All:

The passenger side of my mini was bashed in by a pickup truck last week. We weren't injured, and barely felt the crash.

Now I'm getting estimates on the repair, but I am hearing the same thing at every shop. The rear quarter will have to be cut off, and a new one wielded on.

Is this how most panel damage is repaired on the coop? Seems extreme, since it was just the outer panel that was crumpled.

I'm not up on how the cooper's body is constructed. Unibody seems to be the term all the body shops sling around.

Any comments, and tutorials welcome. Also any rear quarters and passenger doors welcome too. Find one door - $600 and it is "slightly" damaged....

 

You don't say what model your car is, but this site allows you to see all the components, so it might help you better understand what they are talking about. http://www.realoem.com/bmw/select.do?vin=∂=&kind=P&series=R50&body=Cou&model= Cooper&zone=USA∏=20030600&arch=0

 

Well your question may not be asked in the right place being asked here. Your question is really about the right way to repair your damage.

When I started working on my 79 I took some auto body repair classes as adult education....and hung out enuf so that they asked me to assistant teach. But that not withstanding......

Today, when you compare the hourly cost to bang out a dent and then fill it....and we KNOW how people think filler/Bondo is BAD BAD BAD:: versus the cost of a replacement fender...it is simply much more cost effective to slice out the bad (in many cars is is unbolt) and slap in a new fender that cost about $100 vs a couple of hours of pounding at $75 an hour. Fill the seams, prep prime and paint and away you go.

As for the body shops slinging the term uni-body.....a guess but this type of construction makes getting access to both sides of the panel tuff. And without that access bounding out a dent is again, tuff. And in uni-body, every panel contributes to strength. So again, welding in a new undamaged panel is easier and may be stronger. (Don't worry about the weld...welds are usually stronger than the components they join)

 

I think that the rear quarter panels aren't really welded on, ok, maybe a few spot welds. My driver's side quarter panel was replaced at one point, and you can see the seam job with the sealant is not as neat as the OEM passenger side. However, the sealant/body glue filler still gets the job done.

 

true ... few panels are seam welded anymore. there's a lot of issues with heat expansion and shrinkage as the weld would progress. a few spot welds and fill the rest. and yes, some panels ARE simply glued in .... all modern state of the art construction techniques, which a good body shop would duplicate as much as possible.

 

When my car was hit on the drivers side. The door and rear quarter panel had to be replaced. Now you can see a weld line in the hatch for the rear quarter. The Parts + labor was about $4000+