So long story short, I ended up making a turn in a garage too quickly and ended up grazing the side of my car on a concrete pillar, with results like so:








Now here is my main question: what is the best recommended method of patching this up? I plan to have the entire car repainted possibly next spring (I'll just be ending a nice paying internship and hopefully have a worry free place to park it) so I dont see a point in paying tons of money to get it paint matched, etc. to make it look great. My main goal is to just get rid of the scratches as much as possible and keeping it as rust-free as possible until I replace it. I'm pretty good mechanically and have done some work on my car, but auto paint and body is one of the things that I have pretty much no experience in. So, here I am looking for suggestions and advice on how to fix this.

The possible methods I can think of so far have been (~$500 budget):

1. Try to patch it up myself. Although I have no experience, Im more than willing to learn and worst case, even if i screw up, I doubt it'll look worse and I'll end up getting it properly replaced in the future.

2. Try to find body panels off a silver civic and slap that on. Yes, I understand that the colors wont match, but w/e.

3. Take it to a professional body shop (yes, its one that my sister had some repairs done to, so I know they do a good job) and have them try to hide it as best as possible (I don't even know if they would do anything short of a like-new repair. Experience, anyone?)

Once again, I appreciate any help and sorry for the long post. Thanks!

 

Bumpy! nobody?

 

take it to a body shop.. more than likely it will need a new quarter panel and a door skin.. if your plan on getting it painted, wherever you get it fixed at, ask if they can do it without painting it so that can save you some money until you're ready to paint full car

 

but looking at it better, you might just be able to repair below the side molding in the quarter panel, which will save you a lot of money if you decide to take it to a body shop

 

Buy a door shell off CL, so when you get it paint they can just color match.

Look for someone selling a quarter panel with the door jam on CL as well, any competent body shop would much rather replace that then just fill with mud.

If you have full coverage insurance, claim against it and get paid, save money for the future repairs.

 

That's the dumbest thing I have heard today. Even if you have full coverage, you are filing a claim against yourself and will have to pay deductible and rates will go up. It would cost more in long run to go through insurance rather than save up the cash and pay out of pocket.

Your looking at about 1200-1500 in damages if you let a shop handle the work. Find another door, and it will be about the same to respray the whole door and fix quarter. If your lucky you can find a door that matches your color.

800-1000 without painting and blending are since you plan to paint car in near future.

 

100% agree...phucking dumb! Also no longer clean title if it was originally.

 

Also insurance companys can sue you if they pay for repairs and never had the work compleated

 

Lol, no worries, I'm not going through insurance and I already found a nice shop owned by a couple and they did a nice job getting all the rust off and putting epoxy primer on for like 75 bucks. So now my question is, is it reasonable to go get a can of krylon silver metallic 1401 (or 1406?) and spray over the area with the primer? I dont mind the flat epoxy color, but i figured i could make it look slightly nicer while i wait to get it repaired. This is out of the question if it has a high chance of starting to bubble and peel and whatnot within a year.

Thanks again

 

I wouldn't. You will just cause more work and more money because every bit of the rattle can paint will have to be removed to allow the automotive paint to properly adhere.

 

agreed. i hate dealing with parts being brought in that have rattle can paint. they cause more work and headaches in the long run. the epoxy primer will be fine.