Hey all, cross posting from another thread. Long story short, my car was backed into, the door was dented and the mirror was broken. It's been in the body shop for two weeks, and I've had a '12 Mercedes C250 as a loaner. I went to pick it up today...

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I went to pick up my car today! I got the call this afternoon, and hurried up there after work, thrilled to get back into my nimble little pride and joy. I inspected the drivers side and everything looked great. Then I start to look at the front, and the body shop guy mentions that I should have my bumper fixed.

Now, there's never been anything wrong with my bumper! I look and notice it IS sitting lower on one side! How have I never noticed this!?

Of course, I quickly realized there is no way this escaped my attention, as I am quite obsessive about the state of my car. I insisted it happened while they had it. I dug up pictures on my phone that I had taken recently showing the front end, all perfectly aligned. He was able to pull up some photos they took when they first got the car in the bay, and one fortunately did show the drivers side front, and there is no enormous gap... so he agreed that it must have happened on their property. He suggested someone must have banged into it when it was in the parking lot... a customer, probably.

"You're going to fix this for me, then."

He agreed they would, of course, fix it for no charge, and he said he would also pull the dent out of the nose on the hood and spray between the stripes to match it.

I'm worried about "internal" damage now, though. I didn't even think to pop the hood and inspect everything until I got home.

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Here's a picture of the damage. Any advice? I was planning on emailing my insurance agent and letting him know what's going on. I'd like them to cover the cost of an inspection at MINI to make sure nothing is ****ed up under the hood It could be my imagination, but when he started it up to pull out of the bay, I thought I heard a rattle.

 

That would make me very mad......I hope it's all okay. Seems like an inspection should be covered but, yu might need your insurance to deal with it for you. Good luck.

 

I am pretty annoyed about the whole situation. It took 2.5 weeks to get the car finished, because of all these hold-ups with the mirror motor, wiring, and so on. And then this! I got in touch with my insurance agent via email, I told him I wanted them or their preferred body shop to pay for an inspection, we'll see. Hopefully they'll do the right thing. If not, I'll have to pay out of pocket for the inspection and go after them for any issues that are found

At least the loaner is nice!

 

FYI I would check to be sure the hood was fully closed... From my experience people not familiar with MINI's don't know when the hood closes, the left kinda stays up if you don't get it closed right.

Just from looking at your picture..

 

Oh geez, you're right, that could be it! Thank you! I wonder if they will still fix the hood for me. Someone else suggested they may have removed the bumper and just not replaced it correctly.

 

Ditto the hood closing. Last time I got my coupe out of the dealer shop, I got home to find the hood wasn't closed on the left side. I guess even those experienced with Mini's miss it sometimes...

 

+1 (but it's a bonnet! ) That was my first thought looking at the pic.

 

Well, i called and checked.. No luck, its not just the bonnet! The bumper is hanging low, looks like it was hit somehow.

 

Eric's right... Bonnet... Sorry about your baby.. Hope they fix it up right this time.

Good luck

 

Hopefully a final update... It was the bonnet latch after all. They are still going to pay for a local PDR guy to pull the dent out of the nose, so it looks like a happy ending :-)

 

Yeah! Always best to check the simple stuff first. Much better than dealing with more prep/paint/screwups...

 

Definitely! I'm glad they're still going to pay to have that unrelated dent removed, so here's a plug for Craftsman Collision in Victoria!

The car seems to drive and sound normal, although it feels terribly unrefined and the steering feels VERY heavy after being in that Mercedes loaner for three weeks!

 

I love Victoria. We don't get up there enough. Nice looking MINI.

Val

 

Glad you got your car fixed. I understand how you feel. My Coupe got dinged and it took 3.5 weeks to get it back. But it's perfect so I'm a happy camper.