Doing some minor body work myself?

[GregFarz78]

I'm pretty handy with tools and such but how hard would it be for me to attempt to do some DIY body repair? I'll get better pics tonight but this is what I'm looking at...

http://www.gregfarz.com/photos/albums/Car%20Pics/2002%20Spec%20V/normal_061213_Wall_Damage.JPG

I got estimates anywhere from $750-1100 thats just insane I really don't want to pay that much if I can do it myself. What is involved? My uncle has all the tools necessary to paint/clear it but I wanted to attempt the body work on my own. I assume some bondo and sand it out smooth then paint?

[Matt95GT]

That's pretty small/easy body work, but silver is a difficult color to match. Hmmm... I'd consider doing all the body work and prep then getting it sprayed somewhere they can match the color well.

[05blk_velvet]

most professional body shops don't use bondo anymore (at least in Ontario). its nasty stuff, isn't good for your car, and just cracks over time. and you're right, silver is the most difficult colour to spray, beacause it's pure metallic. looks like you scratched the rear door/mldg, 1/4 and bumper. you have to spray all three.

[GregFarz78]

damn I thought silver would be easy to match...and the body shop said they werent going to respray the entire door and rear quarter panel...how do you fix a dent w/o using bondo? I know if I do all the prep myself and take it someplace they're just going to say its not right and they have to fix it anyway :roll2:

[Nighthawk243]

When it comes to dents, you would want to do several things.

If it is a bad dent, you can pull it out using a welded on wire, and then a special tool to pull that wire with force to pull the dent.

There is also the metal working dies that you can get that you use on the inside part of the rear quarter panel to pound out the dent also.

When it comes to bondo, it generally isn't used by many body shops. The local ones use Duraglass and some other body fillers aside from the Bondo brand stuff.

A mark of good bodywork is the lack of bodyfiller. The less bondo you need to smooth out the area, the better. Some people believe that just globbing a crapload of bodyfiller in a dent without actually attempting to pull it out is the way to fix it. Quite wrong.

[Blackhawk]

If the scratches are as small as they seem in the pics you would just use lightweight filler. Most places wont respray the entire piece, look at Joe's car where the rust was fixed, the smaller the resprayed area the less it sticks out.

[GregFarz78]

Well I'm attempting it this week so I'll take some pics of the process, my uncle is going to help me he has a spot welder and a tool to pull the dent out, then its just a light coat of filler, and he'll paint/clear it for me.

[SilverCoupe]

thats quite expensive,, go somewhere else. my brother had a dent in the rear Quarter panel\bumper on a new silver BMW, and they quoted him 500 to take out the dent AND colormatch,, they have real good computers these days and a good painter can blend it very nice.

[GregFarz78]

We pulled the dent this weekend its amazing how much the charge for that it literally took my uncle 10 mins to do, the body filler and sanding is the hard part I'm working on that now and hopefully it will be painted this weekend. I'll put up pics after its done, its pretty scary but rewarding doing your own body work only way to learn is do it.