horrible horrible!!!! i parked my car on the street and when i came out, the passenger side door turned into this.




the door got a huge scratch and a little bit of a dent. i'm so pissed right now. what should i do guys? i don't think my insurance (both ways) would cover this. please recommend me something. also if anyone has brought his car to the dealer for touch up (paint) with small dents removal... please give me more details about the price.

 

Looks like someone hated on your car. How would insurance not cover that? Well, assuming you have comprehensive of course.

 

sorry to hear about this. Your Comprehensive coverage on your
insurance should be able to cover it. It looks like you have a little dent,
so you should have the bodyshop fix it.

I just don't like to get the entire door painted due to color match issues
that *could* arise if body shop is incompetent. If you can get your dealer
to fix it for you, then you should probably just get it done there.

 

Very very sorry your car is injured. It can be traumatizing. The good news is that a good body shop will bring your car back to new and you will not be able to tell it was damaged. It is difficult to tell where the panel is dented/creased. I would recommend that the first thing you do is take the car to good body shop. If you don't know one you may want to ask your friends or mini dealer who they trust. The bodyshop will give you an idea of whether the panel can be repaired or will need replacement. They also will let you know how long it could take (this will determine if a rental car will be neccasary). The bodyshop will also recommend whether to involve insurance or not. It will depend on your deductable and the estimate they give you. The last time I knew insurance will not increase your premium if you're involved in a non-driving incident. It's worth it to call them once you have an estimate from the bodyshop. Hope this helps and keep your chin up. Mini will be fine.

 

Ouch, That hurts just looking at it. Judging from the size and depth, I think professional help is in order. Check for a local body shop in your area, or call your dealer and ask who they recommend. Sorry to see such a pretty car damaged.

 

thanks for the input u guys!!! i appreciate it greatly. I just called up mini peabody (since herbschamber in boston annoyed the hell of me) and they told me that i should bring my mini to a bodyshop to fix the dents and can get a touch up from them. he told me the cost is about 20-30 bucks . i was expecting it to be much higher. my dad knows a good body shop nearby. i'm gonna go there to have the dents removed. again... thanks guys!

 

That does not look like a $20-30 fix. Even getting the dent out is going
to cost over $75 (typically $99 for each dent).

The touchup can be done by pro's using some filler and spray to "blend"
the touchup throughout the door, but that is not the kind of repair you
probably want. It leaves behind a rough feel...the kind of feel that you
want to take your claybar to take off.


You should have the dent fixed and entire door repainted professionally.
$400 -500 range.

 

yeah... what i meant was that the touch alone costs about 20-30 bucks excluding dents removal cost. i talked to my dad and he said the exact same thing that you said. so... i'm gonna have the dents fixed and the entire door repainted at a bodyshop. we already talked to the guy at the bodyshop and he said $250. hopefully everything will turn out fine. what an awful experience!

 

This sounds about right. I got a bad door ding once upon a time which meant some repainting and slight body work. It was about $225 to fix. Actually, the paint on the repainted door looked better than original. It's all a distant memory now but it sure was traumatic at the time. I feel your pain!...and there are better ways to spend the $$$s instead of correcting the stupidity of complete and total morons.

 

Did Peabody recommend the bodyshop they send cars to? If not, it's Sublime Restorations in Rowley (978-948-8510). I've had work done by Julian and he does an excellent job. My car is with him right now in fact, for a new front bumper cover and to fix a baseball dent in my passenger door. I have no doubt that when he's done I will not be able to detect any color mismatch.

When he paints a part it is actually thicker than the paint job done at the factory, and he bakes it so it's already cured when you get the car back.

Highly recommended. :smile:

 

wow! sounds really nice. can u give me more details on the cost?

 

ITS A BIKE SCRATCH !!!! ive seen many of these basically the "evil dooer" cant ride a bike and they fall into your car "handle bar dammage"

Bush or kerry dosent ride his bike near you does he!!!


well ive seen very bad scratches come out with compund just beacause it was either rubber or the other guys paint then all youed have is a dent witch could be bumped and if the metal is not streched then their might not be any need to repaint!!!!

hope it goes well!

take care and good luck

 

thanks. i dont know why it looks white in the photos but in real life, you can kinda see brown stuff.

 

I can't tell from the photo if that white line is a scratch, meaning it dug into the paint, or a tranfer of paint for other item. It looks pretty substantial from the photo. If that is a "scratch", that needs to be professionally fixed, and a proper paint repair would include blending the paint into the surrounding body panels. If you just paint one panel (door), you usually can see a variance in color or texture. Mention blending, any good shop will do this as a standard practice if needed.

Also, you can get a preferred list of shops from your insurance carrier. These preferred shops result in guaranteed work for the lifetime of the car. If paint or clear coat fails later on, you won't have to pay for it twice. Your carrier, even if you don't file a claim, will provide this info to you no problem.

 

When I asked him about my dent, he said he had a paintless dent removal guy that he uses when there's no paint damage, and that would cost around $130 per panel. If there's paint damage or the dent is too deep for dent removal, then he'll fix it the standard way for $300-$350. So if your damage is really someone else's paint on top of yours and you can get it off, maybe PDR will work. But if there are deep scratches, you'll have to spring for a repair and respray.

Turns out my baseball dent was too deep for PDR. It actually stretched the metal too much to massage it back so it would be unnoticable.

 

awww... that sucks! it seems like the entire world is out there to damage our precious innocent MINI's.

hopefully this ends fast... i want to drive my MINI again with the same feeling i had before this incident. motor on!

 

That's a bummer. I paid $16 for MINIs touch-up paint (matching paint and clearcoat applicators). I have a very t iny scratch on my door, maybe 3/8" down to the primer and wonder if anyone has recommendations to touch up the scratch.

After washing and cleaning the scratched area with Meguiar's Cleaner compound, I used a toothpick to apply a very fine layer of paint. Problem is that the paint is so thick that the applicator brush is useless for such fine scratches. What should I use to buff this " first" coat of paint down before applying a second coat, and then the clearcoat? Steel wool? Emery cloth?

 

I would think the cleaner compound you have would work well enough for such a small scatch, unless you want to get into wet sanding that spot. Not sure I would go that far though.

Also, toothpick can work, but another trick is to use the back of a paper match. Pull it out of the book of matches, and the back end of match makes a handy little paint brush. The brushes in the touch up tubes are about useless.

 

That IS a bike handlebar scratch. The neighbour's kid did that to my brand new Civic some years ago.

 

Got my car back this morning. The repaired and resprayed door is absolutely flawless. Matches the surrounding panels perfectly - impossible to tell it was done at all.

If you live in New England, this place is worth the trip if you have body work to be done. Great job, great guy.