Jump to content
SAU Community

Recommended Posts

  • Replies 59
  • Created
  • Last Reply

Top Posters In This Topic

I will want some work done down the line to fix the minor ding in my door and respray thew front bar after having a little incident with a little roo. Can anyone recommend a good panel repairer/ spray shop in canberra?

I had some minor work done from a certain just car certified repairer and only recently the rear window seal (which was R&R) has come away and I have been advised by a couple of mechanics i trust that this most likely occurred during R&R. I also now have a rattle in the back over bumps (may be unrelated). The rest of the work looked great mind you.

Yesterday I found some rubber grommets/spacer type things sitting at the bottom of a 2 inches deep puddle of water they managed to put in my boot (worked on it in the rain?). I expect this has everything to do with my noises.

Suggest you go speak to Professional Panel and Paint (on the same road as Toy World in Fyshwick but on the other side), or Tony Farrugia. I got a very good impression from Pro P & P when I spoke to them and will most likely go there or Farrugia if I ever plump for a full repaint. Look up Farrugia/Farugia (some spell it differently) on here and it's all glowing comments.

In keeping with not poo-poo'ing anyone directly on here, I think maybe we should start up feedback threads for individual local services. Of course, we'd stick to the "if you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything at all" policy within each thread, but we could also have a single "don't go here" thread for ppl to vent without naming names. If you read a horror story on there and wanna know who did what, simply PM the person/people who posted their story. There will ALWAYS be some negative comments about every business, but I think this could be useful to avoid certain local businesses who have gained poor reputation through repeated bad dealings with multiple punters on here, and it would also strengthen the name of the businesses that deserve it!

Maybe we could have a list like a trader rating system for each company, like Trogen (8/10) Croydon (3/10) with comments. As said every business has a bad experiace with one customer, but the rating system would not allow a single business bad rep from only one reply.

I haven't found a place I'm 100% impressed with but at least Trogan do their best.

OK, so AAMI told me the next place to take the car: anyone had a GOOD experience with Jim Kershaw in Mitchell? I've PM'ed race_snooze who apparently had a bad experience. Hopefully someone else has had good luck with them before though. Either way, the repairs will have a lifetime garantee through JCI.

Funny thing is, their first choice was Precision Panels, but apparently they are too busy. I've heard some dodgy-ass stuff about Precision. They did an OK job on my civic but forgot to reconnect the rear wiper jet. How do u reckon they pick em?!.... names out of a hat? :)

Edited by sl33py

Cos I've heard bad stories about Precision too anyway. Plus, they've "instructed" me to go to Kershaws. I told them on the phone I'd heard bad stuff about Precision and they said I had to take it to whoever they picked next and if it's a problem afterwards then they'll deal with it. Since I don't get a choice, if there's a problem I'll just throw it back at them. No skin off my back other than wasting my time (which is the same as if I just waited for some repairer in particular, this should have been fixed 2 weeks ago).

And to confirm that my car is well and truly cursed, my turbo just blew on the way home during perfectly normal/nice driving :P I hobbled it straight over to Trojan rather than getting home and not being able to move it again (cos I thought it was gearbox related). I'm going to the coast to try and forget about it, and going to John/Trojan about a replacement on Monday.

... Probably a GTRS or 2835.

That's why i will never go with your insurer. With Shannons, you pick the repairer and the work is still guaranteed for life. Just think how much hassles and headaches you would have saved yourself, if you were allowed to take it to your own choice of panel shop.

Anyway...

Hope all goes well with this 2nd shop. Nothing more frustrating that "professionals" that can't do their job.

I asked Shannons before anyone else when I bought the car, but they wouldn't talk to me cos the car isn't garaged.

Thanks, gotta put a turbo in before it can even be moved though :) I don't expect I'll see it back before next year.

  • 3 weeks later...
  • 2 months later...

I've been without the car since end of November and I'm going ceeerrrraazzzy waiting. Most parts are at the mechanics, just waiting on oil cooler from Japan and a few other local bits and bobs (see sig). I know this is a useless post, but FAR OUT I'm bored without it. Missed all the good summer weeks for late cruising, and every time I want to duck off somewhere during the working day, I go " ! Dammit..." when I realise I can't.

Have noticed that being without your own car makes you notice others a lot more though, I see 3-4 lines every day. Brother cracked a joke yesterday when I saw one: "didn't you used to have one of those?" :D

The fact I've only driven gf's 07 Swift a handful of times will make getting back into mine is going to be a little nuts. Also sucks that the rear end has to be sorted shortly after the car rolls of it's own volition.

What's the longest others have gone without their cars? What did you do to pass the time?

I've been without the car since end of November and I'm going ceeerrrraazzzy waiting. Most parts are at the mechanics, just waiting on oil cooler from Japan and a few other local bits and bobs (see sig). I know this is a useless post, but FAR OUT I'm bored without it. Missed all the good summer weeks for late cruising, and every time I want to duck off somewhere during the working day, I go " ! Dammit..." when I realise I can't.

Have noticed that being without your own car makes you notice others a lot more though, I see 3-4 lines every day. Brother cracked a joke yesterday when I saw one: "didn't you used to have one of those?" :dry:

The fact I've only driven gf's 07 Swift a handful of times will make getting back into mine is going to be a little nuts. Also sucks that the rear end has to be sorted shortly after the car rolls of it's own volition.

What's the longest others have gone without their cars? What did you do to pass the time?

Was once without my car for about 6 weeks or so. But it was only fwd lol. My advice dont crash your car in late November, December or January.

Having been without mine for 3 months (Feb-April) when we did the engine conversion in 2005, then sitting at Inline for a month in October 2005, and then being without it for 3 months again last year when the engine blew last January makes me know EXACTLY how you feel :dry:

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now



  • Latest Posts

    • Update 3: Hi all It's been a while. Quite a lot of things happened in the meantime, among other things the car is (almost) back together and ready to be started again. Things that I fixed or changed: Full turbo removal, fitting back the OEM turbo oil hardlines. Had to do quite a bit of research and parts shopping to get every last piece that I need and make it work with the GT2860 turbos, but it does work and is not hard to do. Proves that the previous owner(s) just did not want to. While I was there I set the preload for the wastegates to 0,9bar to hopefully make it easier for the tuner to hit the 370hp I need for the legal inspections that will follow later on. Boost can always go up if necessary. Fitted a AN10 line from the catch can to the intake hose to make the catchcan and hopefully the cam covers a slight vacuum to have less restrictive oil returns from the head and not have mud build up as harshly in the lines and catch can. Removed the entire front interior just shy of the dashboard itself to clean up some of the absolutely horrendous wiring, (hopefully) fix the bumpy tacho and put in LED bulbs while I was there. Also put in bulbs where there was none before, like the airbag one. I also used that chance to remove the LED rpm gauge on the steering column, which was also wired in absolute horror show fashion. Moved the 4in1 Prosport gauge from sitting in front of the OEM oil pressure gauge to the center console vents, I used a 3D printed vent piece to hold that gauge there. The HKB steering wheel boss was likely on incorrectly as I sometimes noticed the indicator reset being uneven for left vs. right. In the meantime also installed an airbag delete resistor, as one should. Installed Cube Speed premium short shifter. Feels pretty nice, hope it'll work great too when I actually get to drive. Also put on a fancy Dragon Ball shift knob, cause why not. My buddy was kind enough to weld the rust hole in the back, it was basically rusted through in the lowermost corner of the passenger side trunk area where the wheel arch, trunk panel and rear quarter all meet. Obviously there is still a lot of crustiness in various areas but as long as it's not rusted out I'll just treat and isolate the corrosion and pretend it's not there. Also had to put down a new ground wire for the rear subframe as the original one was BARELY there. Probably a bit controversial depending on who you ask about this... but I ended up just covering the crack in the side of the engine block, the one above the oil feed, with JB Weld. I used a generous amount and roughed up the whole area with a Dremel before, so I hope this will hold the coolant where it should be for the foreseeable future. Did a cam cover gasket job as the half moons were a bit leaky, and there too one could see the people who worked on this car before me were absolute tools. The same half moons were probably used like 3 times without even cleaning the old RTV off. Dremeled out the inside of the flange where the turbine housing mates onto the exhaust manifolds so the diameter matches, as the OEM exhaust manifolds are even narrower than the turbine housings as we all know. Even if this doesn't do much, I had them out anyways, so can't harm. Ideally one would port-match both the turbo and the manifold to the gasket size but I really didn't feel up to disassembling the turbine housings. Wrapped turbo outlet dumps in heat wrap band. Will do the frontpipe again as well as now the oil leak which promted me to tear apart half the engine in the first place is hopefully fixed. Fitted an ATI super damper to get rid of the worn old harmonic balancer. Surely one of the easiest and most worth to do mods. But torquing that ARP bolt to spec was a bitch without being able to lock the flywheel. Did some minor adjustments in the ECU tables to change some things I didn't like, like the launch control that was ALWAYS active. Treated rusty spots and surface corrosion on places I could get to and on many spots under the car, not pretty or ideal but good enough for now. Removed the N1 rear spats and the carbon surrounding for the tailpipe to put them back on with new adhesive as the old one was lifting in many spots, not pretty. Took out the passenger rear lamp housing... what do you know. Amateur work screwed me again here as they were glued in hard and removing it took a lot of force, so I broke one of the housing bolts off. And when removing the adhesive from the chassis the paint came right off too. Thankfully all the damaged area won't be visible later, but whoever did the very limited bodywork on this car needs to have their limbs chopped off piece by piece.   Quite a list if I do say so myself, but a lot of time was spent just discovering new shit that is wrong with the car and finding a solution or parts to fix it. My last problem that I now have the headache of dealing with is that the exhaust studs on the turbo outlets are M10x1.25 threaded, but the previous owner already put on regular M10 nuts so the threads are... weird. I only found this out the hard way. So now I will just try if I can in any way fit the front pipe regardless, if not I'll have to redo the studs with the turbos installed. Lesson learned for the future: Redo ALL studs you put your hands on, especially if they are old and the previous owners were inept maniacs. Thanks for reading if you did, will update when the engine runs again. Hope nothing breaks or leaks and I can do a test drive.
    • No those pads are DBA too  but they have colors too. I look at the and imo the green "street" are the best.
    • I’m not sure what happened I told them about sonic tunes free OTS tune and the next the I know .. I was booted..   To funny 
    • Yea - I mean I've seen my fuel pump which is decades old and uh, while I'm not saying this with real knowledge... but I sure get the ick at using anything in the fuel system that produced the state of that pump. Many years ago I went through multiple pumps (and strainers) before I dropped the tank to clean it out with extreme violence. I'm talking the car would do maybe 50km before coming to a halt, which resulted in me cleaning out the filter with some brake cleaner and going on my way. None of my stuff ever looked like what came out of your fuel tank. I don't think I'd be happy with it unless every single component was replaced (or at least checked/cleaned/confirmed to be clean here).
×
×
  • Create New...