Anybody ever replaced the rear quarter panel?

[tjts1]

The insurance company will total your car before fixing anything. You can DIY that bad boy for ~$100. Here's where to get matching paint.
http://www.paintscratch.com/
Bondo, cleaning and sanding supplies can be had at any number of stores.

Before
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v242/ ... 1291598210
Working on it
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v242/ ... 1291598232
After
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v242/ ... 1291598253
Its just primer for now. If i'm feeling motivated I'll smooth it out and get the matching paint. For now its good enough. Total spent was about $60, $19 of which was for the new tail light at the JY. 3 body shops quoted $1200-1500
good luck

[thecheat]

Can't you just cut it out and weld in a new panel? A further-out photo would give a better idea if you could have a "Paintless" guy roll it back out, at least enough to look decent.

[jblackburn]

That's what I was thinking they'd do; the scratch itself really isn't that bad, and the dent I'm fairly sure can be pushed out to where it's if not perfect, at least not pushed in again. I don't care if there's a small dent there, I just don't like the way it looks like that.

[thecheat]

As long as there are no significant creases you should be OK having it rolled back out. Heck, you could probably use the palm of your hand to push it out if there isn't much crossbracing in the way. Then just prep and fill the gouges and Bob's your uncle.

[jblackburn]

That's what I'm hoping - I will try to see if I can push any of it out myself/see what's in the way of me getting to it later on today. John (JDS60R) said to try to push out the dent by hand as best I could, and put some touch-up paint on the area for now so that it doesn't rust anymore.

As of right now, I've realized that the rear left tire is sort of at a slant from where it was punched in - the steering wheel tracks to the left while driving straight. I'm looking to take care of that damage first - going to a tire shop after work today to get it up in the air and see what I broke or if it can be aligned still; the body work itself will have to wait til the end of December when I don't need to drive the car every day.

I won't be doing the patching myself most likely; I'll see what the estimates say. If it comes to it, I know a friend in Maryland that will do the repairs for very cheap, but it's really out of my way to do that & I don't trust myself enough with that kind of body work not to screw it up more. The paint still looks real nice for a 12-year old car.

[thecheat]

Sounds like a plan, definitely get the alignment fixed first. I haven't really been into the back suspension enough to think of what could have bent - hopefully it isn't anything serious.

[Red-Arrow]

Its an easy fix to be honest. I would weld a metal strip across the dented area just to make sure it won't distort once its been filled and painted. I've seen people welded cars together

[robbo]

The dent shown in your photo is easily fixable, by skilled hands. It will be made much worse by unskilled hands. Having done auto body work professionally earlier in life, I would suggest that if you're not fully committed to fixing the quarter properly to not do anything to it beyond pushing it out with nothing larger than your hand. Most amateurs will get behind a dent with a hammer and beat the hell out of the metal, stretching it into a larger mess than they started with. Good luck!

[JDS60R]

The dent shown in your photo is easily fixable, by skilled hands. It will be made much worse by unskilled hands. Having done auto body work professionally earlier in life, I would suggest that if you're not fully committed to fixing the quarter properly to not do anything to it beyond pushing it out with nothing larger than your hand. Most amateurs will get behind a dent with a hammer and beat the hell out of the metal, stretching it into a larger mess than they started with. Good luck!

Exactly

[jblackburn]

Yeah, I'm not going to mess with the dent. I think it's too odd-shaped to push out in places without me causing further damage. They can take care of that anyway. Some of this is salt; some scratches. There's also a tiny scrape on the bumper cover.

Here's a better picture of it showing the dent(s). It's going into the auto body shop sometime next week. I got estimates ranging between $800-1300; depending on what's wrong with the rear tire.

And some the the "fun" it was to get out of my community. Saturday night snow was powdery stuff that was perfectly fine to drive in; the day after? Not much on the ground, but man this stuff got slick!