I have a buddy who just went through similar issues with a local body shop. He took his '70 Camaro in to have the trunk and quarters replaced, then the whole car painted. They had the car for almost a year, kept asking for money every few months and not doing squat with the car. When he threatened to take the business to someone else, they half-assed tossed on his quarters, trimmed a bunch of stuff on the frame rails and other non-affected sheet metal, and never touched the trunk... then demanded more money. Every time he went to them to check progress, they kept telling him 'the guy' working on his car was either sick, had quit, or was otherwise not available - different excuse every time. I get the whole "gotta work the collision and premium jobs first" mantra that body shops have... but when you're talking over $8000 laid out for the work, it seems like it should be one of those 'main line' jobs to me.
Anyway, he eventually got fed up and told them he was going to take his car somewhere else, and they flipped. When he went in, they'd half-assed his quarters, poorly cut and installed the trunk pan, and trimmed sheet metal in places that would've been otherwise unaffected had they done it all properly. Basically, they crapped out a bunch of work to show him they'd made some progress... and done it very poorly.
My whole point: He recovered his car and took them to court. He had a paper trail (receipts) of the money he'd given them, pictures of the car before and after (also, during several of his visits, to show lack of progress), and even pulled his phone records to show that he'd attempted contact to get things moving. The court awarded him $8500, he bought another car & transferred over his restoration parts, then sold the 'hacked up' car to a guy to make a race car.
If you have any of those types of 'records,' you might be able to recoup at least some of your money.
Good luck with it all.
