying opinions I received regarding Fiberglass vs. Polyurethane and body kits in general from some of these places. Some places love them, some avoid them like the plague. Another prevailing theme was that "We will not guarantee the work on the body kit because it might fall off within a few years".
I say wait for the quote on the last shop. Even if it's a little high it might be worth spending the cash to get it done properly.