I would like you guys to tell me your experiences good and bad with body shops and what insurance company you use. I have never been to a body shop yet that I have not had to go back to again to have them fix something, or yell at them for breaking something in my car such as trim.

 

Working for some one, I was driving the company vehicle.
Brand new VW Rabbit Pick Up Truck 5-speed.
Much fun!
Damaged on the passenger side panel.
Told to go to Allen Gwynn Chevrolet in Glendale CA for body repair.
OK
Comes back looks great!
I ask for the old panel as I need some sheet metal.
They hem & haw for several minutes.......
Try to BS.
They ended up using fender puller to repair side
INSTEAD OF NEW WELDED IN PANEL!
They charged the insurance COMPANY for that FENDER "Money", and fixed it for "free" (slide hammer, bondo & "paint").
AND WAS READY TO POCKET THE MONEY, nice side work!
No that didn't go over very well with Insurance Company, either.
ALL BBB CAN DO IS PUT THAT INFORMATION ON A LIST, to discourage other customers away from them.

IN AN ACCIDENT, No one TRULY wins.
Ya just end up eventualy walking away & accepting the imperfections.
Take INSURANCE for EVERY PENNY YA CAN, tho.
Then find the body shop place yourself, as that will be the only way you'll truly be happy with car, again.

 

My favorite age-old adage comes to mind here.

"If you want something done RIGHT.... you've got to do it YOURSELF!"

And it's true. For any accident I've ever been in, I told the insurance straight up - You will pay me for the labor/parts to fix my vehicle, using OEM parts. The one time they said 'Well, it'd be cheaper to total the car! It's not worth what it would cost to fix it" I told them fine - replace my car. ('77 Pontiac Firebird with the Skybird package. Only other one they could find was $10k) so I ended up getting 3x what they offered, and bought an '81 T/A with it, AND rebuilt the '77s engine and put in the t/a!

 

Many ways that is SO TRUE.
EXCEPT sometimes ya gotta know your limitations.
Then that way, find the best sources for the best work.
OR take the local school auto body shop class and then HAVE FUN!!!
Fenders, front & rear bumper covers on these cars are SO EASY TO REPLACE!
I got it down to under 20 minute removal. Front bumper is longer!
It is that simple for some projects.
WELDING is "an art"
SO is BONDO!
And PROPER set up paint booth painting.
MYSELF?
I lost my barn bigger than the house back in 1977.
Now just a crowded garage!
Go up to someone that just had car painted & ask if they recommend anyone!

 

Better yet KED85, if you go to a body shop, and want to know what quality work they do...

Ask to see ANY car they've done, that's painted a good glossy black. Black will show up ANY imperfection. Talk to the owner of that black car - did he/she like the quality of work from said body shop?

ALWAYS talk to others the shop has done. RESEARCH if you aren't going to do it yourself!

 

So true; I did that when I scoped out my Maaco shop. Checked out the freshly painted cars; they looked good. Also ask around town; people know who to go to, and who to stay away from. And it never hurts to say "My neighbor Joe Schmoe told me about this place, he said you do good work."

My shop does amazing work- fixed the first car (non-fbody) that I smacked up, and then I went back to them for the frame/windshield swap when I totalled my car. A year later I brought them my girlfriend's (now ex!) car to fix that- she was very impressed with their job, and they even saved her some $$.

If only my fiance' listened to me, and went to "my shop" when some jerk changed lanes into the side of her Camaro, then she might not have all those damned fisheyes in the paint on that side of the car. (laughs) So much for their "Oh, no thanks, we trust this guy" shop! If the guy can't keep a decent water filter on his spray gun...

[edit] Oh and it's gonna be hell trying to set up my garage into a spray booth. Besides tons of plastic, I've gotta move tons of crap OUT of the garage to get enough room to spray. After I take some measurements, I might wind up renting a spray booth from somewhere...

 

I like the idea of setting up a spray booth in your garage. Ideally I would like to own a home with a spray booth, and indoor garage with a lift. Drains in the floors to wash your car inside during the summer and most of all the winter. Seems to me I need to learn how to do body work and when I get another car get down to work on my Camaro since other body shops cannot hack it.

 

Just get yourself a junkyard fender that's already dented in... should be cheap since it's wrecked already, and have at it! I picked up all my body hammers at Pep Boys, made by Performance Tool, for about $15 each. I have a shrinking hammer, regular pick hammer, and a curved chisel hammer. The dollies were around $8 each I think... I have the general purpose "railroad track" dolly, and a flat heel dolly. At minimum, just get a pick hammer and a heel dolly. The shrinking hammer has a gridwork at one end; it "shrinks" metal by giving it many little dents. By working off-dolly with a shrinking hammer, you can remove the oil-can effect of a stretched panel (panel pops in/out when you touch it).

The key to bondo is THIN coats... filler got a bad name because people put it on thick. See, before Bondo, there was Lead. Lead was more expensive, and you needed a torch, so the average guy couldn't do leading without dropping $50. Bondo came out, and at $5/can, anybody could Bondo! (Or so they thought!) So without proper prep, and without reducing large dents to small dents, people slapped on thick layers of Bondo. And Bondo laid thick will crack, look funny, not hold paint well, etc.

So to prep a junkyard fender for bondo, you'd need bondo, a pack of plastic spreaders, a "cheesegrater" body file for rough shaping of bondo while it's wet, 40 grit paper for paint removal and rough bondo shaping when it's dry, 100 grit for final shaping, 220 for prep before primer and sanding primer coats, and 320 or 400 for final sanding of primer before paint.

If you want "pro" quality tools, look at http://www.eastwoodcompany.com ... but you'll pay for 'em! About $25/hammer.

The driver's side fender on my car is my "million dollar fender". I spent so many hours on it, that if I was at a body shop, it would've cost a million dollars in labor. Came out damn good, though!

 

How much do you figure it cost you to fix your fender yourself? I know a new one is pretty cheap, the major cost is just painting it.

 

However much a few blobs of Bondo go for, I suppose. You can only buy bondo by the can, though. If you're asking about hours I invested in it... it -is- my million dollar fender. Can't give you an actual # of hours; that was back in '97.