Nobody enjoys having to do body repairs on their car. They can be expensive, and usually are preceded with another headache such as a crash. When you’re looking for a Lexus body shop in Atlanta, one of the first questions that comes up is which should you use: a dealership or an independent shop?
Should a Lexus Dealership Do Body Repairs or an Independent Shop?
Choosing the right shop for you can be a touchy issue, because car repairs of any kind are usually wrapped up in considerable emotions. Some people might just say it’s best to go with the cheapest option, but when you have a quality vehicle like a Lexus, that’s not the best way to truly take care of it. After all, you wouldn’t have a person replace the roof on your mansion simply because they submitted the lowest bid. What if that person had little to no experience?
Look for a Lexus-Certified Collision Center
First off, you should look for a Lexus certified collision center. They’re not on every street corner, so that eliminates quite a few options. You wouldn’t want to take you beloved car to a hack, or someone who says they can fix it, but in reality doesn’t know how to do it. Lexus body repair can be a tricky job even if you’re doing it correctly, so this kind of work should only be reserved for highly trained and seasoned technicians.
Research your Dealership
It might seem that any dealership is best equipped to perform Lexus body repair of any kind. Just because it appears that way doesn’t mean that’s what you should do, even though dealerships try to play up this for their marketing. It’s true that technicians at dealerships often have factory training, and they know the specific brand quite well. Just remember that independent shops can also have technicians who are factory trained and certified in a variety of areas. They might know your particular vehicle even better than the dealer, because they’ve been working on them for far longer.
Body Repair vs Other Types of Car Repairs
Body repair is a horse of a different color when compared to other types of car repairs. With dealerships, they’re under extreme pressure to boost profits. You might think this is no big deal, but it changes things. This push for bigger profits is being driven by the fact that how much a dealer makes from new vehicle sales is decreasing. You’ve probably noticed that dealerships talk up their service department more than ever, and this is why.
While you can’t fault a dealer for trying to keep the lights on, some of the methods being used to turn more of a profit leaves customers with problems they didn’t bargain for. When you go to a dealership and have body work done, the emphasis is on getting the job done quickly. The service department has a fee schedule that calculates how many hours it typically takes to do a repair, and that’s what they charge. If a technician can do the job faster, it’s more money. This encourages rushing through jobs quickly, which can lead to big errors you might not even notice at first.
Lexus Body Repairs at T3 Atlanta
At T3 Atlanta we don’t rush body repairs for a Lexus or any other brand. Instead, our technicians are trained to do the job right the first time, and to take as long as necessary to ensure that’s the case.
Some dealerships don’t even do body repairs themselves. Instead, they outsource to an unnamed shop, so your car goes to a place you don’t know. One would hope they do good work, but with an emphasis on profitability at dealers, this sadly isn’t the case far too often.
When you come to T3 Atlanta, you get your Lexus back in fantastic condition, and don’t have to deal with any surprises as a repair done shoddily leads to other problems in the future. After all, we don’t have any incentive to sell you a new vehicle because there’s something wrong with your current one.
At T3 Atlanta we don’t outsource Lexus body repairs. Instead, we do everything in-house so that we can guarantee everything is done correctly. We have an excellent reputation to defend, and we earned it by doing good work, making our customers so satisfied they referred their fellow Lexus owners.
ways to prevent this from happening is to just check all of the fluids in your car before you head out. This includes the oil, coolant, power steering fluid, brake fluid and even the window washing fluid. It’s such an easy thing to do, but failure to execute on it can lead to a serious disaster.
So many people these days depend on their smartphone for a small light. While this can work in a pinch around the house, the fact is having a good flashlight tucked in your glovebox is an incredibly wise idea. If you are stranded somewhere and night falls, you’ll have a trust light that doesn’t involve draining your phone battery.
care of them, tires should last a fairly long time. If you don’t, you’ll go through tires quickly. Considering how expensive constantly changing out tires can be, this should be on everyone’s car maintenance checklist.
manufacturer’s recommendations. While you’re at it, stick with the type of oil listed there, because that will provide the best protection possible.
carries additional risk. While some thefts do happen during the daytime, you should especially park inside a garage at night.
so it should be stowed where nobody can see it. If you have an SUV or wagon, throw a blanket over the items or get a retractable cargo cover.
Take any pictures you can. Likely you won’t remember everything as it actually was, so photos help. They can also be used as evidence if the other party wants to push for legal action. 
Shopping a few locations could be a good idea. This is especially true if the damage to your vehicle is pretty extensive. You should keep in mind that a lower offer isn’t always a better one, because the shop that goes in low could be cutting corners or not taking into account everything needed for your Infiniti. 
flip side, several Mercedes models have been called out by the organization for some of the highest costs of ownership. 
publications have confirmed this fact on a number of vehicle comparisons throughout the years. Forbes, a respected business magazine, took a look at the cost of ownership difference between the Lexus RX 350 and Mercedes GLK. Both sell for pretty close to the same price, but they’re anything but equal when it comes to the 5-year cost of ownership. 
Depending on the exact model, you should be having your Toyota car, truck or SUV thoroughly serviced every 5,000 miles or six months so you can continue a relatively problem-free ownership experience. Exactly what should be done each time by the technicians is laid out in the official Toyota maintenance schedule, which a reputable shop can and will reference and follow exactly. 
away from the brake pedal. Don’t turn on the engine before doing this, otherwise you might need to start over. Next you will want to push down and hold the button that you normally use to reset the trip meters. Depending on which Toyota model you own, it could be the same button that helps you cycle between showing the odometer readout and the two different trip meters. 
