Front End Respraying

[dtgtheone]

Hey guys,

I will try and keep this as short as I can.

A few days ago I was on the highway and a sizeable rock kicked up from the vehicle in front of me, leaving a nasty, quarter-size dent and cracked paint on my hood just above the passenger side headlight. I got my BRZ in October 2014 and it's had six+ years of frequent highway driving, so the front end is peppered with rock chips and doesn't look great as it is. I decided to get an estimate to respray the the front bumper and hood, seeing it's as good a time as ever now. Here's where you guys with body shop/repaint experience can give me some advice --

The first shop I got an estimate from was about $1500 for both, which I thought seemed pretty reasonable for a job like this. The quote was for just repainting both bumper and hood. The other shop was just a shade under $2000; however, the second shop quoting me at $2000 told me they weren't going to actually repaint anything (on the hood, at least). They said they would simply fix the area of the hood where the dent was and blend the paint into the fender and rest of the hood.

Is this typical? How can they just blend the paint into the rest of the hood and fender when there are tiny rock chips all across the hood, extending to the driver side as well? And they are charging $500 more than the other shop. These are both well-reviewed, local shops...definitely no Maaco job. Also, FWIW, the more expensive quote had a lot of identical labor breakdowns on the estimate, but the labor times were 1/2 hour to an hour longer. 2 hours longer in some cases.

Sorry for the length of this. Any help is appreciated! Thanks in advance.

[soundman98]

Sounds like you need a better description of what the first shop would do, maybe even a 3rd quote

[dtgtheone]

Originally Posted by soundman98

Sounds like you need a better description of what the first shop would do, maybe even a 3rd quote

The first estimate is in two parts.

[gen3v8]

I don`t know what color your car is, it matters. Sounds like you want the whole bonnet/hood repaired,stone chipped all over, so the blend needs to go into the gaurds. If the gaurds are chipped or a difficult color the blend may need to go into the doors. The blend is just the color and is clear coated over completely to the end of the panel. As far as pricing goes you can`t do a quick cheap job properly,although fix the dent and blend is minimum, so you get what you pay for.