Oceanside paint and body — Local services in Oceanside

I tasked Oceanside Paint and Body to repaint a hood, and the resulting finish had horrendous flaws, including a human hair left on my car paint. I have pictures. Nearly 5 months later and many, many visits to Sean, he has not repaired it.

I've gotten to know Sean quite a bit because I've had to see him so many times, more than his average customer. So I can tell you quite a bit about my experience: he pulls prices out of thin air, does not stick to his word, plays games with his customers, does not supply invoice break downs for repairs, changes his prices randomly because he never gave you an invoice breakdown, and his work is very sloppy and unprofessional. He has no interest in making things right with his customers.

I was fooled by his suspiciously positive Google reviews. Don't be like me and go somewhere else.

In November 2023, my hood was scratched and I visited Sean, who recommended a repaint of the hood for $750. He pulled this number out of thin air and gave me no invoice break down. Afterwards, I visited 5 other auto body repair shops in the Oceanside area. Each gave me a printed invoice packet detailing the price break down and they all recommended the same thing: A repaint of the hood AND a blend into the left and right fenders. I asked why, and due to my paint type, if they only painted the hood, the result would be terrible, and paint mismatch would be evident.

I told this to Sean, as this put his ability to understand a simple paint job into question. He changed his recommendation and agreed a blend would best for a total of $1300. I asked him for an invoice break down. He refused to do so and insisted that if he did, he'd have to charge me more. That made absolutely no sense.

I agreed stupidly to go with Sean as I was fooled by his Google reviews. On the day of the repair, the price became around $1400. I agreed because I just wanted my car repaired.

When I got my car back, I began inspecting the repair, which made Sean very nervous. I found his nervousness suspicious. As I inspected, I found numerous flaws. Fish eye defects, that occur when paint is not treated properly, all over my entire hood. A physical human hair 2 inches long, completely visible under the clear coat. Masking tape left all over my car, which Sean had to remove when I pointed it out. Paint that spilled onto my head lights and under my hood cover.

I pointed this out to Sean, who was defensive but agreed it was not right. Sean asked me to "come back" in two weeks (no appointment) to see him. I came back in two weeks and he asked me to come back in a month. I came back in a month and he asked me to come back in two weeks. I came back in two weeks and I forced Sean to schedule me an appointment to stop doing this nonsense of turning me away.

I showed up to my appointment, and he said he was not expecting me. He took my car anyways for 2 hours and once finished nothing changed. The hair was still there, the defects were all there. He became defensive, but agreed it was not better. He told me to come back in two weeks.

I came back and he acted like he didn't know why I was there. I strongly reminded him of the damage. He asked me to come back in a week. At this point, I'm tired of playing games and he obviously doesn't want to fix my hood. I now have to find another repair shop to fix...

Re-writting my review because they advertise a 5-star google review. I find that incredibly difficult to believe:

It's beyond sketchy that these guys have a perfect 5-star rating. Let me share my experience:

I have a low-mileage but older car (about 12 years old). The clear coat is completely shot, but mechanically, the car is in excellent shape. Since I'm planning to sell it privately, I wanted to get quotes on paint and bodywork to decide if it's worth repainting or selling as-is.

The car? A 2012 Mazda 3 with 57k miles. Feel free to look up the value. The clear coat is done, but there’s no rust—that’s what I needed a price on. After getting a $2,500 quote from a shop down the street, I called O’side Paint and Body for another estimate. Shawn answered, and after I explained the situation, he told me to come by. My mistake? Mentioning that I was planning to sell the car.

When Shawn looked at it, he immediately said a repaint would be "over $4,000" and that he “wouldn’t do that” but—conveniently—he was "looking for a car to drive to work."

First of all, you work at a body shop with a dealership, so you definitely already have a car to drive. Second, take a wild guess at what he offered me: $1,500. I was open to offers, but inflating the repaint estimate just to justify a ridiculously lowball offer is beyond shady.

He then passed me off to his dealership buddy, who was at least somewhat more upfront and offered me $2,500. For reference, Carvana and Tesla (I already bought a new car) offered me $5k in trade-in value. A quick search on AutoTrader shows the same year, make, and model—twice the mileage—listed for around $9k.

I get that businesses need to make a profit, but jacking up repair estimates and then trying to lowball sellers is just sleazy. I wouldn't...

Super happy and lucky to work with Shawn, as this was the very first accident we were ever in and did not know the process. The first thing I did was to check out all of the reviews online, and this one had the most 5 star reviews! I was still a little skeptical (some businesses can pay to get them), so I read a couple of pages to see if they look legit (checked out the reviewers other reviews, the style, length, etc) and they looked real to me. Since we were rear-ended, I thought it would be best to just get it fixed and deal with insurance later, but Shawn took his time and walked me through the process over time. Even though he is super busy, I could tell he had my best interest at heart and not a quick dollar transaction and move on. In fact, his recommendation was to call the person who caused the accident that ended up working out the best for us! The guy who hit us also was his first time in an accident and didn't know what to do either, especially since he didn't get his car insured yet, so by working with him direct to take care of it was a win-win for us both and we were also just lucky that he was a good honest guy who stepped up the plate. My car looked better than before because it had a few scratches and a ding from before the accident and now it was all nice and new (they even put wet tire look spray). Just to set your expectations from my experience (and probably most people), these things take longer than you may expect, mostly because of the inspection and insurance process. For peace of mind, I recommend working with Shawn and his team if you need your...