ASM Dent Repair

Oct 2024

I brought my 1976 MG Midget to ASM Auto Upholstery along with a carpet kit manufactured by a reputable company in England. Karen, the daughter of the owner, gave me all kinds of warnings about what could go wrong with the carpet installation. She said they may break the seat bolts. The carpet kit may be cut wrong by the factory. They may have lots of trouble removing the original carpet adhesive and backing. She couldn't give me a firm estimate and would charge labor for however many hours it took. After I asked for a rough estimate, the top of her range was $1800. She charged $2100 dollars for 14 hours labor. I would have no issue with all of this if the end result was good. See my photos of the area behind the driver seat, which, luckily, is not usually visible. It's as if the installer was rushing toward the end of the installation and thought about how this area was not visible. Karen's explanation was that the carpet was inferior and that the threads can be pulled out with a tweezer. I'm not buying this. It's apparent that the installer had to pull the new carpet loose after gluing it incorrectly. Either the threads pulled through the back of the carpet or the installer just pulled the threads loose in an attempt to loosen the carpet to reposition it. There is a bunched area at the top because the carpet is still not positioned correctly. An adjacent piece of carpet that covers the transmission tunnel is installed crooked and in a way that it overlaps the piece behind the driver seat. I can't figure out why the factory cut this panel in such a way, but the way it's installed is wrong and appears to be an attempt to cover more damage to the piece behind the driver seat. After paying and driving the car home, I brought these issues to Karen's attention via email. She called me right away and said the carpet material is cheap and that some of the pieces were either too big or too small. The factory in England says on their website that the pieces are laser cut and will always fit, which may not be true. It was apparent from the beginning that Karen's initial warnings were given to ensure the validity of her "I told you so" explanations. I do understand that, with a carpet kit, they have only one chance to get it right since there is no extra carpet. If they were acting in a way to maintain their reputation, the installer would have stopped working after damaging the carpet. I would have been informed and provided with options. I could have ordered a replacement piece of carpet for a do-over. I would have paid for the additional labor. At this later time, however, the seats would have to be removed again and I'm not sure that adjacent pieces of carpet wouldn't be damaged during a do-over. Ultimately, it seems that they accept an inferior result as long as they can blame someone else - the carpet manufacturer or me, for bringing in a carpet kit. They aren't really interested in doing as good a job as they can. By stopping work to evaluate the bad result, they could have provided me with options.

May 2024

sue i do not know her personally..i know from watching the youtube tv show loud n proud or gas monkey garage.. that she is an amazing person & an amazing upolteral... she is an icon in her trate... i would be honored for her to have her do my upolstery work on any of my vehicles.... you keep on rocking sue!!!!!!!!!

Sep 2021

I went to ASW for a repair on the driver seat of my truck. They came up with a solution for my issue very quickly. I would recommend them to anyone needing this kind of work or any upholstery work. Thank you guys