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The panel that runs under the doors (sorry, don't know what this piece is called) on my 05 QP came from the factory poorly aligned. Dealer said its just the way it is and being plastic the aligneent with the metal parts of the car just has these type of variances.
Then I had a paint problem (extreme chipping by 3K miles with areas having turned completely white) and these panels along with some of the body was repainted under warranty (after a huge battle with Maserati about it). The work was done by M/F Orange County, using their authorized body shop that is, I beleive) owned by the dealership owner.
When the car was returned the alignment of these panels were aligned even more poorly than from the factory. The dealer said its because the car had scraped bottom and the panels couldn't be fixed (or even made as good as the sloppy fit and finish from the factory). They said it would be $5 to 6K to fix this damage. I passed.
Yesterday I picked up the car from a little specialty body shop in Palm Springs that works on high end cars and does modifications and fabrication. They touched up some chipped paint, fixed a few small things and realigned these panels. The bill was $300 and the panels are now beautifully aligned; much better than the fit and finish of these panels when I took delivery of the car brand new.
The lesson here: Its easy to assume the MNA and the dealer knows what they are talking about. But having now worked through a paint issue, a gas filling problem and this body panel alignment I now realize that whether its a Maserati or Chevy dealer these folks are often dancing in the dark and just making stuff up.
Hope this info is useful.
Then I had a paint problem (extreme chipping by 3K miles with areas having turned completely white) and these panels along with some of the body was repainted under warranty (after a huge battle with Maserati about it). The work was done by M/F Orange County, using their authorized body shop that is, I beleive) owned by the dealership owner.
When the car was returned the alignment of these panels were aligned even more poorly than from the factory. The dealer said its because the car had scraped bottom and the panels couldn't be fixed (or even made as good as the sloppy fit and finish from the factory). They said it would be $5 to 6K to fix this damage. I passed.
Yesterday I picked up the car from a little specialty body shop in Palm Springs that works on high end cars and does modifications and fabrication. They touched up some chipped paint, fixed a few small things and realigned these panels. The bill was $300 and the panels are now beautifully aligned; much better than the fit and finish of these panels when I took delivery of the car brand new.
The lesson here: Its easy to assume the MNA and the dealer knows what they are talking about. But having now worked through a paint issue, a gas filling problem and this body panel alignment I now realize that whether its a Maserati or Chevy dealer these folks are often dancing in the dark and just making stuff up.
Hope this info is useful.