As you all know JohnWPB has suffered a bad deal from MAACO. John has ALWAYS been there for many of us to help and give. I would like now to turn the tables on him and help him get his dream car back on the road and in the condition he has worked so hard for.... This is a fund raiser to help John with lawyer fees so he can get MAACO to repay him for the damage done to his fiero .....
Please people give generously ... all those who have been helped by John NOW is the time to give back !!!
Thank you for any donation EVEN if its 1 dollar .... everything counts...
All the people who have donated I will take their name and do a draw for my complete LED Sidemarkers ....
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Done, I've been following his post and it's so sad to see someone like him get into this mess. Let's hope we can all come together and get this guy the justice he truly deserves.
------------------ Every fiero has a story, It's our job to keep that story alive.
I realllly hope John can somehow get to the top brass of MAACO and get that franchise in some serious trouble.. and get the settlements he deserves on this poor car. The more time that passes,John, the more leverage that franchise owner has....... To heck with lawyers.. MAACO needs to make it right...
It kills me to think this could happen to someone who has spent the better part of three years working on there dream car and have this s**t happen! Good Luck John and thanks to Danyel for the fund raiser.
I am guess each franchise is "independently owned and operated" and the corporate office is off the hook.
Doesn't matter. If it's got MAACO's name on it, and it's an independent franchise, it still tarnishes their name. There are plenty of things the corporate entity can do, and may do, to help resolve the situation. There are plenty of rules and regulations that franchised businesses have to follow, and depending on how badly they are violated and such, could result in the franchise contract being cancelled, and loss of the business. So even if it is independent, both the owner and corporate should take the situation very seriously.
John will be putting all the donator's names in a hat..... the one person's name out of the hat gets my LED SideMarkers ...... OH the 25$ Anonymous donation at the beginning DOESNT get to go in the hat ......................... its my donation !!!!
Again thank you all ..... were almost at the goal !!!!!!
Originally posted by R Runner: ......... I am amazed at the damage done. I think he handled it MUCH better than I would.
They also lied to him saying the car was NEVER out in the rain ..... but someone in a store across the street took this FILM here is a pic out of this film ... yellow arrow shows John's car !!
what a bunch of clowns !!! you can see in the door and employee with his hands in his pockets !!!!!! must have been a DUH moment for him
[This message has been edited by Danyel (edited 09-10-2014).]
I posted the video on every Maaco facebook page I could find and encourage everyone else using facebook to do so. The other franchisee owners can put pressure on Corporate to force this location to do the right thing and/or pull the franchise. FYI, the corporate franchiser for Maaco also franchises Merlin and Meinke remember that when deciding where to get work done.
OMG.... I do not know what to say..... I got a call from Daniel earlier this evening, and he told me to go look for a thread, in general chat, that is kinda busy. Again all I can say is... I don't know what to say other than thank you to all of you. I put that Go Fund Me page up, at the pressuring of a friend. I did itn thinking, that it would not really do anything. Times are tough for everyone, and here is some Fiero guy looking for a handout. That is honestly how I felt, and this group of Fiero heads has proved me totally wrong! Honestly, I should have known better, as this community is just amazing! I have had the honor & absolute privilege to work on the Tyler Build in MN, The Joel Build in GA, and even fly out with InfinateWill and help Get DIYStu back on his feet in Texas with the dew wipes a couple years back. Each and every time I have made friends with many amazing and wonderful people.
All I can do is say thank you a thousand times over.... This whole ordeal with MAACO has been going on for almost 3 months.... one lie after another, one mistake after another, then more lies, false promises, more mistakes, and then when I thought it could not get any worse, it did, over and over again.....
My build thread covers the 3 months of crap with MAACO, and I know no one wants to read all of that. So for this thread, here is a condensed version of what I have had to deal with for the past few months.....
Here are some pictures of work I have done on the car, in the process of restoring it:
This is the only photo that I could find that shows the floor mats in the car, they are brand new, and were custom ordered:
Here are the door panels. The lowers are from Mr. Mike. I too the door panels to an upholstery shop to have the top of both doors done:
Here is the shifter surround. The shift boot is from Russ, and I wanted to add a little touch to the surround to match the embroidery work and other blue parts of the car:
Here is the center console / glove box, I spent over a week repairing all the swelling around the edges, and then dying it black. Then a blue touch, to match the rest of the interior theme.
Here are my brand new Mr. Mike's seats. I was VERY happy the way they came out.
Here are the speed hut overlays, and the custom needles I did in blue:
The above pictures are how the car looked when I dropped it off at Maaco.
2 months later, when I stopped by to check on the progress, this is what the car looked like. It had been sitting next to the paint booth with the sunroof out, and the windows down. This is right next to the area where they do a lot of grinding and paint work on cars:
As if above was not bad enough will all the the dust, grinding dust, bondo dust and God knows what else..... Then they put it outside in the rain with no front windshield, the windows down, and the sunroof out, and this is the result: (the cardboard backing for the Mr. Mikes lowers swelled and disfigured from being soaked, ruining them)
They tell me the car looks like this as it has not been detailed yet. Talking about if it was expected to get that way in the first place!
The result is the floor mats are stained with a blue towel that was in the car, as well as having the headlight doors in there that then left rust stains. This is AFTER they "professionally detailed" the interior and carpets:
If that is not bad enough, they did not fix one area of the car correctly when it was painted. When they were to repaint the car, I pointed out how badly the spoiler was painted, and they said that would be sanded down, and completely redone. This is their idea of "redone & fixed" I guess:
The belt molding on the back of the car, they hit with a rattle can when I took the car in the first time. The paint literally just flaked and fell off. This is something they said they would definitely fix. Here is what it looks like now, just sprayed over, no sanding whatsoever, and you can still see the original white primer that was on the molding from when I bought the car from the original owner! This is after they supposedly painted the molding and corrected it TWICE now:
They somehow got black paint in the new quarter windows. I can only think that they probably got blue paint on the plastic surround on the inside of the fast back, and then tried to cover it up with black paint, and got it on the quarter windows. You can see bad over spray at the back of the window, and discoloration, where they may have taken something to try to clean it off at the front of the window, that ate into the plastic:
Under the deck lid, I pointed out that the first time they painted the car, it bubbled up badly. They told me that would be sanded down and fixed. Again, nothing was fixed, and I can see no way that they could have even sanded the area, or the bubbles would not still be there. When I told Dominick this, he said that they could strip it down and repaint it, but they would have to charge me for it! ! ! ! !
Here are even more bubbles on top of the decklid:
They painted the rockers in advance, so they could close the door and then spray the whole car. The area was not taped off, and overspray got on the rockers badly. When they went to repaint the car, I pointed this out, and had him feel the area, that felt like 120 grit sandpaper. This was another thing that they told me they would take care of. When I went back after 2 months, they had repainted the car, and they did the same exact thing to the rockers again.. I showed them and they said they would sand it and fix it. They never did, and it looks like the took paint thinner and tried to remove the over spray. The white you see is not dirt or dust, as I tried to wash it off. it is the original white of the car underneath.
Next, when the car was originally they put the headlight doors on a table and painted them, thus missing the bottom. I took them off when I dropped the car off the second time, and showed them they were not painted. They assured me this would be corrected. When I got the car, back, they for some reason put the headlight doors back on themselved, but guess what.... unpainted:
They did detail the car, or did it themselves, I have no idea. But in the process, the speaker grill in the left of the dash was shattered, they scrubbed so hard the removed the dye from areas of the center console, and both ash tray doors were broken.
The speedometer is resting at 120 MPH since the dash was left in the rain. With no windshield, the Fiero gauge cluster has the PERFECT seam in it to let water just run into the gauges.
This is abridged version of the past 3 months and what I have been going through. For the full details on everything, and details of absolute incompetence, you can read my build thread starting at this post.
What I have going for me as far as fighting them legally:
Tons of pictures documenting everything before during and after as well as during and after a second time
Numerous videos and audio recordings of promises that have been broken time and time again
Video of my car sitting in the pouring rain given to me by someone that works in the same area
list of 15 items to be corrected when the car was brought back to them, signed by the shop manager. Most of the items on the list were not done, or done VERY badly
Witness's that saw the car left in the rain on 2 different occasions, and telling me they rushed to get other cars in the shop, but just left mine in the rain
Video when I was to pick the car up, showing how soaked and ruined the interior of the car was.
Again, thank you to everyone for their support. It is so very much appreciated more than I can express!
[This message has been edited by JohnWPB (edited 09-11-2014).]
Doesn't matter. If it's got MAACO's name on it, and it's an independent franchise, it still tarnishes their name. There are plenty of things the corporate entity can do, and may do, to help resolve the situation. There are plenty of rules and regulations that franchised businesses have to follow, and depending on how badly they are violated and such, could result in the franchise contract being cancelled, and loss of the business. So even if it is independent, both the owner and corporate should take the situation very seriously.
My point is that MAACO is not responsible for the actions of the franchise (most likely). Hopefully MAACO will step in and help, but I am guessing that this needs to go to court.
From: betsy.mcdonald@maaco.com To: danyelpotvin(AT)hotmail(DOT)com Date: Thu, 11 Sep 2014 08:55:33 -0400 Subject: RE: You should look at this video on YOUTUBE MAACO in trouble
Good Morning Danyel,
Thank you for contacting us. We have been notified about the situation and appreciate your email.
John: You may be able to file an insurance claim with the garage liability insurance they are required to have. My wife works in insurance, I will ask her about it tonight. From watching the video your car looks like a total loss, what a bunch of jerks. My wife has mentioned before about claims being paid out for damages caused by a repair shops negligence. That would be a lot faster than going to court.
John, I can fully empathize with you. I got a MAACO paint job that was full of buffing compound, the new OEM quarter windows had been cut and scratched with a box knife, the interior was full of blasting medium, the new drivers side floor mat had been thrown away. I also suspected that the car had been driven because there were what appeared to be scratches from limbs, all along the right side. They also kept talking about how fast it was and how good it handled.
I sued the local franchise for damage to the windows, the floor mat, and the soiled interior and made the local repaint part of the top. Corporate in Pennsylvania stepped in and paid me for the damages.
The top of the line paint job I got had a 5 year warranty and after 3 years, the paint started to chip off. They denied warranty, saying that it was stone chips. It looked like the front, hood, and even deck lid has been sprayed with pea gravel. Just sitting in my driveway under a cover hasn't stopped the paint from continuing to chip off.
[This message has been edited by fierofool (edited 09-11-2014).]
[QUOTE]From: betsy.mcdonald@maaco.com To: danyelpotvin(AT)hotmail(DOT)com Date: Thu, 11 Sep 2014 08:55:33 -0400 Subject: RE: You should look at this video on YOUTUBE MAACO in trouble
Good Morning Danyel,
Thank you for contacting us. We have been notified about the situation and appreciate your email.
Thanks and have a great day!
[/QUOTE]
We needed an e-mail address at corporate. Looks like Danyel has found one that is viable. I think we need to encourage Ms Betsy McDonald to do the right thing. Please write politely but firmly. Remind her of the power of social media and its influence on both current and potential customers. They need to fix this. And don't forget to wish her a"great day"
Thanks again everyone for the continued support. It is more appreciated than I could ever express here in text.
quote
Originally posted by Csjag:
John: You may be able to file an insurance claim with the garage liability insurance they are required to have. My wife works in insurance, I will ask her about it tonight. From watching the video your car looks like a total loss, what a bunch of jerks. My wife has mentioned before about claims being paid out for damages caused by a repair shops negligence. That would be a lot faster than going to court.
I would be very interested in hearing more about this for sure. The $1000 is for the lawyer to get the paperwork going, and is probably gonna cost me a heck of a lot more than that along the way. If there is another solution, and remain out of court, that would be fantastic! I can be reached on my cell phone any time before midnight at 561 area code with a prefix of (two 36) and the last four being 7 0 two fore.
I am riding to a car show this evening with another local Fiero Guy. Boy will I have a story and pictures to share! LOL!
My problem with GoFund me is that they don't take PayPal. This is the 3rd fund raiser that I can't contribute to because of this limitation.... I'm sorry.
!!!! 
