Well, this one is well over my head and I'm having issues finding someone to do the work. I need a recommendation for a shop in the Laurel/Columbia MD area (between Baltimore and DC)

Details and the problem that I've run into: Someone hit my '04 Cummins Ram (club cab, long bed) last night on the driver's side, right behind the cab mangling the bed and hitting the axle hard enough that it pulled the driveshaft out of the transmission. I didn't see any damage to the cab, but the bed is pretty well mangled, probably needs some frame work...

Called the insurance co to get an adjuster to look at it and got "you need to get it towed to the shop where you'll get the work done first," asked them about recommended shops (they weren’t much help). Also called a few friends that work at dealerships or similar places and got a few recommendations. What the insurance Co said so far is that this is going to be _much_ less of a hassle if I can pick a place within 50 miles of where it is now (Jarrettsville, Md, about 50 miles north west of where I am now, I’m trying to find a spot closer to work or home so I can come in and see the work being done… easily). I start calling the places that I’ve gotten the names of and I’ve gotten one of 2 answers:

- “No, we can’t do that” (either the equipment they have or the paint booth they have is too small for the truck, it’s about 21’ long)
- “We don’t do body work on site, we contract it out”

Neither of which does me any good… can anyone help?

I can tell you a shop not to use in that area, PM me!!

Well... I ended up spending a few days looking and it really came down to who had the equipment/paint booth to handle a 21' long truck, which amounted to 2 shops within an hour radius, neither of which I really knew anything about. I got a few recommendations from people (actually, almost all of them pointed at one shop, I think I got like 6 independent recommendations for one locals shop), but none of them could handle a truck that long. I called a friend of mine that works at a local dealership back, and he talked to the nationwide adjuster that was at their shop at the time, and he said that both the shops that I narrowed it down to seemed to be good shops putting out good work, so since one was on geico's list of shops, and was within 10 minutes of both my work and the house, that one was the winner...

A place called Auto Body Images.

AmateurPainter wrote:I can tell you a shop not to use in that area, PM me!!

I don't see why if a shop legitimately screwed up or did you wrong it would be a problem posting it. I'm sure others would want to know, I'm sure i'm not the only one having this kind of a debate.

It's already been posted, it was with a board member who's still around occasionally, I didn't see the need to stir up crap again. I doubt anyone looking for quality work would have gone to a dealer shop anyway but I assumed a board member would look out for another member and at least do a passable job and have some respect. I was proven very wrong.