What does $5000 get you at Midwest/Accent Auto Body???

It gets you a half ass job by a couple of guys that don’t want to fix their mistakes/screwups!

This is a long read but worth it if you are interested in finding out the character of people that claim to be a “trustworthy performance shop”.

It’s been about a month since my car was “finished” at their shop. Tonight was the breaking straw for the BS they have been trying to feed me. I gave them plenty of chances to fix my car but tonight they told me to get my car out of their shop because they’ve been “more than fair to me” (more on this later). So basically, I took my perfectly fine running car to the shop in need of some body work. Had a brand new Roush front bumper and CAPA certified fenders painted and put on. Also had a Cobra R hood painted and put on and my rear bumper repainted. I decided while it was there being repaired I would have them install my cams for me. Well that was a bad idea. After they get everything done they give me my car back barely running because, according to them, “it’s either running really rich or really lean”. So I take it up to RC Specialists (great guy) to have him fix something for me (completely unrelated). He says it doesn’t sound right even being cammed. So he hooks up some diagnostic tools to it and what do you know, I have no fire on cylinder 6. It has brand new plugs in it and its getting spark so I know its not my plug or COP. He cranks it without giving it fuel and can hear the lack of compression by the change in engine noise as its cranking over. So I take it back up to Midwest and what do you know, ABSOLUTELY NO COMPRESSION on that cylinder! You would think things like that might be checked before giving a customer their car back after a cam install. So now I have this bent exhaust valve. Where could that of come from? Well if you ask Midwest I must have had a “slightly warped” valve all along and when they put my cams in it must have bent it. If you ask anybody that knows what they are doing they will tell you install error. So then I had to pay $500 to have my valve replaced and a valve job on that head (since it was my problem). Well that’s awesome! So then after that is done I get the car back and now it is smoking pretty bad (I assumed it was running really rich and that was why it was smoking when in reality it is burning oil really bad. Take it to be put on the dyno and be tuned (at this point still thought it was running rich) but my tuner doesn’t want to even waste my time or money when it still needs MORE work before even trying to tune it. He did give me a base tune though so that my AFR is ok. So now I’ve got to figure out what is messed up with it now (I’m sure this is my fault as well even though my car didn’t burn any oil between oil changes before I took it to Midwest). Now onto the body work. I’ve had people tell me that Midwest should stick to what they are good at, bodywork. Well that would be nice if they were good at that, or at least admitted when they screw things up and would take care of their screwups. That’s not the case though. Then first time I got my car back (before having the bent valve replaced) I didn’t have a lot of time to look over the fine details of the bodywork such as all the trash that was in the paint/clear coat but I was excited to have a new bumper put on and was happy that it lined up and fit perfect (my old bumper had been damaged and didn’t line up well at all). Well during the time the head was being repaired I went up to the shop a few times and one of the times I went up there I walked in and noticed that my bumper was all scratched up and had a gouge on the outside edge. No one even mentioned it to me until I brought it up and asked them what had happened. The response was that my car is too low and they “almost ripped it off the car when trying to pull off the lift”. About a week later I had to have my car towed up to RC Specialists (this is when I found out about the compression issue) so I asked them to pull my bumper off and fix the gouge and scratches. After they painted the bumper I took it home to put it on and noticed what looked like bondo (later found out this was 40/40 which is something similar to bondo) on one of the brackets which also looked damaged. So I bolted the bumper up and it no longer fit well. Has gaps on both sides and doesn’t line up at all. I took it back up to Midwest to have them try to fix it for me and they try to tell me that the Ford bumpers don’t line well from the factory and try to show me on a cobra that has had damage to the front bumper that it doesn’t line up well either. Well good for him, I can show you 100 bumpers that line up perfectly! I don’t need to be lied to. So they try to “fix it” by drilling out the mounting holes on the fenders so they can slide it back to try to close the gaps. I pick it up later that night and it is too dark to check it out and they have already left for the evening. Well when it is light out I notice that now it is slid too far back and still not lined up at all. Also during this time I have noticed how poor that paint job is. The orange peel on the fender and hood is just ridiculous. Also there is trash all in the hood. I also had asked them to take care of the trash in the hood along with some rough spots on the edge of the hood and a run that was approximately 4-5 inches long on the underside of the hood (I paid extra to have the underside done as well) They took care of the run and somewhat smoothed the edge of the hood but there is still a lot of trash in the hood and what looked like faded or burn marks from where they tried to get some of the trash out of the hood. Well I went back up there tonight to ask them to fix my bumper again. After they got it “decent” and “as good as its gonna get” (still not lined up at all and has a run on the edge of it a couple inches long where it mounts up to the fender). After they “finished” the bumper I asked them to fix the faded/burned area and was told I need to take it to someone to have it buffed. Umm shouldn’t that be done by the body shop that is painting my car? I can tell they are getting pretty shitty with me when sarcastic remarks are being made to other people in the shop like “well he’s not happy with the gaps in the bumper”. Well would you be happy if you paid $450 for a brand new bumper and then a lot more money to have it painted only to have it damaged by the shop and then not taken care of? I don’t think so. After HALF the hood was buffed I asked if they would get the rest of the trash out of the hood. I was then fed more BS about there not being trash in the hood and I was only “seeing that because my car was under a light”??? I asked if the light was also what was making me feel the trash in my hood when I run my hand across it (the hood has a lot of bumps in it) Well he didn’t have an answer for that so that’s when I was told I needed to leave the shop because they had been more than fair to me…Yeah more then fair in taking my money and doing a half ass job on my car. Oh yeah, I was also told that my Roush bumper is a lot heaver than a regular GT bumper and that is another reason why it won’t line up right. Hey what do you know, some more BS. I’ve seen several Roush bumpers on GT’s and they don’t sag and fit poorly.

I’ve seen some really nice paint work come out of their shop so I know they can paint but I guess it just depends if they want to put the effort in it or not.

And before anybody asks the $5000 included $225 to install new axles and dif in my rear end, the $500 to have my head repaired and installed, about $800 in parts including my cam parts.

So around $3200-$3500 went to the body work and cost of fenders. I bought my front bumper and hood myself and is not included in the price. Wouldn’t’ you think that amount of money would get you some decent bodywork done? Well apparently not at Midwest.

Just wanted to make sure my experience was documented so no one else gets screwed over like I did. I will post this on the local forums I am on. Feel free to post elsewhere if you would like. Also there are plenty of people that have seen my car throughout this process and can corroborate my story from start to finish. I will post up some pics when I have a chance.

Feel free to discuss.

Well let me say first that I'm sorry to hear about your ordeal. That sucks! However it's not the first time we've heard similar stories. I hope they step up and fix it right for you.

Same song third verse, I will leave it at that. Wish we would have known could have steered you to more reputable establishments.

Sorry to hear that. Contact Bill at Unique. They did an absolute awesome job on mine. 439-4444.

This is what made me soo paranoid about finding the right person to paint my Roush bumper, but I dont have to worry about that now. I do have a brand new roush bumper and spoiler, if by chance you get them to buy you a new one and get it painted by someone else.

Such a sweet car, sorry to hear about this... Hope you get it resolved

Sorry to hear about your ordeal. I hope you get it sorted quickly. If I was paying that amount of money I would want it done "Right" as well.

im really sorry to hear that. theres a reason we dont associate ourselves that shop...

hopefully alls well now. if you need help with something or advice on local shops we're happy to fill you in. we've used just about every shop in town at one time or another. so we know who does good work and who doesnt.


EDIT: what kind of cam did you have them put in? 500 for a single valve job just sounds ridiculous.

I'd guess the $500 was for removal of the head, parts, valve job, re-install of the head. I'm assuming this is a modular two valve. Quite a bit of work involved to get the cylinder head off. I'm surprised it was just one bent valve. My guess is it bent from the timing chain/gears were put back wrong after the cam swap. Could be other things too I suppose but this would be the most common reason for valve damage.

Yea, have to agree, seen some of their work and not impressed. Their cars look awesome, but the work on customer cars not so much.

After paying that much, I would either have them fix it or have someone else look at it and see what can be done. Then you tell accent I wll have so and so fix it and I will send you the bill or you can fix it right now.

There is always legal action.....

If you truly believe that you did not receive what you paid for....and have the pictures and evidence to prove it....I would say you have a decent case in court.

I am not in any way saying you should....just throwing it out there as if it was any shop...not just Accent that I felt did not own up to their end of the agreement....I would get them to fix it one way or another.

I find all body shops to be hit and miss.I have used some high end paint shops(11000 for paint)and got crap.The next job they did was on a 55 chevy(8500) and it won best paint at the goodguys show in texas. Anyway hope you get things straighen out.They have done paint work for me and it has always been good.Good luck

After they treated you like that telling you they have been more than fair, I dang sure wouldn't leave it with them even if they did agree to fix it. There's no telling what they might do to it once you leave it with em. Places/ people like that just make me sick. Sorry you're having so much trouble. I would take it somewhere else to get fixed and take them to cort.

STLHRSE wrote:After they treated you like that telling you they have been more than fair, I dang sure wouldn't leave it with them even if they did agree to fix it. There's no telling what they might do to it once you leave it with em. Places/ people like that just make me sick. Sorry you're having so much trouble. I would take it somewhere else to get fixed and take them to cort.

I had a car into Trinity when they open over on 91st. 9 months and 5 returns and it never was right, we also suspected them of driving the car around a little harder than need be. Of course you can get the mileage from the odometer but with necessary test drives that's hard to argue HOW their driving it. So before we took it back the last time we pulled a little trick, I hard wired a continuously hot c/l adapter in the trunk and hid and plugged my gps in on silent and left it on, reset it all to zero and waited to get the car back. 122 miles an hour was the top speed of these necessary "test drives". When i told the manager what I did and took the trunk apart in front of him, proving the mileage on it matched the drop off/pick up mileage on the car he had no choice but to pony up some dough. It was a 2003 Saab 9-3 Convertible Turbo. Made $5000 after the car was finished to keep it out of court. Oh, and the last time i got it back it was pristine.

Sorry to hear what has happen.

Well I use to build engines in the Marine Corp for 8 years, Rebuild engines at my current job of 4 years, rebuilt airplane engines at Spartan (airplane school), and I also install cams in my very own 2006 gt mustang twice. So you can say I have a little experience with an engine and tools. I think the valve was bent when using the valve spring compressor tool. Removing or trying to install the keepers. You just can't man handle small parts like that. I can back that up with my degree and diploma from Spartan and the Marine Corp.

mustangpapi76 wrote:Sorry to hear what has happen.

Well I use to build engines in the Marine Corp for 8 years, Rebuild engines at my current job of 4 years, rebuilt airplane engines at Spartan (airplane school), and I also install cams in my very own 2006 gt mustang twice. So you can say I have a little experience with an engine and tools. I think the valve was bent when using the valve spring compressor tool. Removing or trying to install the keepers. You just can't man handle small parts like that. I can back that up with my degree and diploma from Spartan and the Marine Corp.

i can tell you right now its really really hard to bend a valve unless you screw up big time....like not staking the keepers before you try to remove them. what usually happens is people nick the valve and then the valve fails several thousand hours later from stress concentrations. when im working on aircraft i throw out ANY valve with a nick i cant polish out, regulations on it are pretty strict. any nick longer then 1/32 of an inch is mandatory replacement.