My dad worked in an independent (I say independent but it was around 3/4 owned by RBS) crash repair centre. About 90% of the work came from insurance companies (the rest coming from either a VW or Merc dealer), often panels that should have been replaced are repaired - badly. Cars were left outside with no bonnets or doors in the pouring rain and even during the snow and heavy front. If you were lucky enough to get new panels, most if not all of the time you would receive patent parts that took hours of work just to get them to fit. Parts that are known to be of inferior quality and parts that the vehicle manufacturers themselves discourage the use of.
Skilled employees (like my father) were made redundant and have since been replaced by cheap eastern European labour who are happy to accept minimum wage, unfortunately the don't even have their own tools and often hassle the remaining skilled staff for the most basic jobs.
Computer systems have been implemented to monitor the efficiency of the work - as in how many jobs they can throw out with no regard to customer satisfaction or quality of work. Cars would be driven around the work shop with broken suspension and even flat tyres (or no tyres at all!), just so they could be rushed through the body shop. The quality of work is utterly appalling and the rate of returned work is shocking.
To put it simply, I don't think I could ever let a car go through an insurance backed bodyshop in a non-fault claim. You'll never get a good quality job, the insurers simply do not allow it.
Skilled employees (like my father) were made redundant and have since been replaced by cheap eastern European labour who are happy to accept minimum wage, unfortunately the don't even have their own tools and often hassle the remaining skilled staff for the most basic jobs.
Computer systems have been implemented to monitor the efficiency of the work - as in how many jobs they can throw out with no regard to customer satisfaction or quality of work. Cars would be driven around the work shop with broken suspension and even flat tyres (or no tyres at all!), just so they could be rushed through the body shop. The quality of work is utterly appalling and the rate of returned work is shocking.
To put it simply, I don't think I could ever let a car go through an insurance backed bodyshop in a non-fault claim. You'll never get a good quality job, the insurers simply do not allow it.
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I know it worked perfectly before I gave it to the garage because it adjusted itself every time I used reverse so has only stopped working while BMW have had it. My theory is that perhaps the old dodgy garage left it uncovered and/or exposed to bad conditions which caused the wiring to deteriorate 
Yay!