I had Bears Auto Hospital do some work on my van. I cringe to use "work" here as I was ripped off; Really I paid for them for a shoddy job.
Here is the quote from Bears.
Initially when I picked up the van, it was filthy - dust and grit throughout, over the dash, seats and in the rear. They said they run out of time to do any cleaning. On complaining about this, they did offer a free detailing if I'd bring it back to them another day. I was leaving the area, and by this time had seen the windscreen work so, I decided that I wouldn't take them up on that offer.
At the same time I went back to complain about the dust and grit, I also asked about a small spot of rust in the cargo bay that they said they would fix at the same time as the windscreen. They offered to do it straight away. Arrrrgghhh - their fix was paint over the top of it, without removing the rust that was there!!! This should have clued me up that their other work might not have been the best, but, I left looking at the repairs until now (mid December), and 1000km away.
I started cleaning it up now. First up was the outside wash; But, I found water dripping in the drivers side under the dash.. oh o... Pulled all the vinyl matting out - it was all damp - and put the hose on to run water down the windscreen. Yep, water is leaking in on both the drivers and the passenger side.
On top of feeling angry and frustrated, that Bears Auto Hospital removed the windscreen to fix the rust around it and only fixed one corner of the rust, I now have a leaking windscreen!
Went to windscreen repair place in Byron, and they said that there wasn't much sealer around the windscreen.. They tried to patch it up, but said that it probably wouldn't work and that the windscreen would have to be removed and refitted. Didn't charge me for trying though. They were right, the patch didn't work, it still leaks.
The Bears Auto Hospital quote does say "Rust around front screen". Here is around the windscreen. This is the stuff I was paying to get fixed:
While the van was in getting the windscreen done, I asked for and got a quote to paint the van floor. Seemed a good idea at the time.
Bears didn't remove the rubber grommets before painting, just painted over the top of them. I think they pulled some grommets out, or more likely they were sand blasted away, as this one shows, the ones remaining were painted over. I had pulled some out myself, I'm not 100% sure if the missing grommets are a result of Bears or not.
But this was nothing compared to what I found when I went to change the back door seal. Under the weather strip and rubber seal, where you can't see it:
Less than two months and its rusting. Bears removed the strip and seal, painted, and put it all back.
Not one item of the job I had done by Bears Auto Hospital, Woolongong, was done well. The easy to see parts of the job looked okay, until they were more closely examined.
Okay, Bears has many workers - maybe I was just unlucky to get one that wasn't so switched on that week. However, when I confronted the manager, I could have had a better response than I did. My experience with the work, and dealings with Bears Auto Hospital just leaves me really angry.
I do not recommend Bears Auto Hospital to anyone.
The happy ending to this sad tail was that I went to Warren Simmons Panel Beating in Byon Bay and he fixed the windscreen and the paint issues. Warren did a excellent job - all the rust sanded away and painted. The windscreen does not leak. The job was booked in, and the work completed in three days. After the my negative experience with Bears Auto Hospital, dealing with Warren Simmons Panel Beating was wonderful.
