Service King Collision Repair of South Auburn

While my experience with this location was rough at best, I have to give it to the company as a whole. They sent me a check to reimburse me for the rental car! I really appreciate the fact they acknowledged there was a problem and went above and beyond to make it right. I am very impressed with the way the HQ came to my rescue.

this place sucks! I totally forgot to check Unilocal reviews before I said OK to my insurance to take my car into thorough-​suck! Don’t know why this was the first choice for my insurance. Anyhow, my passenger front side was hit and damaged pretty bad. so they were quick and friendly at first when taking my car in because they wanted my money. took about a week to fix, which was pretty fast. here comes the nightmare, when I went to pick up my car, somehow from the hit, the passenger door wouldn’t open anymore from the outside. I complained and they said it had nothing to do with the accident. I argued that it was the accident that caused it, but there was no way for me to prove it. So I said screw it, I can fix it myself. Then later on that night I turned on my headlights and comes to find out that my passenger side head light is out! next day I also realized that my alarm doesn’t beep anymore when I press lock on my remote (I like the beep because it assures me that the car is lock even if I don’t see the car, I can hear it). my wife took the car back and they fixed my head light but didn’t fix my alarm beep because they said it had nothing to do with the accident. Ive been calling and leaving messages for a week now and no call backs from thoroughbred adjuster guy. So i gave up and contacted my insurance. so lets see what happens next. This place is very unprofessional. I highly do not recommend. always read reviews first before taking your car into a shop. I’ve learned my lesson.

My ratings are based on my personal feelings and impression, not representative of the quality of actual vehicle repair. I agreed to take my car here for repairs after my insurance convinced me (this is their preferred shop). I had never been here before so when I got there, it was not what I expected. Perhaps it’s because I’m from a small town and I’m used to talking with an owner directly and be able to see the shop and speak with the workers with only a few cars inside… or not. Here is an Idea of what this shop is like for those who have never been here… I know I wish I would have known this first.
This place is huge. It’s like a giant warehouse! What you see when you walk in is a giant lobby with a receptionist, surrounded by offices, with a lounge section containing a TV and couches. Sure, all very clean, the receptionist was very nice. However, this is the type of place where you can’t get a straight answer and get the run around because you can never find the person with whom you want to speak directly. I never got to see the bays, but the way I imagine them is lined with countless cars while the mechanics and repair guys work their little butts off to meet deadlines, likely missing small details about these cars that leave thm less than perfect. They were also very busy it seemed. My car sat there outside along with a line of other apparently broken vehicles.
I did not feel that my car would have gotten the attention it deserved, that every car does, when being repaired back to like-​new. I ended up paying out of pocket to tow my car to a small shop where the owner was the one always communicating with me with straight forward answers.
With a place as large as this… it’s there to make the largest profit, not quality.

This location was a nightmare. Just a good old fashioned stress inducing nightmare. My car was hit by a drunk driver, and I took it to them to get repaired after my insurance company «guided» me to a «preferred» body shop (Thoroughbred). I get the car in and all seems good. The staff, initially, is helpful and appears genuine enough. But, upon getting my car back things weren’t right. They didn’t replace the lower weatherstripping that was removed during the collision (though they billed my insurance for it), they couldn’t get upper weatherstripping to align on the new door and it literally fell off after 7 days, and they somehow had a half inch gap between the fender and the door. In addition, at about the 2 month mark the clear coating began peeling and quickly spread. Thoroughbred fixed the weatherstripping issues on the first go around. However, they tried endlessly to fix the gap between the bumper/​fender/​door. They’d «fix» one end only to move the gap to the fender and bumper. And then I’d say that’s not okay, so they’d readjust it and move the gap back to where it originally was. This happened about 4 times and I my patience was getting tested. So was Paul’s (the THEN Thoroughbred manager). He didn’t want to deal with it anymore, despite toting a «Lifetime Warranty» and promising quality workmanship. He didn’t return a handful of calls, and I’d actually go down to the shop and he was always at «lunch», regardless if it were 10AM or 2PM.
So, on the last attempt to fix the gap between fenders, Paul had the fender moved so close to the door that you could not open the door without it catching on the fender, causing it to buckle slightly with each opening or closing of the door. About an inch of paint was taken off the door and the fender from where they connected, and additionally, by this time the paint was bubbling up on the door in 3 places. And this was all within approx. 6 months of their «Lifetime» work. You can imagine how I was concerned that if this much was failing by half year… how would it look in a year? 2 years?
Coupled with Paul’s refusal to talk with me anymore, and his shop’s work on my car failing, I went back to my insurance company and told them the story. They said I was free to take it to another shop and have it repaired properly and have Thoroughbred billed. Which is what I ended up doing.
The new shop discovered the culprit for the gaps on the first write up (which Thoroughbred was incapable of doing after having it in their shop close to half a dozen times): Thoroughbred put the wrong year model fender on my car. D’oh! I had a 1996 Camaro, and they were ordering 2000 model parts. The fender was shortened a bit in 1998 when the front end was redesigned for the Camaro. They didn’t catch this, it didn’t red flag them that they were ordering used parts for a 4 model year newer vehicle. The new shop ordered a CORRECT 1996 fender, repainted my door and fender and bumper, repaired the failed clear coating, and billed Thoroughbred for it.
As you can guess, this long snowball of poor workmanship, oversights, and Thoroughbred’s insults and child like games of «out to lunch» cards and ignoring messages means I’ll never, ever, never use them or any of their sister stores again. Kirmac included. I’d steer clear of this place. Don’t let the marble floors and decorative lobby fool you, they’re mediocre on a good day. But if you insist on using them… invest in some Excedrin.

Thoroughbred Collision replaced my driver side mirror with no problems. I took my car in for an estimate on a Tuesday, and they had the part in by Friday. They replaced it on my lunch break and even washed my car. I only had minor work done, but I was pleased with their service and pricing.