A few weeks ago I took my car in to my mechanic for an oil change - I've been going to them for about 6 years and they always do a great job with EVERYTHING and are very careful with my car.

This time, I went to pick the car up and there was a small 'chip' on the driver's rear fender that went all the way down to the metal. It definitely wasn't there when I brought it in. I made a comment to the mechanic (owner) and he said "no problem, we'll get that fixed". I offered to pay for half, etc, he refused. At any rate, a few days later he had someone meet me at my office to do the work. One of my co-workers also needed some stuff done to his BMW (a dumpster rolled into it at the office, messed up the bumper pretty bad). At any rate, the guy proceeded to work on my car and the BMW. The BMW got done first and looked great. I later came up to check out my car, and apparently at that very moment he "caught" the buffer on the fender and burned the paint. He was pretty much done before that, meaning he had to start over completely. My car was DIRTY (which he said wasn't an issue) so I couldn't really see the results until I got it cleaned the next day (there was compound/whatever residue all over it, etc). Anyway, the following day my detailer came by and washed the car and I let him know the work had been done. Once he was done he came into the office and told me I needed to come out and look at my car, at which point I just said 'oh f**k'... I went out and looked at the car and the detailer showed me everything. I was pretty livid to say the least. The paint is pitted everywhere, the clearcoat doesn't cover the edge of the fender (it's actually 'sharp'); there's overspray on the driver's side rear door, and there's REALLY bad overspray on the side skirt.

I immediately brought the car back to my mechanic (since he is the one who contracted the other guy for the work); he took one look at it and said "are you f***ing kidding me?" and pretty much felt the same way I did, if not worse. He couldn't say or do anything to fix it right then but was extremely apologetic and said he has NEVER seen this guy do work like this (which figures, this stuff normally happens to me). So, I will be rescheduling with the guy for Monday to see if he can "fix it" again. I think the whole driver's side rear panel is going to have to be painted, along with a large part of the door (if not all), and the skirts either need to be clay-bared or sanded and painted again. I really don't know what to say. Basically, I should have known better than to try and get a small problem fixed "the right way" because in the end it always turns into a disaster.

[Blank stare]

The latter

I think you have to trade that car in.  You've had terrible luck ever since you got it.

I think a new FX with an aftermarket grill and colormatched side vents sounds good.  Wait a bit and you can avoid that first year gremlins issue and probably see some deep discounts as well.

abysmal gas mileage?  I thought it was just as good as my gas mileage

Get an EX, problem solved.


Sorry to hear about the car though, you've definitely had a bad string of luck lately.