HARBOR BODY SHOP

Having work done at this shop can only be described as a bumpy ride, with one delay and lie after another right up to the very end.  The final paint job on the area that needed repair was of poor quality, with a general orange-peeled appearance, some bubbles in the paint and some debris under the paint.  After we'd inspected the car, they got primer on the shift knob and areas around the rear hatch while pulling the car out of the shop and opening the hatch to show us the spare tire and jack had been reinstalled.  The primer was something not present during our inspection of their work, so we think the owner had primer on the heel of one of his hands when he pulled the car out of the shop for us to drive away.  They didn't use the direct replacement part that they'd claimed they'd already received and were using for repair of a damaged tail pipe, instead replacing both tail pipes (including the undamaged one) with alternate different looking parts without our authorization.  Their excuse for this was they couldn't find the part.  This is a concern since the car is reaching vintage status- they removed and replaced vintage parts with what looked to us like auto store specials.  They were very pleasant and polite most of the time, but we couldn't get a straight story out of them as to how long the repair would take or when we could have the car back, and the end result didn't justify the time delays, etc.  We went to this shop because they are on our insurance company's list of those approved to do both repair estimates and the necessary work, but won't ever go back to them, and the experience was so unsettling we'll probably never use another similarly vetted shop.  Even at the very end, although we'd been told at 4:45 p.m. they were done working on the car and we could pick it up just after 5 (they were supposedly in the process of washing it and would be done in 5 to 10 minutes), when we arrived at 5:30 they still had the car up on a rack and were welding on the unauthorized tailpipes.  They took two weeks to do what was promised in three days to one week, and repeatedly lied to us as to the status of the repair.  In the end, we only signed the paperwork and accepted the job they did in order to get the car out of their hands and into better ones- we were afraid if we left it for them to fix they'd remove more undamaged vintage parts and still muck up the paint job.     And we honestly don't think they understand it wasn't up to them to decide if it was acceptable to put totally different items on the car without asking first, etc.- I think they actually think they did us a favor.  We won't go back.  We absolutely don't recommend this shop.