best way to repair this door?
 

I took it to a repair shop and this is what I got

$1,200 for fixing/painting door and blending with quarter panel.

$700 for fixing/painting door only (no guarantee perfect color match)

My question guys is the following:

Does the entire door have to be repainted? Besides that, the rest of the door is in perfect conditions, not a single scratch or dent.

What's my best option?

What happened? I think some kid riding a motorcycle hit my car. I've been so sad.

Click here for full picture size

http://i.imgur.com/OeG8vFn.jpg

It's totaled. buy a new car

But seriously have them blend it. SWP is a hard color to match and spraying the door only could make it stick out

Yeah, always opt for the blend. File an insurance claim.

Hit and run or vandalism claim for your insurance. Pay your deductible and have them repair it.

I feel like if I do, then it will go on carfax and decrease my car's value more because of that.

Someone backed up on my car a while ago, only a bit damaged on the front fender, call the cops and I checked my carfax the other day and it shows that the car has been in an accident. do i need a police report for this?

does the blend include the entire door and part of the quarter panel or half of the door and part of the quarter panel?

Someone bashed a couple of windows in my GTI, I don't recall calling the cops (since I knew it was going to be less than 1k value and nothing was stolen). Someone hit and ran our Camry. Neither times did we call the cops, we just called our insurance. Now, I don't know if it made its way into the CarFax reports.

It most likely is on the car fax reports as most insurance work is reported and recorded via the DMV, in fact most maintenance when done at dealers is place there as well. Not to worry though broken windows won't diminish the value, and the hit and run will be reported on the car fax that may diminish the value of the camry depends on the damage.

You don't have to, but there is not much you can do other than report it without a license plate of the guy that did it. If you go to your insurance and report the hit and run you could possibly do a diminished value claim and be paid the value lost of this incident.

did your insurance premium/rates increase?

The Camry succumbed to the oil sludge death. The GTI I sold privately, and don't think CarFax was big then. lol

Yup, that's why when I traded in my Yaris, it had zero maintenance on the record since I did them all by myself. haha.

They did not. I believe premiums increase when it's an "at fault" situation.

Well now, I'd suggest you get a good PDR person to tap out the dents, then finish it off with a polishing and waxing.

Yea, the slight crease near the door edge, may be noticeable for a few weeks ..... then you won't "see" it anymore ......:)


humfrz

I would imagine the whole door plus the panel but ask the shop to make sure

I would do this ^^^^. Or at least find a PDR guy with good reviews on line and have him take a look to see if PDR is an option.

Paintless dent repair.

$300 tops.

...or buy a door from pick n pull or something. $150 in SJ.

hot water??? i saw one dude on youtube does it.

I doubt you'll see one in a u-pull type yard yet, but you can search car-part.com to find one in a conventional junk yard.

That price quoted is basically double what I got quoted for with the hood being where the damage was done. Slight dent fix and paint scratch on center of hood $370. There was a tiny scratch also on edge of the hood, so blending to the next panel in order to make hood perfect and better match was $570. I would get more estimates. Maybe the labor charges are double from FL to CT?

A real job will take paint off the door, take out the dents, then take paint off the rear fender so they can blend the paint well. There's a chance of the paint they use on the door to be slightly different from the OEM paint, so this is the best approach to reduce that.

It is a pretty penny though. Some of the paint cracked when someone broke into my car (at 2000 miles!!!) and the body shop took care of it the way I describe it above.

The paint job was fantastic though...you can't tell at all that it was repainted. And I have a very keen eye for stuff like this.

I too, worried about this info showing up on Carfax, but it is better than the door slowly rotting due to rust that could have developed. I'm not sure how feasible it is to swap the door out...is there a VIN that is on the door that could maybe not match the rest of the car?

i just wrote it for $988.24 in my estimating software. repair the door and blend out within the door, blend the quarter

I wrote it for 1200 in pathways. That is with full detrim and blending quarter, rocker and sail panel. Labor at 56/hour.

Baltimore area rates are crap so we are probably pretty close. $44 here

So, @edigeek what did you decide to do and how much did it cost ..... ??


humfrz

5-7 hrs labor, blend within door and blend quarter panel would be my guess, detrim the door and quarter. Labor and paint rates will vary.

I've got a paint crack just like that in my driver's door. Bummer is I'm the idiot that did it when the wind caught my door and smacked it into the car next to me. Of course, it didn't do anything to them.

bobaab pretty much summed it up really well. Last time i spoke with a body shop they said for a perfect finish, they'll sand the paint off to bare metal and work from ground up. Also in your case, they'll have to blend it in with rear quarter panel. In Canada i was charged similarly for door+front fender+rear quarter with full blend in (looking at your dmg it seems like you should only need door+rear quarter panel so it should be less than 1200 imo). Because the color match is difficult with our pearlescent paint, its best you go to a reputable shop otherwise you can end up with terrible paint job or possible end up with non paint match with cheaper short cut costing you more for that 2nd repair job. You won't be happy with terrible repair job, so better to take your money, go to a good shop, pay up and get it done properly first time.

I got it fixed, $850 through a friend who works at a shop