My experience with Lastchance Auto Restore

[montaggio]

My wife and I have owned a 1968 beetle convertible for about 17 years. I spent the first roughly 10 years trying to pick away at restoring Gertrude, but the realities of life, job transfers and other priorities got in the way and it lingered on.

About this time in 2011, I finally decided to get some help and took the car to John Nizman at lastchanceautorestore.com. Things moved not too badly for awhile, with John doing some extensive metal work to a good standard in my opinion. We lingered a bit while we fussed colour, but eventually it got painted.

Then things started to move very slowly. He had other priorities apparently to finish other’s cars ahead of my own. I pushed, but deadlines essentially came and passed.

I was in contact with a couple of other owners who had similar frustrations.

I finally had to pull the plug when I stopped by the site and found that the car was basically being manhandled to completion, causing more damage that eventually would have to be fixed.

Essentially I now have a car that I have paid all costs to get to this point. I now have to pay to reverse a bunch of work, fix the damage that was done and then move forward to completion. To that extent I have contracted The Guild to help me out.

My experience and that of others who I have talked to with projects there is as follows:

1. They don’t respond to emails - you have to call and even then you get a bit of song and dance
2. They don’t have a contract in place (my bad) that you can fall back on
3. When another lucrative option like a corporate customer presents itself, your car goes to the bottom of the priority list
4. I have yet to receive a reconciliation as to where my money has gone - they don’t provide regular invoices or status updates
5. I still don’t have all of my parts returned, including new parts that I had drop shipped - disorganization in managing inventory has apparently hampered them, despite the assurance that they inventory all parts (at my cost)
6. They provide a lot of excuses about personnel issues - which sounds a lot like they are making their problem my problem.
7. They don’t take responsibility for the admitted sub par work - ie: I shouldn’t expect a rebate for the work that was done that now must be redone, even though they recognze that it was sub par. Not that I could likely quantify that because they don’t provide progress invoices.

I think they have the capability to do good work, but their disorganization, coupled with their trying to grow too quickly with inexperienced trades people results in a frustrating experience.

7 years later, I still don’t have a completed car. To me, 7 years for a frame off restoration from a competent shop is way beyond what one should expect. Decide for yourself, but I regret having entrusted the project to them.

[Zar]

You should post this in the "Buyer and Seller Feedback" forum
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1968 Beetle 1600 SP

[montaggio]

Good suggestion - that’s more appropriate. Thanks.

[Glenn]