Just got my car back from nationwide crash repair centre in Newcastle upon tyne ,after rear end bump, although not my fault i was persuaded to let these clowns do the repair by my insurance co,Got my car back at 4.30 pm so as it was dark could not inspect properly,upon inspection gaps between bumper and body not same ,gap between rear light that was not replaced and the side that was a mile out and paint on one of the panels chipped.Anyway got their manager coming to look at my car tommorrow,but if you can avoid this lot do so.

Just got my car back from nationwide crash repair centre in Newcastle upon tyne ,after rear end bump, although not my fault i was persuaded to let these clowns do the repair by my insurance co,Got my car back at 4.30 pm so as it was dark could not inspect properly,upon inspection gaps between bumper and body not same ,gap between rear light that was not replaced and the side that was a mile out and paint on one of the panels chipped.Anyway got their manager coming to look at my car tommorrow,but if you can avoid this lot do so.

I had a MASSIVE row with these jokers in Harrogate once. NEVER use these people. They work on a 'pile em high' basis. Insurance companies screw them down to a price.

It's like a meat factory in those places. Thing is most people just don't seem to care. As long as this attitude prevails, these people get away with it.

My brother had his mondeo repaired by one of these places too..... Body repair itself wasn't too bad, but the paint quality was shocking. You could see the ripples in the finish !

When I said to him to take it back and complain, their answer said it all...... You'll never get a factory finish on a repainted panel. !!!!

Thankfully it wasn't an expensive car, but I don't think he'd take his Fabia vRS there now !

Maybe its not the ability to do a good job, but the time they are allowed to do a job results in a shoddy end result.

When the subaru got broken into my insurance wanted the car to go to Nationwide,had nothing but problems with these people total nightmare.They had my car for 3 months 2 weeks just to replace the key barrel/door lock and steering wheel casing,rewire the side indicator(which they replaced with an orange indicator lense instead of a clear one) ..Worst thing was the insurance had sent it to a nationwide garage 34 miles from where i live and lets just say they need to get better people working on customer service.Was promised a courtesy car on collection of my car which never happened,was then told to phone them in 3 days to arrange a courtesy car,so i did only to be told i was not going to be given one..Then after 3 months and phone calls to them and my insurance they wanted me to travel the 34 miles to collect my own car,I basically told them no and got my insurance to sort them for the return of my car...Wasn't happy with the repair in the end,very poor communication and service,when i got the car back someone had been out blasting it because 80 miles had been clocked up on the mileage and my fuel was 3 quarters full,it came back with less than half a tank..I have also talked to other people who have had problems with this repair company too..

Simply put they're absolute idiots, re-raise it with your insurance company, ask for an independent inspection of the work done and when they agree with you that it's not been done to the required standard insist on using a reputable body shop. Insurance co's do repairs to a price because the majority of people are too stupid to insist on having the repair done as it should be. If they claim the panel will not repair to a factory standard then it should be replaced not bodged to a low standard.

Had a visit from their manager today and he agreed that the repair is substandard,so car is to go back and they will bring me a hire car,told him they will not be driving it back to newcastle about 50 miles from me so it will be pickrd up and dropped off by truck , the hire car will have full tank of petrol and mine will have full tank of diesel when it comes back for the inconvienence and the repairs will be overseen by himself . Told him if not right this time i will take it up with my insurance co.

You should have raised it with your insurance company, the sooner they know you're in dispute about the sub standard repair the sooner it would have got fixed to the required standard. If it's as bad as you say you don't want them doing anything before it's been independently inspected, it may be cosmetically fine but you can not trust them to do anything. They ended up repairing my dad's company car, took weeks and it looked OK, what they'd missed was the fact the whole chassis was twisted and sure enough when it - the last car I took to them looked OK but they hadn't even spotted the popped boot seam underneath much less done anything about it. They are utterly useless and shouldn't be allowed near a car let alone permitted to work on one.

Had a similar experience with our Octavia repair at prestige in Northampton.

Manager even had the balls to claim our car was involved in a previous accident. Funnily wouldnt put in in writing. No matter, insurance co have tagged the call and saved it to our file for "future reference"

I had these guys repair my 06 Mk2 and OMFG........

My 5 year old could have done a better job with some plasticine! Always better to get done at the dealrs even if it could take a few more days.

And it's not just problems repairing Skodas......

A Renault Clio and a Migraine (Megane) of mine had to go back more than once to have work re-done following the so called 'repairs'.

I complained to the manager and no joy, so went to the insurance company and they said "Speak to the local manager. His number is xxxxxxxx".

Never again will I use the insurance company arranged repair garage, if I ever have the misfortune to require their 'services'.

Also had the 'pleasure' of Nationwide. Car rejected 4 times before I took back. then found the most horrendous wind noise at the back of the car. They had tried to put the the right rear quarterlight back in a new panel with the same seal which I found to be ripped and glued with mastic!. Back again and another 4 weeks to replace.

Dont use this firm, totally useless!

i lost 4 fingers from my left hand because of these Ninnies i had a Saab 900 SE at the time (Jan) and it passed it's MOT after initially failing on a couple of minors (£100), however as soon as i got it back there was an intermitant fault with it which meant that the car would start one minute and then not the next, i made do for approx a week then it wouldn't start at all, up until then it had always started first time everytime with no issues!! when i took it back to them and described the problem he identified it as an immobiliser problem, later that day i got a call from them saying they had fixed it and there was a fuse missing from the fuse box??, when they replaced this it blew straight away and on investigation 2 wires had burnt out and were arking which they had repaired (£69). i know full well there was not a fuse missing because i certainly didn't remove it and how could my car function perfectly without it for the 2 years previous! this was just a ploy to generate extra income and we all know how much electrical faults can cost!. Anyway, I was going to collect it on my motorbike, as the garage was near to work i could leave my bike there and collect my car then sort my bike later, however because of the bad weather i thought i better oil my bike chain. it was doing this i caught my fingers between the chain and sprocket and severed them. thet were re attached but sadly ahvent taken and so i go back on monday to have them removed but hey ho

The point is i dont trust them either and although main dealers overcharge i'm sure they don't employ fraudsters so i will be sticking with skoda (as soon as my new car arrives on the 1st of March that is)