Originally Posted by
geargrinder
Here's the thing to know. If you want to go to the top-notch sexy specialist shops, they'll almost always charge you an overage fee per-hour over what your insurance will pay for, to cover for the fact that they are paying true specialist pros to take their time and do it right, and to deal w/ the fact that the insurance co's usually pay lousing hourly rates (and are happy for you to go to cheapy-Joe's-house-of-Bondo because its not their car, they just want to get out of it as cheap as possible). A good example of what a top-notch shop does 'extra' for instance with my M3 - recently I got a new hood and fenders redone at same time due to a tree-branch incident, and they made sure to paint the underside of hood in the same correct color code for the engine bay paint for the car, vs leaving it primer, or just shooting it with the top color etc. which is what a cheapy joint would do... In a way the ones who charge extra is a bit of a litmus test for who the best guys are, but, it sucks having to pay more of course if you can get insurance to pay for it and still get a quality job.
The other thing to be aware of is how well the shop works the insurance companies - if the repair needs more work or parts than the adjuster wrote up, will they work hard to get a supplement approved and argue with the insurance company about whats required to do it right vs knocking out the bare minimum hack job to get the car out the door and get paid.
Mike's Autobody in Malden. Do a lot of the higher end German cars - Porsche & M-cars & S/RS Audis etc. Do immaculate work. Well known and usually pretty booked out. They have another shop up in Burlington or someplace but the top notch guys and special projects all get done at the little place in Malden. I take my BMW's to Mike, did great job on the M3 recently. Do charge overage charges, which are higher for Porsche & M-cars cuz they only let the top guys work on those. If you use their Burlington shop they might do straight-insurance rate there, I dunno...
Anchor in Woburn. Used to do a lot of Audi work I know, we've taken the wife's car there several times (which obv is basically a VW 2.0T DSG GTI dressed up in an Audi costume...), really nice people, great service, super nice, they love my dog and claim if we don't bring her when we come to pickup, they won't give the car back. I think they'll do straight insurance-rate work but you'll need to check if they sometimes have a fee, I don't recall.
Used to be Dick's in Somerville but apparently they closed a couple years ago. That's a shame, they also did great work and were great w/ working the insurance company for you. I'm gonna guess the shut down because they could sell the shop for $10M dollars to build swanky Davis Sq condos on, the same way Metric Systems turned into a (great) craft brewery.
If you really want to drive far (and get spendy), Sublime Restorations up in SNH is premier. But you'll wait a long time. Both to get in and to get your car back. Aren't really enthused about insurance work, really are more about doing minty resto or project cars over the long term... For SURE a big overage charge, I suspect in some ways to ward off insurance work because they don't need it. But probably one of the very best shops in New England.
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