Ray’s Auto Body

I got service here twice and both times I’ve had fantastic work done. I’ve requested new OEM parts which cost me a little more but it was definitely worth it. These are results I am more than satisfied with. I would highly recommend this body shop.

What’s not to love? They fixed my bumper for about half of what I figured it would cost AND… AND…they drove the car down the block and had it inspected for me… wow…professional behavior from the staff… what’s not to love?

This review is long overdue. Last August, I t-​boned a Mini-​Cooper in my 94 Camry. The officer assigned her the blame as I had the right-​of-​way. Her insurance company accepted responsibility and offered me a choice: accept a check or have the car fixed. Since I just paid it off, I didn’t want to get into another car payment for a used car. Allstate recommended Rays Auto Body. The Camry was towed over that day (a Friday evening). I called on Monday and spoke with the gentleman there assigned to my car. He said that due to the other cars he had ahead of me, it would take him a few days to get to mine. I completely understood as I was a Mortgage Processor at the time and had given that same explanation many times myself to loan applicants. A few days later, he calls me and let’s me know that since the car was borderline totalled, it will take sometime to fix (I.e. 2 – 3 weeks). Since All state was paying for my rental car (a Pimp-@zz
2013 Dodge Charger which I did NOT want to give back. :-), I was fine with 2 – 3 weeks. It ended up taking 5 weeks as they wanted to make sure there were no bugs, rattles, or quirks with the finished product. They even paid the 5^th week of my rental car since Allstate would only go up to 30 days. When I got my Camry back it literally looked brand new. I was amazed at the workmanship. I took possession of my Camry and returned the Charger (sniff sniff.) Overall, they were extremely professional and their work was stellar. The only reason I didn’t give 5 stars was because I expect an auto body shop to be able to more accurately estimate time of completion since this is their expertise. Given, that they were shooting for perfection (and actually accomplished that), I can let it slide, however. ;-)

I was highly impressed by the staff and service at Ray’s Auto Body. Everyone was professional, thoughtful, and thorough. Repairs were made even faster than expected, with the schedule adjusted to my particular situation. They helped with the insurance claim and rental car, and the repairs are so well done that the car looks even better than it did before the accident.

I had the opportunity to visit Ray’s Auto Body after a very expensive run-​in with a deer, which left the hood of my car banged up. On first glance, I thought I was pretty lucky, since somehow, the only part of the car that was damaged was the hood (not even a broken light). But somehow, it still ended up costing $ 3500 to repair.
First, it took 6 weeks to get my car back. They weren’t taking appointments until 4 weeks later! Then, the repair was only supposed to take a few days, but ended up taking a week and a half. Of course, they never called to tell me that there would be a delay — they waited until I called them to ask if the car would be ready to pick up as scheduled. (My caveat is that this is the first time going to an auto body shop, so maybe this is normal for northern Virginia — I just don’t know.)
Second, when I brought in the car, I got a quote of $ 1300, which I was fine with, although I ended up submitting through insurance. When I called to check up on the car’s status, I found out the price had gone up to $ 3500. We never received a phone call letting us know — they just called the insurance company directly. I’d think that for such a large price change, we’d have at least gotten a call.
After all of that, they did a very nice job on the car, and even vacuumed the car and touched up an old spot in the back for free. So other than some misunderstandings, the job itself was done very well.

The first thing you experience when you walk in the door is a sincere greeting. My estimator (Kevin) was polite and not pushy. I suspect that he has been associated with Ray’s Auto for a while… he had his own business card. Kevin knew that the repair was coming out of my pocket and offered several phases of repairs. When I showed them a competitor’s estimate he readily matched it and even gave me the Angie’s List 5% coupon at the end.
Of particular note, after the job was completed, several warning lights came on a few days later. Kevin said drop it by the shop and he would look at it in case they might have missed hooking up a harness. After close inspection no loose wires found. Kevin suggested we ask his neighbor, Country Transmissions, to hook up a code reader. Country Transmission found the problem… gas cap evaporator loose. They reset the warning lights, and best of all… no charge.
It is nice to know there are vendors out there that still try to provide good customer service even when they don’t get paid.

Fantastic shop… I’ve known Ray (sadly now deceased) and Doug for many years and know that you’ll never find people with greater integrity and honor than these two Vietnam era veterans. Their leadership and professionalism ensures that Ray’s workmanship will be the best possible! They recently fixed a dent in out new Volvo, and it is completely undetectable! Awesome job!

My mom and I have gone to Ray’s for approximately a decade and have seen their product go from great to sub-​par. I was hit by a van on I-​495 and decided to take my car to Ray’s, based on good past experience.
My car was supposed to be in the shop for roughly 4 days, I got it back in 9. That was disappointment #1.
My brand new bumper is starting to detach from the frame, only 2 months after installation. My right headlight got paint on it; how hard is it to cover the headlight before painting!?! The HUB assembly on the left side was replaced; I discovered that they put the old rotor back on with stripped screws. When I went to replace the rotor, I had to drill-​out the screws in order to get the old rotor off.
I will be going to Ray’s soon to discuss these issues with them. I will update my review afterward.

They absolutely suck. Ok? Ripoffs. Their paint job blistered and bubbled on the inside of a door. On the exterior, I had them repaint 3 times to get rid of embedded debris in the finish. They simply did not have the talent to do so. And they lie about the work they will do and how they will do it. If you take your car there, scrutinize and inspect every line item on your claim estimate and confront them when they try to get away with something, and let your insurer know especially. If I could sue them into closing down, I would.

This possibly was the worst place I’ve ever been to in terms of both execution of a repair job & customer service. I wish Unilocal had the option for NEGATIVE stars and I would have given Ray’s a MINUS 5 rating. I would have to spend the next 3 days writing to be full disclosure in how terrible they are.
I was referred to this place by Allstate because it was a «preferred» shop of theirs. Ray’s was a nightmare from the beginning starting with when they wanted to charge me for a reflector for $ 16 when they were going to receive approx $ 8000 from my claim. In addition to that, below are only SOME of the other problems.
1. They left matted gum in my floor mat — I’m a reasonable guy but leaving matted gum on my mat is flat out disrespectful & leads me to believe that they are careless & don’t care
2. They attempted to give me back my car with the check engine light on
3. They gave me my car back with the tire sensor messed up where it would come on multiple times when driving
4. You can blatantly see where the collision occurred on the passenger side of my BMW M3 as they did an awful job of fixing the place on the door that was dented and the paint was scraped off.
5. My window: before my collision, my window was working perfectly, however, when I got my car back the window stopped working. They said that the regulator went out & it was just normal wear & tear; Doug, the manager, said that there was no damage to the door on the passenger side and that’s the only way that the collision would’ve affected the window; this was a complete lie… the left front end/​passenger side was precisely where the collision occurred; in fact, you can see where Ray’s did a poor job of attempting to fix my door on the passengers side as I state above. I told them that the only other way that it would’ve been damaged is if they did something to the window during the repair. I’ve now had to take time out of my work schedule to get this issued resolved as they are now attempting to charge me $ 443 for something that should either be covered under my Allstate claim or something that Ray’s damaged!
DO NOT GO HERE. If you are with Allstate, the shops they send you to are typically crappy because the insurance company gets the best deal. My Allstate insurance agent even told me NOT to go to Ray’s but I didn’t listen because Allstate makes you jump thru hoops to go to a location of your choice… however, it’s well worth the extra hassle to get the job done right. Go to Wagon Works in Alexandria, but if nothing else avoid the clowns Doug & Marcus at Ray’s!!! I drive an M3 so this is even more frustrating as I want my car to be in pristine condition… Hopefully I won’t have to pay the $ 443 as I’ve reported them to Allstate & the Better Business Bureau.

I’ll be VERY brief…
Reasons I just gave Ray’s 4 stars:
1) Professional staff, very courteous and attentive.
2) Super accommodating to our crazy «ever changing» schedule and saw us on-​time at appointed time.
4) Complete work on-​time and delivered vehicle on the date promised.
5) Great work, they did an AMAZING job!
6) Helped us arrange for a rental car.
All in all, I’m very satisfied with Ray’s and wish I had known about them in the past when I needed some auto body work. Based on our experience, I’ll be coming to Ray’s if I ever need any auto body work.
Plus, they’re just down the road from the Vienna Inn. :-)

Good honest shop. They do very good work and they are relatively more honest with their estimates. However, I am aware that Insurance companies often ‘require’ by their policy to use after market parts. This is by contract and usually requires the customer to ‘pay for’ the difference between after market and OEM cost.
So here is my experience on the 2 occassions that I have visited Rays Auto Body. First was in Oct 2006 when my wife’s 2 month old Subaru Forrester was in an accident and Stolhman Subaru the dealer referred us to Rays Auto Body.
The work took longer than expected — 4 weeks total, mainly due to part shortage. However, the quality of the work was first rate and it would be impossible to tell it apart from a new car. The highest quality part of their work was the paint job and the poorest was probably the finish on the metal of the door that they fixed — it had ever so slight waves that one can see from special angles under special lighting conditions.
My next experience was a week or so ago. I went there, based on my first positive experience to get an estimate to fix (out of insurance) a slightly blotched previous repair job on one of my doors. This door too was fixed by a body shop, but unlike the Forrester that Ray had fixed for us, the work done here (it’s a jaguar and it was done by Jaguar of Chantilly) was not as refined and the waves were much more easily visible and the finish overall wasn’t as smooth. I am a little picky, but probably 90% of people would not be able to see any defect.
Ray gave me an estimate of $ 435 to strip out the current paint, sand the metal down and re paint and blend it. So that was for a complete job.
I then went to Cherner Lincoln Mercury in Tysons Corner (closer to where I live and work). The cheats at Cherner quoted me $ 1085 for the exact same job!!! I’ll never ever go there… they are pure and simple cheats.
I then went to jack’s auto body in falls church (same distance as rays from where I live but in the opposite direction). Ray said for $ 100 he would buff it and sand it without repainting and achieve 75% of the solution.
Doing a cost benefit analysis I ended up spending the $ 100 and doing the 75% solution. The outcome looks great.
So why is this a ray’s body shop rating? Well. I have now used ray twice. First was to fix a car and they did a great job, and next was to estimate the cost of a repair and they came in very reasonable compared to a competitor in the area. I believe they are a good shop and are honest.
I also feel that some of the negative opinions expressed here have to do with the way the insurance industry works. Had the person with the Lexus gone anywhere else, he would have faced the same problem. He would have gotten an after market door. Both David C and Dave S looks like were victims of how the insurance company works and not a problem with rays.

This was the site of the worst auto body shop experience I have ever had.
I was the middle car of a three-​car fender-​bender this past summer (not my fault). I was sent to Ray’s Auto Body by the insurance adjuster of the at-​fault driver’s insurance company. The repair job should have taken about a week.
When my car was finally «ready» two weeks later, I was asked initially to pay for the repair – even though the responsible driver’s insurance had accepted liability and agreed to pay. Once this matter was settled, I discovered that the shop had cracked my windshield. To my shock, Ray’s Auto Body refused to accept responsibility for the crack, even though it was rather large, obvious, and brand-​new.
Only after my own insurance adjuster got aggressive did the shop agree to replace the glass. After I picked up my car, it became clear that Ray’s had used after-​market sheet metal in violation of the insurance estimate. My insurance rep had to once again talk tough to get Ray’s to do the right thing. About five weeks after the minor accident, I finally got my car back.
I understand Ray’s had a good reputation some years ago. Not now. Avoid this place like the plague. You cannot count on your car being repaired properly here.