When a guy playing with his phone decided to drag the side of his Lexus across the corner of my near-mint condition 2009 BMW M3, I spent nearly 2 weeks searching for the best BMW repair shop in Southern California. Eventually BMWUSA, Bimmerfest, L4P, Yelp and a few other websites led me to Spectrum Collision in Irvine. Spectrum is one of only 3 BMW-certified repair shops in the entire Los Angeles area. Even though it was 50+ miles away from my home, the strength of its reviews and my initial meeting with Rob DeJong at Spectrum made me choose them.
Rob DeJong (pronounced ?De-yung?) ended up being my Service Advisor throughout what ended up being a six week ordeal. The other guy?s insurance company, Farmer?s Insurance, quickly accepted liability, but they consistently tried to pay far less than the actual damage cost. Their estimates missed several parts that needed to be replaced, and tried to use refurbished parts rather than new ones. Rob DeJong fought on my behalf the entire way. He had to call them repeatedly and had to force them to visit Spectrum shop 3 or 4 times to revise their estimates.
I visited their shop while the car was disassembled and was also given a tour of the facility. The quality of the work, the workspace and equipment is far beyond what I?ve seen at other body shops (I?ve seen quite a few). The work itself was great. All the parts are lined up properly, and the gaps are all even. They did warn me when I picked up my car that the paint would need to bake and that some minor bubbling may occur, and they actually plan a 90-day inspection and re-paint/touch up to take care of any issues. I do have a couple of minor bubbles, and I recently got some new un-related damage to one of my doors, so I will post an update once I take my car back to Spectrum in a week or two.
Even though I?m very happy with the work, the efforts of Rob DeJong dealing with the insurance company are what set this experience apart from the rest.
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