DaveJ

I recently had a bad experience with a body shop in Mooresville with my GS. Can anyone recommend a good body shop in the Lake Norman or Charlotte area?

Thanks.

Alexus_300

iTrader: (4)

DaveGS4 gave me the contact info for a shop off of independence blvd. heading towards Indian trail called Collision Specialties. The owners name is Mark and he does great job. I've have alot of friends and myself have work there and the work is top notch.

DaveJ

Thanks Alexus_300. I'll have to give Collision Specialities a try.

Since I haven't had any auto body work done in years until now, I really am not sure what to expect for paint matching. Will Collision Specialities paint work match the original paint very, very close? Will the color, shading, etc. be noticable just upon a glance or only if you look carefully? The color of my GS is silver, which I was told is very difficult to match.

The color and shade matching on my GS's side rear bumper cover to rear panel is not very good. That's probably all I would Collision Specialities to do for now.

Thanks again.

Alexus_300

iTrader: (4)

Dave, from what I remember.. A member here named tom had his 2004 silver GS430 repainted numerous times at collision specialties and I've seen mark's work and it's very very good. He's painted a few of my friends BMW's and a honda S2k and it was very good. No overspray on the edges at all which is very hard to do.

DaveGS4

iTrader: (2)

I'd recommend getting your first bodyshop to 'make it right' if they screwed up and not paying for the work twice.

Mark is my primary bodyshop guy, let him know I sent you if you do go to him. His shop is a little hard to find, back behind Brothers Automotive and a Western shop, about .25 miles past Speedstyles on Independence down in Indian Trail.

Some colors of silver are hard to match - Mark painted the front of my wife's Seal Grey Porsche (she wanted to fill in ugly holes from license plate mounting) and even he had to do it twice to get it right. First time when we got it home and let it dry for a few weeks and were still noticing the difference, so we called and he repainted it to get the match perfect without any questions or complaints.

I also have heard very good things about Lauren just down the street on Independence from Hendrick Lexus at Import Paint and Body. Buddy of mine had his GT3 basically rebuilt there and it looked like new.

Much closer to you is a shop on Harris that my wife and I used (because it was so much closer) to do some bodyshop - not paint but welding and reinforcement - on a rip in the trunk of her track car where her tire trailer attaches. I haven't seen any paint from them but I liked both the guys we worked with and their professionalism and warranty. It'll be 45 minutes closer travel-wise each way than the other shops. I can track down their name if you want.