Kidd's Towing & Recovery

I used this company for both body shop and towing purposes. The towing experience wasn't awful - arrival time ended up being much later than told, so I had to leave my car where the tire blew along with my key and trust they would get to it ASAP. I also used them for body shop purposes after I was hit by a drunk driver the night before while visiting the KC area (I live in Wichita, KS).

The tech doing my work for me (over $2,600 worth) promised me multiple times that he was an expert and would have my car looking amazing when the work was done. I ended up having to wait three weeks (an additional week than told) so I had to arrange for my rental to be extended and re-schedule my weekend travel plans to pick up my car for the following weekend. (Note that my fiancee lost work hours by scheduling in advance to come with me so we'd have someone to drive my car while I dropped off the rental).

SO, we show up next weekend shortly after they opened on Saturday. After waiting 20+ minutes for someone to actually help us (there was a girl sitting in the office area who said she works there, but literally didn't say anything to us when we told her we had come to get my car... awkward?) we are taken to my car. Immediately my stomach dropped -- white overspray EVERYWHERE on my car's black paint exterior. The manager on duty immediately blamed his shop guys and took the car back into the shop for ANOTHER 45 minutes (we've been here over an hour now, and I still don't have my car). He brings it back, and the inside is COVERED in white overspray too! My leather seats, floor carpets and mats, my entire dash area and plastic paneling, my speakers, the windshield, all the vents, LITERALLY EVERYTHING.

So he takes it back for another 45 minutes and brings it back. There were obvious steaks everywhere still, but my fiancee and I had to get back to Wichita ASAP because he was scheduled to work that afternoon (Note: he was LATE because we had to wait 25x's the amount of time for my car than we should have).

We leave the shop, and I go to adjust my mirrors only to find the ENTIRE ELECTRICAL PANEL for my mirrors is popped out and not working! WHAT?!

We take the car back for a THIRD fix since arriving at open, and he said it's because they had to pop it out during the paint process? (But they couldn't mask off anything else in my interior during that process?!)

On top of that, the work itself is SHOTTY. The paneling they using some type of tape adhesive on is peeling away from the car, clearly visibly when you look at it. The paint it already losing gloss because they didn't coat the entire piece and tried to use a fan brush to thin out the edges of the coat (guys, I work in art and design. I can clearly see this, alongside the other shop that has looked at the work and confirmed it's all crap), and they didn't even touch my rear or trunk alignment issues that are also clearly visible.

NOW, fast forward over 6 weeks, and they are refusing to contact my insurance company back and give them a refund so I can get my car properly fixed here in Wichita and NOT go back to their dishonest shop. So now I get to drive around in a car that still covered in white, drippy, disgusting overspray, inside and out, and just hope that this process is over soon and my car can get into a reliable shop here in Wichita.

Shame on ya'll for making this the most STRESSFUL situation in my life. This is why the BBB gave you a D-Rating.

Complaint

The apartment complex in which I live requires permit stickers for vehicles. As our second car, which did have a permit sticker, was in the shop, my father loaned us a vehicle. I had not yet obtained a permit for this vehicle.

Kidd's Towing is contracted by Southfork to monitor vehicles' permits in the parking lot. If without a permit, they are required to place a warning sticker on the vehicle before being permitted to tow it a minimum of 24 hours later.

However, I left my apartment for a doctor's appointment to discover that it was gone. The lady in the office said it had been reported two days before but that she had not been told by the Kidd's worker, Chris, that he was going to tow it.

Neither I nor my husband had ever seen a sticker, despite have used the car, having passed it in our other vehicle multiple times, and having taken publicity flyers off of the car. The stickers are neon pink, vertically oriented, and about 5" by 7". The lady in the office assured me that the sticker could not blown away nor washed away by the rain, and that no passerby could have peeled it off, as it requires a putty knife to get them off.

I inquired with Kidd's to see if they had a photo of the car with the warning sticker at the time the warning as allegedly issued, as required by Southfork. They eventually produced a photo of the rear of the car with a severe glare obscuring the left side of the back glass. The only evidence they offered for a sticker in that photo was a horizontally - not vertically - oriented outline that looked more like one of the papers we always end up leaving lying down in the back window. There was, in the glare, a very fine line that looked pink. However, as anyone knows that has seen a highway patrol sticker on a stalled and abandoned car, these stickers cannot be glared out by sunlight!

When I inquired of a very belligerent worker, Nick, if the sticker was still on the car, he said there was no sticker. I went to the lot to check it, and not only was there no sticker, there was no residue and no outline in the dust on the back window!

I asked why this might be and Nick could only reply that if there had been a permit, it wouldn't have been towed and that it wasn't his business to know what had happened.

These facts remain : It would be senseless for me to ignore a warning and get my dad's car towed on purpose. There was no physical evidence, either by photo or on the glass, or there having been a sticker. They are required to give a warning before being allowed to tow off. Sooo. .. either I tried deliberately to get the car towed or someone else spent an hour taking off the sticker and the residue and then putting dust over the area to match the rest , or these guys will swindle you if they have a chance.