Trusted collision repair shop in Arlington, VA?

September 5, 2008 6:33 PM

Arlington, VA filter: My wife had a parking lot mishap when a lamp post jumped out in front of her car; now we need to find a good collision repair place.

We drive a 2001 Honda Civic and live nearby to the Pentagon. The car is in fine shape to drive, so we don't mind going out of our way far a good and honest body shop. Thanks very much for your suggestions!

posted by UrbanEconomist to travel & transportation (4 comments total)

Jerry's Custom Automotive did fine work on my car. Distad's BP (nee Amoco) recommends them, and I've never heard a bad story about them. They're between the Eastern Market and Potomac Avenue Metro stations, so it's not exactly colse to you, though.
posted by MrMoonPie at 7:42 PM on September 5, 2008

I got good work once at T&J Autobody in Clarendon.
posted by inigo2 at 7:51 PM on September 5, 2008

I have a great auto body shop to recommend. A year ago this stupid pole in the parking garage moved into my path while I was driving and scratched and dented the side of one of the passenger doors as well as dented the -panel near the wheel.

So I went to Consumer's Checkbook (which is sort of like a Consumer Reports but on a local level -- we are members; new folks have to pay a fee I think) and called their highest rated and best priced auto body shops near Arlington VA where we live. I called about 10 different places and took the car to get it priced at 5 of those. And the winner was Jack's Auto Body -- they had the lowest prices and they did great work on the car. When I told them we weren't going to claim it on our insurance, they made a special point of not adding alot of extra parts that we didn't need, and changed a brake light for free.

Jack's Auto Body, 5700 Scoville Street, Bailey's Crossroads, VA 22041, [phone].
posted by onlyconnect at 8:13 PM on September 5, 2008

A couple of years ago I had a tree fall on and crush the roof of my then-new car. I took it (on the advice of the dealer) to a place called "Autocraft" down in the West End of Alexandria. It's easy to get to from 395.

Compared to some previous experiences getting collision and bodywork done, I thought they did a really spectacular job, particularly on the paint. I didn't have any trouble working with them, either; the car was ready when promised, no screwing around. It's been almost 30k miles since then, and I have no complaints about the work (which, granted, was mostly cosmetic; not too much machinery in the roof...).

Since I don't have a whole lot of other experience with places in the area, I can't say with confidence that they're necessarily the best, or even better than anyone else, but if something were to happen to my car tomorrow, that's probably where I'd take it without hesitation.
posted by Kadin2048 at 9:35 PM on September 5, 2008