FR-S was in a Tornado.....how much $ to do a repaint?
 

Son is away at school and unfortunately campus was hit by a EF3 Tornado Thursday @ 2AM. His apartment and car were in the path. Winds up to 165mph. He's good.

Nearly every panel on the car was scratched by flying debris. Although I've not seen it with my own eyes my kid says that it will need to be painted.

Trying to decide wether to insurance claim it or write a check for the paint. What's a good paint job going to cost me? It's a '13. Asphalt color. Less than 26K miles.

On top of that he has been volunteering to clean up homes in a neighborhood near campus that was hit hard. He and his friends have volunteered the last 3 days cleaning up the yards of elderly and cutting up the large trees that fell across their houses, driveways and streets. While commuting to one of the houses he hit some debris and tore a chunk out of his sidewall and messed up the newly finished TRD wheels. I've got a new tire on order and we're looking for a tire shop nearby that has electricity. Hoping to get it corrected sometime this week. Will likely get the wheels powdercoated this summer.

He is tired and frustrated. No good deed goes unpunished, right.

Insurance, or, as I do, don't worry about it.

A good paint job can cost more than the car is worth.

Take claim, sell car, maybe profit.

It costs $15k+ to repaint cars in Australia?

It's about 6K here in Canada for a high quality repaint, and AUD and CAD are almost on par.

Use insurance. The insurance deductible is always less than any cheap paint job.

Not sure why your kid didn't file a claim like everyone else that got hit. That's why you have insurance.

Your college kid has no money and can deal with a scratched up car for the time being.
No need to fix it right now. Post pics !

Weird advice. Also why do you want to see pics and what what does it matter what his son looks like? He probably looks sad right now as anybody would in his situation.

don't hesitate to call your insurance and don't spend your money.
Tornado is considered an act of nature and is covered by your insurance. Your premium will not go up so please do not worry about that.
Painting a vehicle is not cheap. May cost as much as your car

Trash advice, seems like you just wanted to take a jab at a kid in college having a car :lol: It's a tornado let insurance deal with this.

Assumptions

Tornado = every panel scratched with most likely dings

A "proper" paint job can cost more than 15k.

Yes you can do a cheap paint job or spend 5k on vinyl wrap.

Me, I would let insurance handle the repair, or take the pay out.

Anyways, apart from the guy saying it is scratched all over, until a painter/beater looks at the car it is all assumptions, it might be minimal, it might be totalled.

Your guess is as good as mine at this stage.

I've been through hail damage where a car was written off, bonnet, roof and boot had dings, front windscreen was cracked, I took the payout and just purchased another car.

I am fairly critical when it comes to repairs, and you can always tell a cheap job, mismatched paint, broken clips, overspray, 2 years later when the paint falls off.....

Whilst the 86 is cool, it is easily replaced, and if your into shiny paint and straight panels a damaged car is best flipped.

$15k is a little excessive in the U.S. and for this situations. With dents and dings being pulled out from debris damage and a proper stage paint job it really should be around 8k-10k and that varies locally. It also gets to that 15k amount if you end up being super anal as you described with door jambs and all nooks and crannies being attended to. Roof, hood trunk and spoiler repaints were around 3500-4500 for my friends car through insurance due to a tree sap/debris incident. It's definitely locality related and specific to how much effort is put into the repair.

15k AUD is about 10k USD.

No. $15K AUD is $15K in Australia. He is not paying in US$ so exchange rate is meaningless.

Pictures or it didn't happen