He said he didn’t want to give me a refund straight away if I was then going to keep the PPF on the car. At this point I didn’t know there were any score marks. I just thought it was a bit of a crappy install with debris and was satisfied with the agreed refund.
OK i see that, but it just says to me that they are keen to remove the evidence of total incompetence, and i bet you are keen to get rid of the job in any case.
I feel sorry for you that they have placed you in the position you are in, and i understand your reluctance to name them pending a refund, but if it was me…
Not the best start for a lovely new car like that. Hope it’s put right soon.
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You have a legal right to expect the service from the trader to be carried out with reasonable care and skill.
The consumers good act 2015 will cover you regarding this. Look at the invoice and you can even highlight all the discrepancies.
Ideally if the trader can agree to remove and put back with open dialog then this would be my first approach. I would also follow up with an email with everything discussed.
Good luck.
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Very sorry you have found yourself in this position, through no fault of your own.
Very disappointing, and I hope that when you get the matter resolved ( and you will), that you can put this all behind you and get on with enjoying your wonderful new car.
Things can only get better.
Good luck- DC
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You are absolutely right. There have been many times I wish I had the facilities and tools to do stuff myself, especially on cars. Woe betide you if you should have the temerity to criticise the work of some of these so called “professionals” though.
A friend of mine of mine broke down in his Alpine A110 the other day due to total loss of engine coolant. The dealer where he had it serviced had not put the coolant reservoir cap back on properly and it was ejected along with his coolant 
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A coolant reservoir cap for an Alpine A110…i bet that aint cheap! 
It’s probably the same as the one on a 1995 Clio. If the box it comes in says Alpine it will be at least double the price though.
Many years ago I wanted a set of pedal rubbers for a Porsche 944. The helpful chap at the dealer parts counter offered me a choice. Did I want them in a Porsche box for £24 or a VW box for £8? They all had VW molded on the back.
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He bought two off Amazon for £7 each. He bought a spare just in case! I bet it would have cost a lot more from Renault/Alpine.
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I got my refund without any trouble. It’s a shame it left a few score marks in my clear coat around the front grill that can’t be removed with wet sanding and polishing.
The installer was Monsta Graphix. I’d heard good things about them. The local detailers recommended them (and since apologised when he saw my car afterwards). Even the bloke who did the work seemed like a good chap but sadly he either rushed the job or needs a more practice.
Hopefully my next installer will do a good job and I can put this lesson behind me and actually enjoy driving the car.
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Good that a bad job has been highlighted. It’s a deserved slap on the wrist for a job badly done and will keep the company honest. It’s one amongst many opinions. A lot more opinions will be on the big sites so it not a big deal for the company if we have a moan.
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Sadly it seems like I’ve been let down again. I had it booked in for the 25th to be redone. I messaged Thursday morning to ask when best to drop the car off because the 25th is a bank holiday. No reply. So I called Friday (yesterday) afternoon, no answer. Then I got a message saying they will need to move the dates because they have over run with two other ppf jobs. Fair enough. They said they would message back with some dates that evening. Well it’s Saturday morning and I’ve had no such message. More like the completely forgot me and booked someone else with a more expensive car.
Perhaps I’m just impatient but I’m running out of summer with a (was) brand new car stuck in my garage with half peeled back PPF and blade marks.
I’m half tempted to just peel it off and sell it in a year or two and take the financial hit just to reset and not look back.
This was supposed to be a positive thing. I picked the MX-5 for good reason and I would again but this whole situation has cost me big time in both stress and money.
(Rant over )
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As i said before, that company should be falling over themselves to put it right, and it really should not be costing you anything.
In your position, i would be issuing a county court summons. Pretty sure they won’t like that publicity and it might prompt them to do the right thing.
Someone above said it well, it’s a whole lot of faff to prevent some stone chips
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sell … and take the financial hit
You have your money back now (for the bad PPF). Alternative is to use that for professional remedial work (respray or whatever) later IF you get lots of stone chips AND you finally can’t live with the touch up of those that you do yourself.
There is so much potential for minor damage anyway if you actually use your car, I think it’s something you/one has to accept. Despite always being careful, I found there’s always that one time you get that door ding because some idiot parked next you you in an empty car park. Or someone runs into the back of you. Or reverses into you. Or some other misdemeanor. Or gawd forbid it gets keyed or the soft top slashed. There’s only so much you can do to mitigate against these things happening, & PPF only prevents some things.
Just like, say, the leather seats inside showing signs of use (e.g. MX-5 seats sag with ‘bum marks’) I think you have to focus on your love of driving a car and accepting it WILL inevitably show signs of use. Enthusiasts minimise/hide that where possible, but we have chosen MX5s in the first place knowing, for example, they’re prone to rust and have thin soft paint to start with. Even cars with harder and thicker paint get stone chips… At least a MX-5’s nose is plastic and the bonnet is aluminium, so not as bad as them being steel.
I drive mine even if there’s rain (though not salt) and do park it when out, rather than immediately returning to the safety of home. Sadly s**t happens, but I just enjoy driving it whenever possible 
.
I considered PPF, but decided rust proofing was more important. I think the car rotting is harder and more expensive to deal with than stone chip repair. Fortunately the one year old car I bought had had a £900 Dinitrol treatment already done. Time will tell…
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Excellent philosophy! 
OK i see that, but it just says to me that they are keen to remove the evidence of total incompetence
Maybe. But there’s also the side of it that they wouldn’t want to be giving the money back if a customer was actually ok with ‘minor’ defects and was trying to get the money back anyway. Customers can be unscrupulous too.
That said in this case they have indeed done a shocking job and should be not only repaying for the work done, but also remedial work/compensation. I guess that’s what one would be after if you went down the legal route. More hassle though 
I really hate to say this but as we approach the end of August and you have had this problem for longer than a month, I would remove the PPF and just drive it. Book it into a body shop over winter with good google reviews to sort it out for the price of PPF. I wouldn’t spend more money on PPF as I doubt it adds any value at resale. The car will be worth what the market dictates at the time, don’t keep it looking good for the next owner.
And stone chips or not it won’t matter, in fact, full service or no service history changes trade in by only about £600-£1000 anyway so its not exactly worth it even to service cars if you really think about it (as car enthusiasts we all do it though). Stone chips are sorted in a body shop before the car goes back out for sale so dealers don’t give a monkeys what it looks like, as long as it has no chips in the windscreen and the tyres are above 4mm and the mileage is average.
I know you have spent a lot of money on a nice car, but Just enjoy it and don’t worry about a couple of stone chips.
It’s not just cars. There’s a common approach by folk ‘like us’, I think, to try and extend the longevity of ANYTHING we ‘invest’ in.
There’s probably a medical condition that describes it 
.
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Personally, if i had taken my four year old car in there and paid £500 for a front end job, i would probably accept the odd minor defect, BUT, a brand new car and £1600 paid for multiple defects and blade scratches in brand new paint…i would have been screaming the place down, threatening legal action the same day and probably would not have left the place until i had got a satisfactory resolution. If the OP had gone in there with “All Guns Blazing” i think the outcome would have been much different.
The British attitude seems to be, “I’d rather not make a fuss” and that’s what some of these cowboy companies rely on.
The squeaky wheel gets the oil!
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Yes, as I said they did a shocking job.
The complication can also be if you’ve lost so much confidence in the place, you may not want them to get near the car again for remedial work. But I suspect they have a right to attempt to make it good.
Another thread… Mazda dealer put the wrong oil in my car. Mazda UK got involved and the dealer rang to say they would replace oil and filter. Fortunately I watched them do it. But I have lost confidence they will do anything right, so won’t be taking it there again.
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