Body repair
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Body repair
This weekend I got stuck under a hailstorm (watermelon-sized hail, I think... at least that's what it felt like) and now I have a number of ugly bumps all over my 2002 CL500. There are bumps on the roof and both rear side panels (for some reason none on the trunk or the hood.) I took it to a local dealership and they said they will do the roof with paintless dent repair, but the side panels will need to be taken off and repainted. They estimate about $2700 and a couple of weeks to get this done. My insurance company is sending me to Service King, which is a medium-sized local independent chain.
Questions:
Should I even consider taking this car to an independent shop? It seems to have a decent reputation, although I've heard some complaints as well. My main fear is that they probably don't have that much experience with MB and certainly don't have experience with CL, which is not your average car.
Does it make sense that the rear panels are repainted, but not the whole car? Will they be able to blend in the repained parts (the car is black, but not metallic black?) Should I insist on a complete repaint or will it make matters even worse?
Are the body shop time estimates realistic? I just browsed some newsgroups and read some horrible stories about cars spending over a year at a body shop. Is that common?
Sorry if I'm asking a lot of stupid questions I've never had any major body work done and don't want to neither get ripped off nor get a poor quality repair on a reasonably new car.
Any advice would be greatly appreciated.
Dmitri
Questions:
Should I even consider taking this car to an independent shop? It seems to have a decent reputation, although I've heard some complaints as well. My main fear is that they probably don't have that much experience with MB and certainly don't have experience with CL, which is not your average car.
Does it make sense that the rear panels are repainted, but not the whole car? Will they be able to blend in the repained parts (the car is black, but not metallic black?) Should I insist on a complete repaint or will it make matters even worse?
Are the body shop time estimates realistic? I just browsed some newsgroups and read some horrible stories about cars spending over a year at a body shop. Is that common?
Sorry if I'm asking a lot of stupid questions I've never had any major body work done and don't want to neither get ripped off nor get a poor quality repair on a reasonably new car.
Any advice would be greatly appreciated.
Dmitri
Senior Member
Joined: Dec 2001
Posts: 402
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From: Houston
E55
Some of the panels on the CL are plastic- hence they resist the dings. If they can get the dents on the roof out with paintless repair they should be able to do them all - provided that the paint is not damaged.
It's no problem to match black paint color. I WOULD NEVER GET THE WHOLE CAR PAINTED - you'll be sorry!!. Try to get another opinion on this from other body shops.
It's no problem to match black paint color. I WOULD NEVER GET THE WHOLE CAR PAINTED - you'll be sorry!!. Try to get another opinion on this from other body shops.
