Ok, here is my take. I have had a few "occasions" to learn a little about this subject. Of course, some of this may be useless being I am in California and laws and procedures may be competely different there.
First, the BAR (Bureau of Automotive Repair) has nothing what so ever to say about "quality". Quality as in "show quality" is SUBJECTIVE, plain and simple. It is an opinion, and can not be "writen in a contract", PERIOD. All they care about is fraud, did the shop do what was written on the work order, that is it. If they did not (they forgot) you have to give them the chance to make good. It can be done as poorly as the rest, but they "did it".
99% of the population including the judge that would oversee your case would walk up to that car in awe and say something like "You sure have kept that car nice, did you buy it new?" Forget the fact that you are standing there obviously born about three years after the car was mad! 99% of people don't have a clue what "show quality" is.
Personally, I can pick appart a $250,000 show car, EASY. HOWEVER, I can also look at something objectively and tell you if it is "good enough". So, there are plenty of people who can't be objective and will tell you how your car doesn't look like a $250,000 show car and you should sue.
I don't know about your neck of the woods but around here $7,000 would get you about what you got.
To get any more, or your money back is going to be darn hard. As mentioned before, this shop was effected by the "storm of the century". It is the "darling" of the feels good public and you wouldn't have a snow balls chance in hell of winning a case against someone who was effected. And for that matter, should you? If the guy really did loose one of his buildings and your parts were in it, doesn't he deserve a break? If he took in all the storm damaged cars to keep his business and not loose his families lively hood, is that so bad? I am not giving you the answers to these questions, just asking. The quality of this work may be "show quality" work may really be "show quality" work to him and the guys he runs with. It IS subjective after all. If you don't know, really know, that this work was substandard to the work he usually would do on a similar car for similar money, you don't know.
The shop can charge what ever they want to, there is no "rules" in a free market society. The fact that you paid for it, in the eyes of the court, you accepted the work. Even if it was your wife who picked it up, forget it, she paid.
I won a case one time in court that was similar to this. I had some bumpers chromed for a buddy off his 65 Vette. This Vette really was "Show quality" by anyone standards. The bumpers were fit to the body (if you aren't familier with these cars, they bolt right to the glass) and were perfect outside of the chrome. They were marked for indentification and given to the clowns. They brought them back looking like crap and one of them wasn't even his! I didn't know how bad they were being they were wrapped up when delivered and I didn't have time to open them. I paid with a check which I went and stopped payment on when they were opened. The shop sued me for non-payment.
In court we brought a bumper off my Vette showing how it should look, a poster of a finished red convertible and photos of the finished frame to teach the judge what a "show quality" meant. We lucked out by getting a lady judge who happened to be kind of a car nut and understood with our presentation that this bumper was not even "street quality" which is what the guy said was all that was promised.
We won the case, and didn't have to pay the money, but we never received the original bumper back. We gave up because you can only take "principles" so far, they are costly sometimes.
The long and short of it is this, see if the guy will finish the floor, polish it and make the door work and leave it at that. I am not saying the guy doesn't deserve to be sued and his ars kicked, I am just saying to "choose the hill you want to die on".
Brian
