A Sherwin-Willams’ store incompetence totally messed up Fred’s car. Look at that hood front quarter and nose fascia..

Fred brought his car’s paint code in to Dale’s in Colorado Springs, a Sherwin-Williams paint store. Dale’s gave him a can and Fred painted his car. When Fred removed the masking, he discovered Dale’s put the wrong paint in the can. Now it looks like he got his front quarter from a junkyard.

Fred contacted Sherwin customer service. They bitchslapped Dale’s. The owner of Dale’s agreed to pay for Fred’s car to be repainted. But they just never seem to have gotten around it to. This was October, and now it’s too cold in Colorado for Fred to repaint his car. The store has stopped returning his calls and Sherwin-Williams is also unresponsive.

Fred just wants the Sherwin-Williams store to honor the agreement for the mistake it already lived up to. We’re gonna try siccing intern Dyan on this case. You can read Fred’s letter and correspondence inside…

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Fred writes:

“Hi Consumerist,

I have a sad story.

My goal was to paint two panels on my car. It seemed like it would be easy to match the color. I went to Dale’s Paint in Colorado Springs. The guy at Dale’s told me where to get the paint code off the car. The code on the can was identical to the number on an old can I had of the exact same type of Sherwin-Williams paint, which matched the car perfectly. But the color of the paint in the can that Dale’s paint sold me was not what the paint code said it would be. I did not find out about their mistake until removing the masking after I painted the car, (see attached picture.)

I went back to Dale’s and showed them the paint left in the can. They agreed the color was wrong, but all they would do was give me a can of the right color, which I wouldn’t be able to use for six months because it was now too cold to paint outside. (It snowed three days after the car was painted)

Next I e-mailed the customer service address on the Sherwin-Williams web site. They responded (see below) and then the owner of Dales paint called almost immediately. He said they would arrange to have my car repainted the right color, but it would take a week or two to set up. He kept pushing the time out, and finally he quit returning my calls. Later I replied to all the addresses on the e-mail from Sherwin-Williams and told them Dales had done nothing, but they never responded.

Hope you can use this on your web site. Potential customers should know about paint salesmen that are color-blind.

Fred”

Fred’s emails with Sherwin and Dale’s are below.

“—– Forwarded by Tracy C. Holbury/CLE/Sherwin-Williams on 10/19/2006 09:14 AM —–
10/18/2006 06:05 PM
To:
Subject: Sherwin-Williams Auto Paint Color Match

Thought you would be interested in this. On October 2, I went to Dale”s Paint & Supply in Colorado Springs with my 1986 Cougar. We got the paint code number, 9L, off the door and I bought everything I needed to finish painting the repair job. They recommended a Sherwin-Williams basecoat/clear coat product for best color match. The basecoat was SHE-U7-PT Ultrabase, labeled with part number 33631. It looked good going on, covered well and I didn’t get any runs, even thought the air temperature was lower than optimum. Every thing was great until I took the masking off and found out the color didn’t match.

I have an old can of the same type of paint, same number and funny thing it matches the original color.

I went back to Dales, (an hour drive from my house) and they agreed the color was wrong. They offered me a new can of paint. That is not a solution to my immediate problem. We now have snow on the ground. It won’t be warm enough to paint for possibly six months. Besides even if I could do it, I’m not thrilled about sanding the clear coat off, masking the whole thing just so I can cover up their mistake. And what guarantee is there that the color will be right this time.

My wife and I would appreciate any help you can give us. Our car looks ridiculous.

Fred M.
Rush, Colorado

—– Forwarded by Chris C. Stevens/CST/Sherwin-Williams on 10/19/2006 11:59 AM —–
Tracy C. Holbury
10/19/2006 08:10 AM
To: swrep9648@sherwin.com, sw9725@sherwin.com, Chris C. Stevens/CST/Sherwin-Williams@SWCBD
cc: Brian A. Oakley/PST/Sherwin-Williams@SWCBD
Subject: Sherwin-Williams Auto Paint Color Match

I received this e-mail here in Customer Service in Warrensville. According to the records I see in the System Admin.screen that I have access to, it looks like Dale’s Paint and Supply is a jobber out of the Littleton, CO branch and the rep.who has Dale’s as his customer (Thomas Call) would need to contact Dale’s and see if he can help address this situation with the customer (Fred Matthews) who purchased our paint from Dale’s. I will respond to the customer letting him know I have forwarded his e-mail to the sales rep and branch who service Dale’s and that someone will respond to him further. Please let me know who will contact the customer so I can keep it in our records here that we are required to keep on file for customer complaints that we receive through our department.

Thank you.

Regards,
Tracy Holbury
Customer Service Manager
(216)344-5633

—–Original Message—–
From: Chris.C.Stevens@sherwin.com [mailto:Chris.C.Stevens@sherwin.com]
Sent: Thursday, October 19, 2006 12:14 PM
To: Fred Matthews
Cc: brian.a.oakley@sherwin.com; Tracy.C.Holbury@sherwin.com
Subject: Sherwin-Williams Auto Paint Color Match

Fred

I’m sorry to hear about the color match problem on your cougar. I am the Area Sales Manager for colorado. I have notified the sales rep who calls on Dale’s Paint and will be in contact with the owners of Dale’s to try to find an acceptable solution for you.

Thank you.

Chris Stevens
303-619-0699″

Dale’s Paint Supply Co
515 N Circle Dr
Colorado Springs, CO 80909
(719) 636-2635

— BEN POPKEN

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