2nd Gen Non-Engine/Transmission Question about body work

[DiTrani]

The other day some unknown person put a nice gouge in the middle of the rear door of my truck. Kind of looks like someone tried to spear the truck with a long piece of rebar. Small but deep (3/4"), through the paint.



Do body shops usually fill these kinds of things, or bang/pull them out? Any idea what'd be a reasonable cost to fix it?



I try to just let vehicles accumulate their blemishes and not worry about it, but this looks bad and will rust.

 

[WadePatton]

Look around and try to find a part-time shop--that does good work(his full-time job is in bodywork at a auto manufacturer). I did and he did a great job of fixing where a tree fell on my C pillar.



The large shops are driven by insurance jobs and charge more and sometimes do crappy work. Talk to everybody and try to look at some completed repair work.



I think the estimate at a big shop was 350 or so. I got it fixed for 150.



NOW she's got to go to a big shop and have 4150 dollars work done. (Old lady ran over me) They have the best reputation in 2 counties--so we'll see.

 

[Bill Lins]

Originally posted by cditrani

Do body shops usually fill these kinds of things, or bang/pull them out?

They SHOULD dolly it out- filler shouldn't be more than 1/8" thick. No idea what shop rates in your area are.

 

[illflem]

Seems like a lot of shops aren't into pounding and filling repairs anymore, most just replace the panel.

 

[DPugh]

Any decent body shop will pull or hammer out dents. Since its on the door and the pannel will come off they will most likely use a hammer and dolly. If its not accessible then they generally use a stud gun. You grind the paint off, Use a small compact welder that welds a flexible copper stud to the pannel then a slide hammer with a collet in it is used to pull the dent out. If they do this, and you should ask, make sure they either put a coat of factory style rustproofing or some etching primer, prefferably both over the spot inside the door. When you weld a stud on it burns off the factory e-coat, which is the black factory primer on all pannels. If you have any other questions ask or shoot me a PM.



Derek

 

[DiTrani]

Thanks.