parked in a baja fresh parking lot for 10 minutes today, and picked up this wonderful dent from a kid who hadn't even had his license for 30 days yet driving an 80's electra...

Can anyone comment on how successful a body shop can fix this, match the paint, etc.? And what kinds of things I should tell them to do or not do, and what kind of repair method/technique/quality I should expect? It's not the original paint, but was repainted factory color in '92 under a GM recall because the original paint peeled off. But no touchup paint I've ever tried can match it.

I"ve got all the kids contact, insurance, DMV info etc., he was insured through some internet cheap company trash...I hope they aren't hard to deal with, I want this fixed right.







It used to be perfect....

 

thats an easy fix for any semi-retarded body man.(i am one) lol. anyways they are just going to bondo that up and repaint. they will blend that right in and buff buff buff to a new car like shine. ok..i watch to many infomercials. but anyways, easy fix, and a little blending and you will be just fine. i just fixed a nice dent in my driver door, and replaced the driver fender on my formula. my buddy painted the fender, blended the door and buffed the whole car. it looks like it never happened. the only thing that might be a prob is where the bumper meets the rear panel. its plastic and will not match as well. dont sweat it man

 

yeah, real easy fix(semi-retarded or not)

Paint match should not be too hard, they will have to paint quite a bit of the quarter panel to blend well.

Hope it works out

 

they're going to ... bondo it?

they won't come in from behind and tap the metal out and fix the metal?

 

when you tap metal it leaves marks, gotta bondo. no way around it. there is absolutely NOTHING wrong with bondo.

 

They aren't going to just completely bondo it. They will have to take down the crown and pull out the dent some. But I don't think most body shops are going to take the time to completely metal finish that, unless you want to fork out the money maybe. A little bit of filler isn't going to hurt anything. Just take it to a reputable body shop and they will get it taken care of right, you don't need to go in there and tell them how to do their job

 

it wont take much bondo, i promise you wont be able to tell.

 

How about that suction cup thingy that will just pop, pop, pop any ding right out?? haha.

 

actually what the body shop will do is sand it down, pull dent sand some more bondo, sand some more, primer, paint, buff blend etc. so moral of the story is a good reputable shop will be able to fix that little dent in about 2 hours, paint you up, and you will never know it ever happened. Good luck with the repair. You could expect them to take a few days and you will be back on the road in no time

 

My car's under wraps, so I can't check it now, but a good paintless dent removal company can get that out with "NO" bondo if they can get access to behind it. I also disagree with the statement that you can't tap the metal without leaving marks. I do it every day! If there is no access to the dent from behind, it might be able to be pulled out with a professional dent puller. This involves gluing a piece to the car, pulling the metal up past flat, then tapping it down to flat. I don't think the dent puller will work in this case because of the location of the dent. The metal is very tight around the wheel wells.

 

You can't get to that metal from the back IIRC. And I don't think a PDR place could remove that dent anyways and actually make it look good. They deal with little stuff like hail dents, not bigger dents like that. Any body shop could pull that out with a nail gun and have it look fine. They wouldn't 'glue' anything to the panel necessarily but spot weld little nails on with a nail gun and then pull the dent out while tapping down the outside edge because every dent has a crown around the outside. They could pull it out good and then shrink the metal down to get it close and then they would skim it with body filler.

 

88 is on the right track. Can't do pdr on a dent like that because the paint is comprimised and it is a hard area to access from behind. This is still an easy repair which most shops can do in no time.

 

I took it in to a local pro shop. what bts88iroc said is EXACTLY what they told me they were going to do.

The shop had two chrysler musclecars in there (one was a hemi powered convertible, don't remember quite what), and a nice 55-57 chevy too. all in various states of work and repair. I trust 'em.

Now to deal with the kids insurance company. I'm going to call them and tell them I got the estimate and see what they do. It was only for $550 so maybe it won't be so bad.

 

Tell my boss that! I work on dents larger than that on a regular basis. I would make a killing if all dents that I removed were only dings. I have repaired dents on a body line that were so deep, the bottom of the dent was touching the bracing behind it. If that dent is accessible in any way, a good PDR tech CAN get it out and make it look good. It will still need paint touch up, but accessibility is the key. I recently fixed a door that looked like this.