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After involved in a not at fault accident which costed 20k to fix(insurance paid for it but still, seems a lot for a side swipe), Now I got my first door ding. I checked my dashcam footage to try to figure out who did it. Although I'm 80% sure it's that car but the camera doesn't record sides and the license plate is not readable.
Also turns out that in Toronto, Police don't even want to hear about it.
When a person opens their vehicle door and strikes the side of your parked vehicle and causes damage, it is considered to be a CIVIL MATTER. A police report is NOT required. Call your insurance provider if you wish to make a claim.
For some reason, it is super obvious when you walk up from the sides. Well....
Anyone had any experience on this? I remember when the other side's fender is replaced the cost is in the thousands.
Well the bad news is that the paint was damaged as well. You have two options as I see it.
1) The paintless repair guys work wonders even in creases to get rid of the ding. The bad part is that obviously you’d have to use touch up paint. It all depends on how ocd you are (I’m Very OCD) but if you can live with the slight imperfection they can probably fix that for around $100-$200 bucks and they might even hit the touch up pen for you and polish it to where it won’t be to visible.
2) The other option is the good ole body shop. Problem is that color is one of the hardest to match. To match that color due to the complexity that makes it amazing they will need to blend in the surrounding panels. This means they will probably partially paint into most of that side and this will be in the thousands. This is the proper way to paint it if anyone tries to just paint a small section of your door the color difference will stand out.
Last edited by ellocovg; May 12, 2019 at 05:23 AM.
Well the bad news is that the paint was damaged as well. You have two options as I see it.
1) The paintless repair guys work wonders even in creases to get rid of the ding. The bad part is that obviously you’d have to use touch up paint. It all depends on how ocd you are (I’m Very OCD) but if you can live with the slight imperfection they can probably fix that for around $100-$200 bucks and they might even hit the touch up pen for you and polish it to where it won’t be to visible.
2) The other option is the good ole body shop. Problem is that color is one of the hardest to match. To match that color due to the complexity that makes it amazing they will need to blend in the surrounding panels. This means they will probably partially paint into most of that side and this will be in the thousands. This is the proper way to paint it if anyone tries to just paint a small section of your door the color difference will stand out.
The above is pretty much spot on. Unfortunately, there is not a lot of good news with the damage in question.
The fact that the dent is located on a crease in the sheet metal would make it more difficult for removal via paintless dent repair, and it is true that pearl whites are among the most difficult colors for which to get a satisfactory color match. With multi-stage pearl colors, trying to use touch-up paint to repair even a small chip in the paint with a decent color match is virtually impossible, and refinishing the panel will require blending the new paint over a larger area. Doing such blending will not result in making the color match any better, but it will spread out any color mismatch over a larger area, and that will make the mismatch less noticeable. And, yes, doing a proper repair will not be inexpensive.
You’d be surprised what the dentless repair guys can do, my friends explorer had a similar ding on the crease minus the paint issue. The guy came out with his lamp big metal bars and after 15 minutes you would of never known it was there and it was allot bigger. I was skeptical because it was on the crease but it came out great, he charged him $150 becauce it was on a crease instead of $100 he would of charged normally.
At at this point the touch up would be only to prevent rust and to make it look good from a few feet away. At the factory the paint is cured at an incredibly high temperature that an auto body would never be able to duplicate. The goal of the body shop is to blend it in so they would paint probably the top half of the fender and the door about half way so that whole portion will be discolored so when the average person looks at it it’s not blatant. Take a look at the CPO Lot almost non of the bumpers are a match spot on due to crappy body work but you just look at them and assume it’s a natural metal/plastic color difference.
Originally Posted by lesz
The above is pretty much spot on. Unfortunately, there is not a lot of good news with the damage in question.
The fact that the dent is located on a crease in the sheet metal would make it more difficult for removal via paintless dent repair, and it is true that pearl whites are among the most difficult colors for which to get a satisfactory color match. With multi-stage pearl colors, trying to use touch-up paint to repair even a small chip in the paint with a decent color match is virtually impossible, and refinishing the panel will require blending the new paint over a larger area. Doing such blending will not result in making the color match any better, but it will spread out any color mismatch over a larger area, and that will make the mismatch less noticeable. And, yes, doing a proper repair will not be inexpensive.
Last edited by ellocovg; May 12, 2019 at 07:39 AM.
I had a huge dent right at the metal structural hinge part of the door. With tons of tweaking he was able to fix it in about an hour. As far as the paint, buff it out first and see how bad it is. It looks like all that stuff is from someone else's paint. Then purchase some touch up paint for your car. Easy peasy!
You’d be surprised what the dentless repair guys can do, my friends explorer had a similar ding on the crease minus the paint issue. The guy came out with his lamp big metal bars and after 15 minutes you would of never known it was there and it was allot bigger. I was skeptical because it was on the crease but it came out great, he charged him $150 becauce it was on a crease instead of $100 he would of charged normally.
At at this point the touch up would be only to prevent rust and to make it look good from a few feet away. At the factory the paint is cured at an incredibly high temperature that an auto body would never be able to duplicate. The goal of the body shop is to blend it in so they would paint probably the top half of the fender and the door about half way so that whole portion will be discolored so when the average person looks at it it’s not blatant. Take a look at the CPO Lot almost non of the bumpers are a match spot on due to crappy body work but you just look at them and assume it’s a natural metal/plastic color difference.
Well from the last body shop visit if I remembered. Correctly they repainted the whole front (few rock chips are gone now so I believe they painted the whole front bumper, and replaced the back bumper.
you may be able to spot the difference if you look closely but I guess it's fine if you look at 1m away.
The picture actually looks worse than in real life. I just realized how much a difference it is when looking at the picture I took.
FWIW, if that were my ding I'd try dent removal first with touch up paint. It may not be perfect but would at the very least offer an incremental improvement. Then I'd see how much the result bothered me and go from there. Another option might be to take it to a body shop you trust and just point out it's not under insurance. They might have an option in between the painless version but short of a full blend. Again may be less than 100% perfect but might be an incremental improvement over the first choice. If someone quoted me $400-500 to remove that where the only imperfection might be minor paint match, I might bite at that (if it were me).
Step 1. Find GOOD PDR guy and straighten the dent.
Step 2. Find GOOD auto detail guy, polish/buff the area and remove paint transfer.
Step 3. Examine the extent of actual paint damage. Touch up with factory touch up paint, and use Langka Blob remover. Just follow simple instructions or check a Langka Blob remover on You Tube. It’s safe and you can’t screw it up.
The results may surprise you, and the good news: no paint shop work. No blending of white, no clear coat edge to edge.
I’m experienced with door dings, big and small, and between PDR and Langka, I’ve avoided body shops. And that’s on cars with tri-coat paint (pearl). If you lived nearby (I’m in So Cal), I would do it for you. You can find Langka Blob remover on Amazon.
Good luck.
Is this covered by the ding and dents protection that the financial advisor is selling you after you make your purchase?
I believe that the ding and dent policies cover the repair of dents that can fixed with paintless dent removal. If the repair requires paint work and/or traditional body work, you are on your own.
Door Ding - Anyone had any experience?
