Scratch + dent on rear quarter panel - fix or no?
 

Unfortunately, someone has decided to open their door furiously into my car in the worst possible place. Also since the other car was an SUV, it was their lower door edge that went right over the rear wheel well hump and DUG into the paint sharply.

I have a deep scratch and slight dent on my driver side rear quarter panel. Note it can't be buffed out, its way beyond even the black paint layer:
http://img109.imageshack.us/img109/1...2081900451.jpg

This panel spans one piece from the rear bumper to the front of the car with the roof rail and rocker panel all in one piece. I am going through the process of insurance etc but even with the assumption I have everything paid for with no deductible, would YOU do this repair?

The body shops I've been going to indicated this is a huge job for a tiny bit of damage, they will remove my spoiler, my rear lights, the roof plastic trim, UNGLUE and REGLUE my rear side window, remove all my door and window trim, my door handle, they will most likely drill a hole to push the dent out, sand it down, repaint the area, BLEND the new paint into my door as well as the rest of the panel, re-clear coat and then reassemble.

The shop claims if any trim is broken or bent out of shape beyond use they will order new ones and replace. But my concern is that the car will never quite be the same once they're all done with this work? And maybe the paint won't even be the same? Will I notice a difference in colour here? I'm pretty meticulous with this sort of stuff.

Does anyone have experience with this kind of work? Do you know whether its worth it to do all this work? I literally just polished and opti-coated my car on my own so it was in pristine condition before the dent/scratch and it breaks my heart to look at it everytime I get in the car so I'm leaning towards fixing it.

Thanks in advance for any advice you might have :(

Clean up the scratch and fill it with some touch up paint. Wait a few weeks and see how you feel then. Chances are they'll be other little scratches and nicks in the paint elsewhere and you'll care a bit less. It's always hardest when the damage is fresh.

I had a mobile dent repair guy spot fix a dent between the driver's side engine vent and door on my MR-S. He had easy access through the vent to push out the dent from the behind. But it was a gnarly dent beyond paintless dent repair so he had to sand it down, put body filler, then paint/blend/clear. I could see the paint didn't blend perfectly at first but he already said he intended come back in a couple days after the paint dried to do a final buff. After the buff, it was very hard to find the blend. You had to be under excellent lighting looking at it closely from sharp angles to find it. Basically, I quickly forgot I had a dent there after the repair. But there were a lot of panel edges/character lines around the dent which he played off of to blend. Sorry I don't have any closeups but here it is from the full side:

http://img534.imageshack.us/img534/7575/36689714.jpg

I see you have a character line above the dent. It might be possible to spot fix and I would try to find an experienced painter with the skill and balls to do it. There's a possiblity of a slight mismatch on the blend but clearcoat and buffing can hide it very well and you might be able to live with it. It's a gamble which should only cost a couple hundred.

If you aren't satisfied, then do the full body work you described. I would not worry too much about pulling panels and the window. The window only fits one way and it's hard to mess that up. Your panels are still new (not deformed from years of baking in the sun) and should pop right out. They are designed to come out and body shops have panel remover tools (they look like plastic picks and spatulas) to make it easy. I suggest you get a Subaru service shop involved so it stays under warranty so if any rattles occur they will fix it.

Whichever repair method you choose, either will involve a sand down, maybe some metal bending, filler, then respray.

Try those mobile dent repair. My friend backed up her Audi wagon into a jeep with a front winch and made a center punched dent on the hatch. The mobile dent guy fixed it for $80 and did a very good job.

I forgot to add the doing the full fix you described will put a red flag on your car. If you ever sell your car an experienced buyer/appraiser can only assume it's been wrecked. I'm not sure if the spot fix will give you the same red flag. You might want to ask a professional appraiser such as an insurance adjuster or a Carmax appraiser.

Yeah I thought about this as well, the body shop says they'll see it as a small job no structural damage as it wasn't caused by an accident. But I am going to check with the adjuster first. See what the diff would be between the full fix and a small job.

Definitely want to have the dent flattened out though, I can live with a line of touch up paint maybe but definitely not a dent.

I took my car and got it fixed it at a body shop.
I have no intentions of selling so I don't care if its 'red flagged'
plus I have the pictures and receipts and everything :]

I also used a paintless dent removal guy recently (on my Versa) and was impressed by the results, he used the glue pulling technique as he couldn't get to the spot from behind and it still came out really well...only $140CDN

I see you're from GTA as well, could you let me know or PM the place you used? glue pulling sounds interesting, I've seen push from behind (needs to remove panels or drill a hole) and a small pin welded to the metal and then broken off so far

Haven't heard of glue yet though!

I'm in the same boat as you are, some bastard manage to door dent me in two places, passenger rear corner panel. Luckly when I got this car from the dealer, I paid extra $600.00 ex warranty, which covers dent and key loss etc for 4yrs. I have a appointment with them tomorrow, will let you know the out come.

I'm an Auto Appraiser in my day job and here's my advice:

Because there isn't a deductible for this particular claim, this will put even more consideration towards filing a claim as there are not out of pocket costs at this time. But, what you need to consider is how this can and will affect your premiums moving forward and also the ding on your car-s history report. This report don't give the severity of the claim/accident, it just lists that you made a claim. If there is no other choice but to in fact make this claim then I would strongly suggest saving the shop's and your insurance company's repair estimate along with extensive photos of the damage. This will help if and when you need to explain this to the next prospective buyer.