Complaint Review: D&R Automotive Restylers

I took my collector car to D&R Automotive Restylers, Inc., it's a pretty rare vintage automobile with only 5500 cars estimated to have been imported into the US. I've owned and worked on it personally for 40 yrs. Getting older, maybe not as motivated to do the work myself these days, I decided to seek out a "professional" automotive re-upholsterer for some needed repairs.

I found D&R Restylers after some online investigation using Google searches and reviews. I interviewed Ray, one of the business namesakes who came to my home to discuss seat re-upholstery and learned of other "restyling" things D&R does which included stereo and headlight upgrades.

I told Ray I was very particular and considered myself a craftsman. I relayed to him I am a semi-retired aerospace engineer supporting our US manned space flight program; my hands-on work is as good on the inside as anyone can see on the outside to set the tone for my expectations.

Ray painted himself as a kindred spirit and was quite personable and up front told me he charges $85/hr which I thought was reasonable for quality work. I decided to take a chance and let D&R do the work. I purchased and supplied leather seat skins and cushions, a modern car stereo and LED headlights, all told @ $2000 worth of supplies to D&R.  

Long story short: Ray, Dennis (the other D&R namesake) and Jay (a technician) worked on my car, maybe others (?). All are responsible for the shoddy, potentially DANGEROUS, extremely poor-quality work by anyone's standards who is not blind.

Issues discovered so far include: electrical steering column harness now overheating, headlight electrical wiring was not installed to prevent faults, failure or future service and not protected from the environment - waterproofing headlight gaskets and grommets were missing (imagine losing headlights while driving!), assembly screws and hardware were broken, missing or re-assembled into wrong locations, driver's seat was left un-adjustable front to back after reupholstery, the leather seat skins were torn at assembly staking locations to the seat frame....God only knows what I have  yet to discover.

There should be a negative star rating allowed for the likes of D&R Automotive Restylers!