Originally Posted by
LarrBeard
Well, the saga of the truck continues.
The almost 2-year restoration of Ham’s ’48 came a quitting point in the early summer of 2016. As we all know, that doesn’t mean it’s done – it just means that it’s out of the shop and into my hands.
It looked nice (very nice if I do say so) and ran well. But, after a few weeks, a few issues began to show up. If you got the truck in the right light – it was two colors. Some of the parts and panels were a darker shade of red than others. The paint was also, for lack of a better term, brittle. It rock chipped a lot easier than it should have and I was doing a lot of touch up right away. Even so, it wasn’t anything that I couldn’t live with.
Now, as with most sagas, there is a twist to the story. Mr. Ted Murray, the owner of Custom Classic Restorations, the gentleman who had done the restoration - got out of bed one day and had a really sore back. He wrote it off to twisting it or lifting something wrong and just went about things. Well, a couple of days later – Mr. Murray couldn’t get out of bed – his legs didn’t work. The sore back turned out to be a bacterial infection in his spine that ended up destroying the nerves to his lower body – leaving him a paraplegic.
Mr. Murray worked his way through a lot of physical therapy and was able, on a few occasions, to go back to his shop to piddle around or watch someone who had leased space in the shop do some work. In the hope that he might someday be able to go back to the shop, he kept up his shop casualty and liability insurance.
In November 2018, I decided to replace the windshield in the ’48. It leaked, and it leaked at the worst possible place – on my wife’s foot in the passenger side. I took it to one of the local glass shops (most would not touch the job) and after about 6 pieces of glass, the windshield was about ready to come out of the shop.
Then, I got a phone call. When the glass shop peeled off the masking tape around the gasket – the paint came off with it. It was just everyday masking tape – there was no reason that the paint should have come off. I brought the truck home and gave Mr. Murray a call to see if he had a paint guy who could fix things. He was very distressed, but said he had a guy that could fix it. SO, the truck goes back to the shop for a paint fix.
The paint is single stage metacrylic paint, so it wasn’t just fixing the clear coat – it was a go deeper task. The paint guy did his thing, and when he pulled off his masking tape – more paint came off again. By now we recognized that we had a real paint problem. To compound the problem, Mr. Murray had several very serious health issues arise including at least one heart surgery and several other incidents that could have had very serious consequences.
Even so, Mr. Murray started calling his paint and primer suppliers trying to get someone to come look at things and to try to see just what had gone wrong. Why was the paint not sticking to the primer? After visits from the paint Tech rep and a primer rep, we heard nothing. We were getting the old run around. I really believe they thought they could outlive him. I had a good patch job done on the paint so I could bring the truck to Jeep Fest in Toledo, but the problem was still there.
In the meanwhile, I went to the local body and paint shops that I felt could do a good job on repainting the truck. The first three said “No Way. We won’t do jobs like that”. The fourth said “OK, but we’ll just have to see what it costs as we go along”. Yeah, sure – I’m going to take work there. Then, a friend told me about a paint shop out in the wilderness of Kendallville, Indiana where people take Auburns and Cords for paint work. I took it there. We looked it over and the answer was; “Hand sand and repaint”.
After 2019 Jeep Fest, Mr. Murray and I talked and he decided to file a work liability claim with his insurance company. (Remember, he had kept his shop insurance). Then, he went back to the hospital again for the third or fourth time. While he was in the hospital, I got a call from an insurance investigator who had been assigned the claim.
The investigator came out to the house and looked over the truck. I was pleased when he drooled over the truck and allowed that it was one very nice truck. Then, we waited some more. After a reasonable time, I contacted Mr. Murray and asked him where things stood. It turned out that his physical condition was such that he was doing all he could do to just get through the day. I asked him if he minded if I worked with the insurance company and he told me to go ahead.
I contacted the insurance adjuster and asked if he was willing to work with me, the owner, to get the claim settled. (Many companies only work with their insured, not a third party.) I told him the circumstances with Mr. Murray and he told me what he needed to process the claim. I pulled together about an inch of paper to document the work we had done, sent him a lot of pictures of before, in progress and after. It turned out that the deal sealer was the adjuster talking to Mr. Murray after I had sent in all of the paper.
He asked Mr. Murray; "Is the paint warrantied."
“Yes, the paint is warrantied.”
“How long?”
“For as long as the customer takes proper care of the finish”.
“Would you repaint the truck under warranty?”
“If I could walk I would have been sanding it down six months ago.”
And, that ended the conversation.
In a couple of weeks I had a check and authorization to take it to the shop in Kendallville. It goes to the shop tomorrow – estimated shop time is over 60 days so it spends the winter in someone else’s garage.
It may be unusual for things to work out with an insurance company this well, but I want to thank Auto Owners for how they worked with us to settle this and for Mr. Ted Murray for standing behind his work long after many folks could have, reasonably, said it wasn’t his problem any longer.
The saga continues ... just wait until Jeep Fest 2020!
Photo Notes:
1. If you look at the panels on the bed and step, you can see the paint difference. The roof even is a bit different
2. The paint peel started on the windshield pillar. but it will peel just about anywhere if you put down tape and pull.
