e350

Went to eat the other day, kids got bored and wanted to go out and play. Long story short, my own kids were playing at a nearby playground and decided to play catch with a rock. As luck would have it, one of the arrant passes hit my car on the left rear panel just above the tail light (remember, I have the wagon). It left a pretty hefty dent about the size of a baseball. The rock also scratched the paint. I took it to the local ( I live in Germany) MB dealer and they did a miserable job with the repair...all they did was try to push the dent out and touch it up with paint I bought at the factory (which by the way doesn't match worth beans). The job was so poor that the guy didn't even charge me, although it does look better than it did before he "tried". Now my option is to take it to a paint and bodyshop and have them work on it. I got an estimate today and the guy told me he can get the dent out, but the entire rear quarter panel would have to be repainted. The estimate came to about $360 US which seems very fair to me.

Now my question: With todays technology, can a good shop match the paint to the point that it won't drive me crazy every time I look at the car? He said along the top of the side window he would stop the paint and blend it so you couldn't tell.

I know the first scratch is always the hardest, but this was a significant emotional event for me!

rickyfanmdr

What a bummer! My own first and only dent was a door ding that my local dealer was able to fix perfectly for $90. Good luck with matching the paint. I feel for you!

vtec26

"blending" is the key in paint mathing in my opinion. I had a silver car that when the paint was blended after having replaced a panel, it was unnoticable. Then same car had a door replaced and no blending; it was fine for about 6 months but then started to fade at different rates than the other panles and became very noticable. Can you ask the shop to see other work they've done in the past and make a decision based on that?

TPAbnz

Sorry to hear about the damage. Yes, $360 US seems a fair repair price.

I'm sure that the repair will be undetectable but the repair won't be factory nano paint.

benzboy

Don't you hate when that happens!!! Anyway, blending is the answer. Sounds like your repair guy has the right idea - stop the new paint at a juncture and blend. I see you have a metallic paint as well. These can be tough to blend but at least it's not black. I had one a few years back and it was a b--ch to match! Sorry to say it will never be unnoticeable to you since you know it's there. BTW buy your kids a nurf football and tell 'em to leave the rocks alone!!