Topic: Dent and scratches advice appreciated

[tint89]

Hey fellas. I've had some horrible weeks, but this has to be my worst ever. First I run over a skunk, then I get less and small hours worth of shifts at work, and to top it all off, my frustration lead to this accident while I was reverse parking in my parking garage. The car next to my spot was pretty close to mine and I wanted to do a nice slow squeeze into my spot which is next to concrete pillars. Me being too close, I tried to correct my parking. My frustration coupled with my usage of just the mirrors lead to me bumping into the pillar. This is the result.

My analysis: Pretty much surface scratches and a dent. I'm not knowledgeable in auto, but I imagine the dark black looking scratches are the primer. The worst ones are the edges of the dent where the two frames separate as the layer is pretty much an easy peel. Everything else doesn't seem too deep at all. The other big issue is the dent itself. I opened my trunk and I noticed on the side, when I removed the lining there is that intentional empty space crater kind of section. It happens to be right where the dent happened. I guess one can say that's a lucky spot to get it. My friend said hitting it from the inside of the trunk should get it back into shape mostly no problem.

So I'm asking for your analysis and advice on this as I said I am not knowledgeable in cars and repairing at all. My father, as upset on the phone as he was, believes that a repair for all this would be close to if not a minimum of $1000. My friend reckons that it would cost a few hundred as to be honest it doesn't look THAT bad. My friend also said it's also a do it yourself fix. He is very knowledgeable in auto as he did mention he worked at a shop I don't remember the name of at the moment. He talked about the grit sandpaper and the primer coating then the clear coating. Made sense to me. When I came home I looked up guides and videos of fixing it up yourself at home and what he said seemed to be legit and matched up with what I saw. I was thinking of pretty much learning from this guide though I'd like to know if you guys would vouch for the method:

Edit: I can't post external links, but the guide is by Mike Davis on repairing cars in my situation for around $50 on carpaintrepairinfo.

Any general advice is appreciated. Would be nice to not spend a lot of money at a shop, though I don't think my father would be too keen on doing it himself. It's my car, but since it's registered to him and he was the previous owner, I let him call the shots. He's quite the greasemonkey as he did all the work on the car as well as the truck he drives himself rather than taking them to shop/mechanics. If do it yourself is the way to go in this situation, I'll probably try to convince him. He'll be home Thursday night, so I'll have to call him up in the morning or after my shift. I just hope there won't be rusting by then.

It's a 2009 Honda Civic by the way.

Thanks in advance guys.

[aquadorhj]

scratches, yeah, if you are real careful and patient, you can DIY. 


but you are gonna have to get that dent out.   

if you can't take the bumper off yourself, you are going to have to fill that dent with bondo, sand, prime, paint, clear coat.

and, since it's silver, you will have hard time matching the paint on a few years old car. 


if i were you, i would just give it to a well rated shop. 

because the metal was damaged, if you don't fix it well, it will start to form rust where the paint and metal damages are, pretty soon.


by the way, the dark black scratches you see on the bumper means the paint was totally scratched off to the plastic.
on a silver car, the primer would be likely gray or white.

[tint89]

Thanks for the input.

But I imagine the dent can be popped/hit out from the inside of the trunk as I looked into earlier, with the lining removed via pop clips. Though obviously it wouldn't look as perfect as the more thorough method.

Ah. So the black scratch would be deeper than the rest then.

I'm looking into local shops now. Dent Wizard seems promising. I'm going to try and haggle the price of course, but to be honest I have no idea what a fair price for this kind of repair would be.

[wing]

A dent guy would charge about $100 to get that out of the metal isn't creased

[tint89]

I actually got an estimate from a local place today. They want 600 for the quarter damage and 250 for the bumper. With tax that'll still pretty much be $1000. Another one of my friends knows some folks in his area though. Not popular brands or anything like that, so I might just get lucky. Waiting on their replies.

Thanks!

[Fobroader]

The bumper, meh, no worries, its plastic and its a 5 year old car already. The rear quarter......$600 to fix it, that sounds cheap.

[wing]

That's paint and all.  Sounds about right although somewhat expensive.  A dent guy can pull the de.btl  for much less

[Fobroader]

That's paint and all.  Sounds about right although somewhat expensive.  A dent guy can pull the de.btl  for much less

The paint is cracked at the edges, this is beyond a paintless dent removal.

[wing]

Yeah but pop the dent with the paintless guy then paint it.  The other guys go nuts with the dent puller.

We have a good paintless guy here... who ummm paints.  He pulls the dent then will touch up with an airbrush.

[Fobroader]

Yeah but pop the dent with the paintless guy then paint it.  The other guys go nuts with the dent puller.

We have a good paintless guy here... who ummm paints.  He pulls the dent then will touch up with an airbrush.

A friend of mine went to two of these places in town after her Grand Cherokee got hit in a parking lot and both of said they couldn't do it because it involved paint.

[tint89]

Agreed.

I contacted an old friend of mine who's into the auto field. He knows a guy whom I then contacted via his cell phone, saying that based on these pictures I texted him he'd charge around 400 for a complete fix and paint blended to the door. Seems like he has a more independent business with flexible prices compared to the overcharging brands and businesses I have found locally. I think I'll go for it and see what dad thinks. My friends vouches for him, says he does good work at a fair price.

[pi314]

Do you mind updating with pictures/his contact info once the job is done? My dad's car needs some work that keeps on getting putt off, and I would certainly be willing to contact this guy if he does good work at a reduced rate