Spent 6 hours on a door alignment that should have taken 1

I had a 2020 Honda Civic come in last week with a driver side door that was sitting about a quarter inch low. Customer said they hit a curb funny but the door looked fine at first glance. I loosened the hinges, adjusted the striker, even shimmed the bottom hinge but it kept sagging. After three hours of messing with it I finally realized the A-pillar had a tiny tweak that I missed. Had to pull out the frame rack and do a 2 inch pull to get it back where it needed to be. Total time was 6 hours for something I quoted at 1 hour. Anyone else ever have a simple door job turn into a whole frame pull situation?

2 comments

2 Comments

the_shane1d ago

Yeah but you didn't hit the curb funny, you hit it hard enough to tweak the A-pillar. Thats more than a simple door alignment that's structural damage. I've seen that same thing on a 2018 Accord where the gap at the top of the door looked fine but the bottom edge was dragging on the rocker panel. We chased it for two hours before someone finally put a straightedge on the pillar and saw a 3mm kink near the windshield post. Once you have to pull out the frame rack you're not doing a door job anymore you're doing collision repair. That six hours was never going to be one.

emma_ramirez22h ago

@the_shane 3mm is basically a fingernail thick though right?