heres the backstory. most of it you know.

last month i traded in my 04 SE for my 02 SSEi. well, the trunk applique was pretty bad on the 02, so i made them agree to trade me taillights plus applique from the cars. mine were tinted and cleared anyway, so it meant less work for me. they said to come back for it bc i had to leave asap.

went back the next week, and they had a guy do swap the tails. i had to basically make him do the applique because he tried to tell me he was only supposed to do the taillights. that didnt include the applique. my thought was "yeah. give me the tinted taillights and the stock applique. thatll match just fine" so he swapped the applique.

went to address the trunk leak that i have today . . .

the dude apparently had NFC what he was doing. the applique top is sticking out, which means he bent the metal and didnt bend it back. but he did try to fix it. by using double-sided tape and hella silicone or something similar.

so now i get to clean that mess up too. and its too cold outside for me to do this today. but i was just looking at whati needed to do - theres silicone all over the place on the inside of the trunk lid for me to clean up too.

one more - he broke my trunk release on the trunk lid.

im assuming it was all him because thats convenient. lesson learned: never let anyone touch my car, regardless of how much it seems like they should know what theyre doing.

im mad.

Try talking to the salesman you dealt with. I had my car'* hood repainted because of the blister, but they went the cheap route and just touched it up. But the salesman has been great helping me out, and said to let him know if I have any trouble with it in the future and he'll make it right. If he'* a true salesman that knows the value of a happy customer, he'll fix you up.

That sucks! If the mechanic had any clue at all he'd realize you're the kind of guy who cares about his car and will probably see the results of the work at some point

Yeah, that'* a bad deal. There are methods, instructions & standard procedures that the technicians should follow when installing these components. It'* not that complicated. Sounds like you got a real dud for a tech. Sorry to hear about your misfortune. Hope you get it resolved somehow to your satisfaction.

"resolved to my satisfaction" means that ill be taking it back apart and cleaning up all of his crap. and then im going to put it back together the right way. ill have to figure out how to get some more clips because mine are completely torn to shreds.

I hear ya, when you want something done right, you have to do it yourself. What clips do you need?

the clips that attach the applique to the trunk.

Yep.....My bmws passenger window made a slight cracking sound while going up but worked find. I kept putting off bringing it in cause I expected the dealer would not put the door panel on right or break clips. Well I brought it in so far so good but yeah if you can do the job your self do it yourself.