My new used car came with some minor body damage on the right rear quarter panel/bumper. As you can see from the photos, it’s just a small dent and scratches. It truly is minor to me - I’m not in a rush to do anything about it, but I’m curious. Any idea roughly how much a body shop might charge to fix it? How hard is it to apply touch up paint yourself and how would the results look? Thanks everyone!
You might try a paintless dent repair for that, probably $100 or so, and looking good enough!
Bumper and fender. Without seeing that much of the vehicle my guestimate would be about $1100.
Wherever there is paint damage there cannot be PDR repair.
I too was going to guess $1,000. Bodywork is very expensive.
That scratch looks like it’s on a metal part. If it is, I’d get a paint-on touchup thing from the parts store and carefully try to fill the scratch before it starts rusting.
Wow. Probably not worth $1000 to fix. It’s really not that noticeable. But I’ll definitely look into touch up paint to prevent rust because part of the dent/scratches are in metal.
A lot depends on the skill of the body and paint man. Someone good at “blending” the paint on adjacent panels so that you don’t have to pay for painting the entire bumper cover and fender should be able to save you some money. Metallic colors can be tricky to blend well. I’d check with a body shop or three in your area. We’re only guessing by looking at your pictures, no matter how good they are. My guess would be in the $400 range at an independent shop.
MG is right. We’re guessing based on the photos. Before making any decisions, you may want to get a couple of quotes from reputable body shops. We might be way off.
Let us know what they quote you. I for one would like to know how far off I am… and in what direction!
My guess is about a grand because almost any kind of minor damage can easily run that much.
The materials cost alone can get very pricy as it involves much more than a can of paint and primer.
I am with the grand crowd if you want to do it properly, because the bumper should be removed and painted and the panel straightened and painted. A dentless place might do something and make it less visible but nit perfect. The DIY solution as you said is clean it with some rubbing compound and apply touch up paint for around $12.
Depending on where you live, I’d ignore it. It will get fixed when someone slams into you and requires a larger repair. That has been my strategy here in Atlanta, and I may need to wait 6-12 months, but someone always seems to hit me near a blemish like than and fixes it on their dime.
Thanks again everyone. Even $400 is too rich for my blood right now, I probably won’t even bother with an estimate any time soon. I will look into touching it up myself though. Like I said, it’s not even that noticeable and I think taking care of the scratches would go a long way.
A DIYer can make this look very acceptable but it will take some elbow grease. You may be driving around with body plastic and primer spots as the process goes along.
You would need a small body hammer with a pick on the end and tap the dent out.
This would be followed up by sanding to the bare body surface and applying some Bondo.
Once the Bondo is worked out then it’s followed by primer, paint, clear coat, etc, etc.
Dupli-Color (available almost everywhere) manufactures some dead-on matching aerosol cans. Just get the paint code from your car for an exact match. Just do some internet reading about this type of work and decide if you want to do it or not. It’s really not difficult; just takes a little patience and probably 50-60 bucks worth of supplies and tools.
For what it’s worth anyway, I’ve done minor paint repairs on my cars and family member cars with Dupli-Color and you can’t tell it was ever damaged even with a close-up inspection.
Ok I think I may try to tackle this bad boy (dent + paint) next week and I wanted to get some advice from you good people first. My first issue, of course, is the dent. I don’t care as much about making it absolutely perfect - I figure can always take it to a body shop down the road when I have more cash on hand. I can’t seem to find a way to get behind the dent to either hammer or push it out. I tried going through the trunk after removing the lining, but had no luck (it was very tight quarters, wasn’t sure where I was on the panel when I reached my hand in). I’m not sure removing the bumper cover will do any good (see this picture http://img.justparts.com/uImage/5E5BC633-8C90-4676-9983-D69D2A75AEB0.JPG). I also have so far been unable to remove the wheel well liner to see if I can get at it that way.
Is it worth trying to remove the dent without having to take parts off? I discovered two DIY methods on the internet: (1) heat with a hair dyer and then immediately spray with compressed air; and (2) hot glue and a dowel to pull the dent. Are either of these worth trying for this particular dent, or am I going to have to take parts off?
Could I just fill the dent with Bondo and make it look good?
Thanks!
Oh, you can see close-up pictures in my original post. I’ve also attached one in this post that’s pulled back a little.
You should just start saving for a real repair and don’t take a chance on making it worse. Heck , just buy one of those large things that read " BANG-AID 'and stick over the dent.
Is there any risk of making things worse if I just do the touch up paint (and skip the dent)? There’s definitely bare metal coming through on the quarter panel and it will be quite awhile before I have a few hundred bucks to throw at minor cosmetic damage – don’t want rust in the meantime.
Touch up paint would not hurt anything .
Go to a paintless dent repair, get an estimate, oops did I say that before?
The latest pic makes me think there is also some paint transfer from the other car or whatever. Some of that extra paint might come off with rubbing compound and a rag. Then you can see if you want to go any further.
THe dent in panel needs to get corrected as it will eventually rust in a few years. The bumper is optional.