they are not on the west side but ive found walden motors excellent to deal with in the past. i got a full respray and a new wing fitted last year for half what i was quoted elsewhere. brian was the body shop manager i dealt with. im sure it would not matter that the car is a toyota.
Best to try a specialist bodyshop - check the golden pages.
Most franchised dealers sub-contract the work out to specialists shops and charge you a mark-up on the job.
Some advice........
- shop around, but only use reputable shops
- when it's not an insurance job, it's much cheaper.
- when it's cash, it's even cheaper!
- haggle, haggle, haggle
Be sure to shop around. To give an example of the differences in prices for dealers v. garages, I had to get a new bumper fitted and sprayed on a Nissan Almera last spring. Windsor quoted me around €600. I got it done in Donegal (Home county) for less than €200. Perfect job. I'm sure someone will point out that bigger dealers in Dublin have higher overheads etc., but hard to justify the differential in price for the same product and service within the same country.
Rainyday, if you are talking about dealers/garages quoting higher prices when the cost will be borne by the insurance co., I couldn't agree more.
Bigger dealers just sub contract the work out to small guys and charge you an admin fee , go to a smaller guy first. The average rate of labour per hour is 55 at the moment
Isn't it about time we stopped accepting this mildly disguised insurance fraud
To get a cheaper price from a garage for a cash customer is not speficially insurance fraud
Insurance companies have agreed hourly rates and assessors also use galssmatics (not sure about the spelling) to calculate the number of hours for performing specific tasks (time and motion)
You may get a cheaper price by negotiating but that does not mean that all insurance jobs are fraudulent
For instance, one insurance company has an ageed rate to replace a windscreen with one of the large windscreen replacers (I am not purposely leaving out the name just not sure which ones)
If you take your car to another garage for this they will only pay the agreed rate irrespective of cost
This agreed rate is cheaper than the trade rate charged to other garages
This is proce fixing by insurance companies so they are not being ripped off all year long, like some people think
Ive used these guys before for a couple of dents/ scuffs etc... (oops!...yes im a sh!t driver) http://www.carcraft.ie have to say i was really impressed the car came back in near showroom condition plus they were miles cheaper than some of the other thieving gits that quoted me ...they are really close to town which was handy for me as i work in the city center only about 10 mins walk to the IFSC!