Shop recommendation in Burlington VT

[offcamber09]

We have a customer with a kid going to school in Burlington VT. His 2000ish Toyota Camry took a hit from a plow on the left rear wheel. It's ok to drive locally but not on the highway. Any suggestions of an honest shop in the area?

[StephanAlfa]

The ones from COM living close to that area are Nate and James.
I have my wife's nephew who is a Mechanic but he lives in Orange (near Barre), VT in case he cannot find anyone.

[nateh]

Ralph Humburg is a COM member with a tuner shop in that area. I've taken a race car there, and he treated me fairly.

Whether or not this work is up his alley, perhaps he can make a recommendation.

Ralph's Foreign Auto
61 South Oak Circle
Colchester, VT 05446
802-654-6844

[rousespointer]

Heritage Collision (part of Heritage Automotive...Ford, Toyota) is a good size body shop. Decent work for the going rate. Lots of work there so they have resources and can get parts easily. BTW, the owner of Heritage is Dave Machavern...big time amateur sports car racer in a couple of national series...had a monster GT-1 corvette, which he put up for sale around 80K and isn't racing right now.

[962porsche]

I own a shop
at best a 2000 camry is worth 3500 at best in great shape average is about 2500 .
if a car like that needs to be benched and pulled and i'm sure it does with suspension damage I would bet the car is a total .
now add in the labor to R and I the suspension with the cost of the parts and a 4 wheel alignment and you have to ask your self why would you want to repair the car ?
now labor rates do change from state to state and even different area's in states but in my area the labor rate for body repairs are 50 an hour for frame repair it's 55 dollars an hour .
your looking at a average set up time to bench the car of 2.5 hours and that's before it even starts to get pulled .
that is to clamp the car to the bench .
now with suspension damage your getting into a mechanical labor rate of 98 dollars average to R and I the suspension .
so depending on the suspension parts you may need and getting them used your looking at about 300 to 500 dollars in parts .

bench car 2.5
R & I wheel .2
replace front or rear control arm 1.3
replace rear of rear control arm 1.2
replace trailing arm 1.0
4 wheel alignment 135 dollars
now if the car needs a hub and they do bend all the time when the control arms bent
add in 1.7 for that too
if the cross member is bent and they too bent ez when the camry takes a hit on it's wheel .
add in another 4.5 hours for that .

so do you see were i'm going with this ?
now add in the fact that the car living it's life in the north country with salt and snow i'm sure the car has body rot that will no dough drop the cars value down more than the 2500 dollar average that the car would be worth .