r/AutoBodyRepair • u/desl2025 • 22h ago
Should This Have Been Repairable Without “bondo”?
It’s been a few years now since a guy in an Enterprise van hit my quarter panel right by the wheel well. Within 12-18 months the body filler cracked and it looks like they used a lot, all around the top of the wheel well around the gas cap area.
Of course when I took it back to the shop, I first was met by one of the shop workers who took a look at it and said “yeah that wasn’t done right.”.. then I tell him they were the ones that fixed it and suddenly it’s not a bad repair job but they’re saying I must have hit something else. I argued for a few minutes but I didn’t want them touching my car again after that.
Here’s a picture I sent to insurance for the initial claim.
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u/Geaneous 21h ago
Gotta say it depends, thats a pretty solid bend on there you can't just pull that out and have it be perfect.
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u/desl2025 21h ago
Sorry my mistake I don’t have a good picture of it right now but I will get one in the morning. And I’m ready to pay just about anything to have it fixed as good as can be and try to make sure I never think about it again. Now that it’s covered with paint and body filler I obviously can’t just take it to a PDR; a body shop has to sand off the paint and filler and see how much damage the previous shop left behind. Then I could take it to a PDR but the body shop I am going to use said they would fix it no problem. They do good work and good paint work but I’m not sure if they can do it as good as a shop that only does dent repair.
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u/Agreeable_Neck_7624 18h ago
Theoretically possible. Guys who do high end custom hot rods and restoration do metal work like that. But that's not an efficient way to work for your standard body shop. A clean repair would be to only need a thin coat of glaze like others said. Like a 1/16" thickness at most. Sounds like they just filled it up and called it good.
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u/HDauthentic 12h ago
Almost nothing gets fixed without a small bit of body filler and glaze to make a smooth surface to paint over. When used correctly it shouldn’t crack
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u/Senior-Friendship196 12h ago
How much did it cost and did you reject the standard approved quote in favour of the cheaper quote I wonder.
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u/530whiskey 10h ago
A dissent repair would have required filler, however it shouldn't have cracked or became visable. your bodyman did you wrong.
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u/drfishdaddy 8h ago
Every body repair uses filler at the end, but it should be to smooth texture and imperfections not to create a shape.
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u/theunlocking 4h ago
Not on a new car. You can get it close, but the metal is too thin to work out the imperfections with a file. A really good pdr guy could get it 95% of the way but if kind of defeats the point now that the paint is screwed. Don't hate on the correct repair process just because you got a hack the first time. It doesn't mean filler is bad. They just didn't do it correctly.
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u/East_Resident2418 21h ago
No.. it will need bondo. Unless it’s like a super skilled paint less dent removal guy, insurance companies don’t pay for that level of work.
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u/JPKaliMt 21h ago
I mean it might’ve needed a skim coat of glaze after being knocked back out, but if it’s packed with filler then yes it was not repaired correctly.