[Matadoress]

Arghhhhhh, it happened. Some yo-yo clipped my car in a parking lot. My car didn't even have a thousand miles on it. It caused a small dent and scraped the through the paint. To have it repaired the whole bumper and the side panel which goes all the way around the window have to be repainted. The estimate is $1,400.00 both at the dealer and also a reputable body shop. I don't know if I should have it repaired or just live with it.
Can anyone tell me how good is the paint body shops use? Will it match perfectly? Will it wear the same as the rest of the car? It seems like a lot of work and paint for a small amount of damage. But yet it is a new car................. Sigh........................

 

[Matadoress]

Thanks for the sympathy. I think insurance would pay for it. I am more concerned with the paint matching and fading, especially since they have to paint so much of the car. I heard red was a color more apt to fade, so I was hoping others here could offer advice as to their experiences.

 

[Matadoress]

Here's an update to my repair or not to repair saga. I had decided to go ahead and leave the dent and scratches; worried that after time there would be a noticeable difference in how the factory paint vs. the repainted section would fade.

My dear husband had other ideas. He wanted to take it to one of those dent guys, in hopes of minimizing the damage. The first guy said he couldn’t get to that area just above the wheel well. The second guy said he thought he could get to it through the tail light. He said he would also use some touchup paint on the bumper and all would be better.

We took it in last Tuesday morning and that afternoon the “Dent Dude” called and said I have some good news and some bad news. He happily told me how he was able to work out most of the dent and it looked great. The bad news? He said “this has never happened to him before”. When he went to remove the white paint from my bumper, his polisher removed the paint in two places. Sigh……………… He insisted that it couldn’t have happened if my car had clear coat on the bumper. No worries though, he would take care of it and it would be better than new. Three days later I picked up my car. It does look good. Hopefully it will look as good in years to come.

If that wasn’t bad enough, when I came home and was cleaning the car I found that there was another huge scratch under the front bumper about eight inches long. Plus a two inch by one inch chunk of chrome is gone from my front passenger rim. Another big sigh……………

While the first round of damage was caused by some random jerk in a parking lot, this was done by lil ol’ me. Last Monday I did a quick U-turn and found that my turning radius, while is impressive, didn’t compensate for my bad driving. Who put that curb so far in the road anyway?

So now does anyone have some advice as to what to do with my rim?

 

[Matadoress]

Hii Bond
I got them chromed from the dealer