Ability Auto Body & Paint Inc.

So I didn’t think things could get worse after all that happened during the holidays. Of course, you should never say never, cause it did. I was driving north on Kearny Villa Rd one evening and I hit a deer. Yes, you heard that right, a freaking deer. I haven’t seen a deer in Mira Mesa or anywhere since the 1990’s! I hit it and ran over it and was completely mortified and shocked and very, very sorry that I accidentally killed one of God’s majestic creatures. I killed Bambi’s mom and it still haunts me. **sidenote, my friend is a jokester and told me she’d get me a Bambi doll for my birthday** So of course, I have insurance, and need to get my car taken care of.
Thank goodness my family has been coming to this auto body shop forever, since we moved to Mira Mesa and they opened. I’d say it’s been 15−20+ years now. The owner, Tony, actually knows my mom because of the numerous accidents my brothers and parents have had. This is the first major accident for me, I’ve had a few very small fender benders.
They work very well with your insurance adjusters, are very up front and honest about the work on your car. They do excellent work with the paint jobs. Tony wants to retire and is grooming his children to take over the business. I’m hoping they keep the excellent service and reputation that Tony has kept with this business all these years.

Kevin took care of my Honda, good communication, delivered on time. The work is very well done. Thanks.

This is by far the BEST family business that I have ever had the pleasure of doing business with. The entire experience from the initial phone call the the finished project was beyond 5 star service. I highly recommend bringing you car here for extraordinary work!!! If you’re in the area there is no other place worth going.
I was in an accident two Saturday’s ago and initially found another place on the first page of State Farms recommended shops. I called and they were too busy to even answer questions over the phone. I then found Ability and spoke with the owner Tony over the phone. Something about Tony’s genuine concern and interest in helping me with my car really made me feel at ease. He assured that there were available and able to look at my car whenever I found time to come in.
Tony’s son called me several times to inform me of Insurance updates and the status of my car. Both his daughter and son are incredibly patient and delightful to work with. I honestly can’t think of one bad thing to say about this experience. Everyone as a whole made me feel like I was being taken care of just as if I were part of their family.
Their general concern and interesting in helping left a truly everlasting experience that down right trumps the horrific experience of getting into a car accident and not being able to afford to repair the damage. I am not sure if I could’ve been able to handle this situation without the kindness and consideration of this family business.
Tony told me my car would be fixed and painted by Tuesday and his son called me Friday to let me know it had been completed!!! I couldn’t have been more grateful as I really needed the extra money I would’ve spent on three more days of renting a car.
The body work and paint job are absolutely incredible. I had paid extra to paint the corrosion on my roof and they were unbelievably kind enough to spread the love in other places!!! Words couldn’t express how heartfelt I was and appreciative of such random act of Kindness. I am here to pay it forward and spread the love.
My roommate is a car guy and truly admired what brilliant work this shop did. He plans to bring his Supra in next month for a new coat of paint itself. You are in good hands leaving your car here for any and all work!!!

This business does a great job, and Tony (the owner) is wonderful to work with. After a distracted driver backed into my Hyundai Elantra, causing considerable damage, the insurance adjuster gave me an estimate ($ 3K+) and a list of approved body shops in the area. I chose Ability, in part based on the reviews here, and in part because of their estimate of how long the job would take… much less time than other shops I called. They did such a great job on the body work that when I brought the car in to the dealer for an oil change, the service people couldn’t tell which part of the car had been worked on. Great work, done in good time, and refreshingly honest. I recommend Ability highly.

Tony is very friendly and professional, he’ll get you fixed up right away. Would recommend.

This was the best experience I’ve ever had with car repairs. After I got rear ended Wally took me under his wing and really went out of his way to handle all the complex and frustrating dealings with the other party’s insurance company for me. He’s incredibly knowledgable and experienced and really makes it known how much he values everyone who walks through his door. Meet Wally once and you’ll have complete faith in Ability Auto to go to bat for you against the insurance companies and make sure the repairs are flawless. If anything should happen to my car again, I will definitely go out of my way to get Ability Auto’s hands on my baby.

I have a 2003 Altima, brought it in on a Saturday to have them take a look since it’s old and cosmetic pieces are now breaking; driver door handle broke off, the hinge on the cup holder lid broke and buttons on my center console lid also have broken. I mainly came in for the door handle but had them take a look at the rest.
Tony is very polite and practical, worked with me the whole way through and he gave me the details up front, no fluff. He first tried to see if they could just fix a couple of the broken pieces without having to replace them completely – I always appreciate when someone tries to save me money! Unfortunately the pieces are broken beyond repair (which I anticipated; they were literally snapped off) so we went ahead and ordered the door handle. ~ Door handle came in, it wasn’t painted so Tony had them paint it before it was put on my car. The door handle looks and works perfectly, like it was never broken!
Wally is another super polite and helpful employee! He gave me the estimate for the center console lid and the cup holder lid, showed me pics of how it has to be ordered and advised that they’d need a parts deposit; I’m relieved to know all this up front! I am very pleased that they are honest, helpful and informative! I don’t like to be given the run-​around or to be offered things I don’t need and I got none of that here. Just quality.
I am going back to have them repair the other pieces and would most definitely recommend them to anyone needing work done on their precious chariots. They will take care of you! :)

I drive a Jaguar and the color on the top (roof) started to fade. I took it to Jaguar and they wanted more than $ 2000… took my car to Ability Auto & Body and they did the job for $ 500 and what a job they did. It is fantastic… my car looks new. In one day and out the next. Tony was a very personable man and I really enjoyed doing business with him. If you need any body work or paint… you really need to check them out. Excellent!!!

I had my Mazda CX-​9 fixed at Ability Auto. Tony and Ralph were friendly with high quality service. They updated me with the status throughout their progress.
Honest people, great works and reasonable prices. I’m happy with the result. Thanks guys!
Ron H.

Found this place on Unilocal because of the good reviews. It IS good and it deserves 4+ stars:
I dropped my car here for a big scratch and minor dent (thanks to the polar in my parking lot). They accept insurance from Mercury and they can call Enterprise down the street to pick you up for a rental car.
It took me 2 – 3 days to communicate with Mercury for them to send an inspector to check my car in the body shop. After the insurance stuff, the repair work took 2 days in total — that’s fast! Work is done well. Ralph is very knowledgable about mechanics, color paints and color texture. He knows what he’s doing. He and the mechanicians took good care of my car.
Communication with the shop is easy and clear. They send out daily update message to my cell phone.

First of all, I’m a very picky person when it comes to getting my car worked on. I can honestly say that I found Ability Auto Body & Paint I’m Miramar to be one of the best!!! My SL-​500 turned out better than I anticipated. The staff are all very polite, Tony has stepped up his already awesome customer service to another level by adding a very professional and knowledgeable member to his team: Ralph is awesome!!! Highly recommend they will always have my business. I liked it so much I went to work there!

I recently had my bmw 335 fixed at this shop due to a truck hitting me while parked… rear bumper, rear quarter panel, and a little part of the rear door was damaged, especially the quarter panel which was literally just «crunched» inwards. I brought it over to Tony who took awesome care of me from day one, very professional. Now here’s what amazed me. Part of my front bumper was also damaged at the scene which i didn’t notice till the next day, (side ripped off and bottom tray fasteners ripped off due to the parking stop that was in front of my car), and since i haven’t reported it to the insurance company at the time, they said they had to file a separate claim for it which could take longer. I called up Tony to tell him to forget about fixing the bumper, as it will take too long and what not, but he told me to not worry about it and voila, new bolts, new fasteners, they made it work!!! and for free too! It only took them about 4 days to get my car all fixed up, and when i went to pick it up, my goodness its as if it hasn’t even been hit! Dunno how they did it, but DAMN it looked like how it did before.
Def recommend tony and his team at ability, and to top it off they washed my car! leather cleaner and EVERYTHING!
Hopefully i won’t have to come back here again to fix my car, but I do feel very assured that this shop is near me so that just in case something does happen… i’m taken care of (knock on wood)

By far the best customer service! Honest people with a quick turn around that produces superb quality work!

I’ve been here a couple times and every single time the owner and workers go above and beyond to help me out. I can’t say enough good things about this place. Genuinely good service. You will not be disappointed because they know what they’re doing. Will be recommending this place to friends!

Brought in my car after a fender bender (Accord vs. SUV) on a Tuesday morning. By Thursday afternoon in the same week, I received a call from Tony telling me the good news that my car was fixed, cleaned and ready to go home!
My Honda looks better than ever and the service there was top notch. I would definitely recommend Ability Auto Body to my family and friends now, since they’ve won me over as a current and future customer.
Thank you so much Tony & company!

Brought my damaged 2009 Saturn Sky in for an estimate. While other shops came in a little cheaper, my review of the Better Business Bureau website showed this was the place to take my car. Dropped it off, it was ready one day early and the quality of the repair was amazing. I would not hesitate to recommend Tony and Ability Auto Body & Paint. A great job.

By far the best customer service and amazing job on my BMW. Just picked up my car and it looks brand new. Tony has my business for very long time.
Michael G.

I hate to do this but I would never bring another car here. Was in an accident that was the other person’s fault and State Farm sent me here. Brought the car in to have some damage on my driver side door repaired. Pick it up 4 days later and noticed that the trim in the door was off. I touched the trim and found out that pieces of my trim had been broken I had a 4 inch by 2 inch hole in my trim (covered by original material). The body shop said it wasn’t their fault because someone had worked on the door before. 6 years ago, someone worked on the door and everything was put back with nothing broken. Now I have a door that has a huge hole in the trim and no one is willing to fix it.

Ability is a preferred repair shop with State Farm Insurance, which made putting my car back to new after a collision very easy! I got in the wreck on a Friday at 5pm, dropped the car off Saturday morning and was greeted with a waiting representative from Hertz (Ability had arranged with my insurance) to take me to me rental car down the street.
Great work, reasonable prices and they handled everything with my claim which was a life saver. I really liked working with Tony! Very nice guy. I would give 5 stars, but I had to call several times to ask about status of the car… evidently there was a breakdown in communication between Ability and State Farm over who should contact me about repair estimates. I also had to call and ask when my car would be ready after about 10 days. It took exactly two weeks from drop-​off to pick-​up, so all in all that’s not bad. The best part was they gave me a nice military discount — and applied it to my deductible. Woohoo!
I’ve since had the car appraised for trade-​in and although they noticed the fenders weren’t the same, they said the work was «professionally done and obviously done by a dealership.» Compliments to Ability! Hopefully I don’t need their services again, but if I do — and if you live anywhere around Mira Mesa… your chances are obviously pretty high here — I would definitely come back. I’ll refer anyone who needs repair work done here as well.
Sidenote — Tony recommended me to a «no b.s.» tire/​brake shop and I was also happy with their service. Bonus points!

In 2006 a buddy referred me to this place as a military friendly shop that does great work for my classic muscle car, unfortunately this was back in the 90’s. They told me it would be 3 weeks (yeah right) but it ended up being 2 months and when I got it back there was over spray everywhere to include over my NEW interior (they didn’t even make an effort to clean it) the door jams weren’t even painted and the paint besides being 2 shades off from the one I picked was as runny as a 2 yr olds nose. I ended up maxing out my PCS leave to just waiting for them to finish they did offer to fix it if I could wait another 3 weeks which I didn’t have. I ended up chalking it up as a lesson learned, and make it a habit to warn everyone who plans on going there of the dangers of doing business there.