Serious discussion only, Long story ahead.

Here's the story.

My car's a Proton Saga 1.5i 1990, as you know this car is prone to rust on the roof. When the rust gets really bad and even end up penetrating the roof itself causing internal water leaks in my car when it rains. I decided to send in for a respray.

A little back story, about how I found this Respray shop,

This is more onto business relationship term level :
The shop runs by 2 brothers, previously was handled by his elder brother, which he who turned out to be a very reputable shop located in OUG with lots of expensive cars sent to him, so I decided to give it a try by sending few of my cars to touch up damaged parts, turns out the result exceeds expectations, we end up great friends on business scale, his shop has a valid SSM License and he's very careful in dealing with the customer's cars at upmost care.

Until the day he decided to retire and announced he will pass down business ownership to his younger brother to handle,
I did question him about providing a rest assurance on the quality service outcome since he is no longer in charge, he says there will be no issues since both of them worked in this field for a very long time.


Now here's the real problem starts :-
The shop's now operated by a "new owner", he decided to move the shop to an industry area located in OUG, it's quite hidden and only a number of returning customers will be notified where his shop will be located since it's cheaper rent there.

During my send-in, he quoted me based on the "roof skin replacement" due to rust + full body Nippon 2k spray including inner spray on some parts totaling up to RM 5000. As he also told he needs 4 months to complete the job without being rushed to have it looked like new.
I asked him why it needs to be that long? He said because he will be handling the car personally with absolute care without letting his workers do.

I went ahead and accept the quote, the car gets sent in. Once in awhile, I asked for updates, but I rarely able to be notified of any.

The car was sent in since 17th September 2024, ends up completing on the week before Chinese New Year 2025 (It was like 27th January 2025)
Upon collecting the car before I accept the outcome.

The end result ? A fuckin disappointment :
If I had to list a few :
- Fabric seats are stained with black silicone, marks of the welding sparks punctured hole on my seats (They did not cover the seat before starting the job)
- Paint stain found on my fabric seats and Center console
- Misaligned bumper like unfinished job
- More white paint stains on the bumper like a rushed job
- Missing emblems and missing mudflap.
- Broke my passenger auto side mirror but decided to replace with manual mirror cheap replacement, not on my watch.
- Misaligned door gap.
- Pop the hood, found the A/C heat dissipation pipe gets sprayed on, even the battery copper head gets spray on as well.

The entire outcome result sounds like a last minute rushed job although given 4 months of complete time without rushing him even once.

At first I refused to pay him and ask him to compensate on the damage as the interiors are no longer replaceable unless you buy a donor car,
he refused to think about it and ask me to settle the payment first then we can discuss on the compensation part later after Chinese New Year.
He even says if I don't complete the payment now, I'm not allowed to take away my car and my car will be the only one left as he will not be liable if there's any damage or missing parts by storing the car in his yard.

I questioned him further if it was done by his own hands, how come the car was handled this bad?
He then end up saying it was being worked on by one of his foreign worker, but he end up terminating the worker on the spot due to this issue.

I told him "terminating your worker for poor workmanship is your own issue, now my car's damaged. I want to be compensated". This workmanship does not even worth RM 5000.

I walked around his shop, and found no SSM displayed. Just so you know there’s a KKM ambulance in there being sent in for knocking as well.

I end up paying the full amount and took my car away, driving with nothing but disappointment.


Now for the real question :-
- Can you file a consumer tribunal to get refunded / compensated due to poor quality workmanship if the shop found does not have SSM registered. The money was paid to his direct personal account. I have kept the receipts with me.

I thought of taking this step if he refuses to cooperate and compensate the damages.

Advises are welcomed.

Thanks!

If you are dissatisfied with the quality of work, of course you can initiate legal recourse if both cannot come to mutual settlement.

If you have photos of before and after, then it makes the person hearing your case easier. Otherwise is your words against the workshop.

I don't think a full refund is fair because work had been done albeit not to your satisfaction, but some compensation for poor service.

This post has been edited by mini orchard: Mar 20 2025, 07:53 PM

Sounds fair enough, a compensation of a certain percentage is still better than zero, yes I do have the photos before I send and after I send.

I did bring up and ask him "Either you settle with RM 1000, or we settle this in consumer tribunal."

Do note that winning a legal case doesn't mean that you will be paid.

If the defendant don't pay the judgement sum, you need to go through another legal round to enforce the judgement which the cost may exceed the judgement sum.

At this point u need to ask yourself what u want from him.

Based on my personal experience victim just want the PIC to admit wrongdoing first n foremost.

Then we come to another set of problem. What outcome do u want after the admission of wrobgdoing.

Most owners will absolutely refuse to adnit because to them it will lead to more demands. Since they going to crash into a brick wall either way, might as well just go full retard and deny the problem kaw kaw.

My 2cent here. Very likely owner fucked up a lot of cars, he has to shift to "hidden" place because.... he is in hiding. Lol. He only informed "selected" customer of his new location. And those selected ppl are those that easy to bully like TS.

Big red flag is when the business moved from prominent area to run down area. Means there is a disagreement between brothers or the younger brother not running the business well enough making it loosing money.

Anyway why in hell did you spend RM5000 to fix a damn 90s' Saga roof? Insane that you are willing to pay that much that is worth more than the car itself. I would draw the line at RM1500.

5k for a roof.... An old saga roof.

Sell the 35 year old car.. Now on market also less than 2.9k

🤔

Boss really found water fish.

This post has been edited by gashout: Mar 21 2025, 06:02 PM

No SSM meanimg running illegally? Time to report to LHDN bro

Read again, it's roof skin replacement due to rust + full body Nippon 2k spray including inner spray on some parts totaling up to RM 5000, which he also claims to reinforce rust prevention

There's a lot of reasons why I chose to keep the car, to many, "It's just a Saga"

To me, it's more than Saga, you can call it "It's a car that passed down since the first owner" which is from my own family, this car left a lot of memories in it.

Still would not pay RM5K for it. It makes no sense. If you intend to enter some contest with this car, i would not debate as people have been known to drop RM20K to mod a Saga for auto shows.

But RM5000 for just roof work and spray job? Did you even factor how much that car is worth in todays market? C'mon man....

"How much that car is worth in todays market" - Maybe the car has no value to you. Not everyone's you just to dispose and pick a cheap random one off the market.

If I'm willing to pay this much to restore the car. The car itself holds memories of my family.

Since the car's single handedly well taken care of in the family serving for decades since new. I don't see a need to get rid of it. The RV of this car does not apply to me.

And no, there will be no plans to throw rubbish mods into the car. There will always be a competition with "Bone Stock" category, which depends if I would enroll myself into it, otherwise I'll just drive on the streets as usual.

This post has been edited by adamfoo90: Mar 22 2025, 04:42 PM

im sure it's very valuable to you, hence, he has the upper hand and you need to do whatever he says...

but at some point in life, maybe keep a small valuable which is sufficient. like a chain watch or a ring, that doesn't require high maintenance.

The original car paint stayed for 3 decades before decided to send in for it's first respray.

Not to brag, but after 3 decades, dropping first RM 5000 for a shop of any kind willing to restore it back, I willing to go for it, but not a shop like this though.

keeping an antique car, always best to know someone who can do a good work.

sometimes we meet unfortunate people... , your car will need constant maintenance, continue search for good people in the industry

Friend. 1990 Saga...mind as well park it some where and abandon it lah.

I got a lot of friends doing body shop, and they dread receiving clients like you that send 20 year old cars for repair. Why? Because those people just leave their cars there never come back, become abandoned cars.

Even service centers dread receiving old rust bucket cars, just visit some you can see some joker customer abandoned their cars there.

i've got a factory worker last time driving a similar like yours. His rust bucket was so bad, that he had several rusty holes on his roof. What he did? He just took masking tape and taped over it. It worked !

All due respect sir, you have to move on.

When you paid that RM5,000 which means you are agreed with the service rendered.
You can't go back and complain everything.

It's like you finish paying for you meal, then next day you come back tell the restaurant the food was not good yesterday and need refund.
Life is full of dicks and we all need to stick with it.

I repaint my W211 last year, paint workshop did a lot stupid things, break my bonnet hinge, lost my model emblem at rear end
My carpet was dirty as fuck...etc, but the paint is nice though. Just move on and leave those stupid shit behind my life.

To me, I think TS feeling the RM5k spent are not worth a penny, actually it doesnt seems a good deal to begin with, and that's what you feel right now.
Move on. Money can be earn back, spend something wisely next time.



This post has been edited by submergedx: Mar 23 2025, 10:01 AM

I believe the main concern is not because of the money, but the "氣“ cannot be telan

It's about money bro, let's say if TS get discount RM500, probably the anger maybe will gone?
We all have shit experience in our life, just move on if you had already paid it.

The most TS can do are leave fantastic review at the Google map

OWAI

TS can use the RM500 to have the faults rectified with another shop .... no ?

I believe it is not the monetary lah. it is about the money paid is not worth for the price and work done

so the qi tak boleh ditelan and want to 出氣 because he was get “bei wan pan” (di main bodoh)

even the shop offered for free, i believe TS also doesnt want because the time spent and going to have another round to repair the shit again

This post has been edited by GalaxyV: Mar 23 2025, 10:51 AM