[agarbati]

Ok, as most people know I'm pretty finicky about my paint finish. Well the horrific happened yesterday - at the supermarket somebody put a couple of scratches in my front left fender, towards the bottom, behind the wheel.

Well, today I finally mustered up the nerve and looked closely and there's a small dent with it too! I went to my autobody shop, and he said that they would take out the dent with a paintless dent repair and then he would try to buff out the scratches. He said that he could possibly get 80-90% of them out otherwise the fender would need to be painted.

My other option is to get a separate paintless dent repair from a guy I know who is very good and then try to buff the scratches by hand and live with whatever's left.

What do you guy's suggest I do?

I would go with the autobody shop but I don't want to end up with an overzealous tech who ends up giving me paint burn and having to re-paint the fender. The PDR guy I know originally did PDR on the BMW assembly line in Munich and set up shop in Minneapolis about 7 years ago. He even goes to CA to work on the high end cars there. http://www.juergensdentkraft.com/

The only thing I don't like about that is that they use small mallets on the outside of the paintjob. I really want to minimize the damage and not exacerbate anything else. Chime in fella's!

[skimo]

Help !!

I just got back from work...with 3 dents in my left door :mad: . Some guy jammed his door into mine...I waited in the parking lot till he finally came out of work and he was nice enough to give me his insurance info...and offered to pay from his pocket....good guy..

Anyway, can someone please give me adivce on what to do with respect to the paint? This is my first car...and have no experience at all.

There are 3 scratches....all three are deep enough that the grey metal below the paint is revealed. One of the three is an actual dent in the body (1 inch diameter circular concave dent)...they are all about 1/8th inch diameter (the paint taken off).

A friend said I have two options:
1) touch up : but the paint color will not be the same...dents still visible
2) repaint a huge area of the door: if not done correctly...you will notice a huge "blotch" on door...

Is there no option without disadvantages? Is there such thing as BMW Paint ? friends said they will just match the color...but how can u match the sparkling graphite ?? (the sparkling part... ) Anything I need to be aware of when repairing?

Any help appreciated...i want the best for my car

thank you very much guys....
Skimo

ps- some of you might have noticed I probably have bad luck so far with my BMW (wrong interior trim on order....dented new Alu trim with hammer...no nets...chip in windshield...and now the 3 scratches...140 miles on the car..... )

[bookman2]

Originally Posted by skimo

Help !!

I just got back from work...with 3 dents in my left door :mad: . Some guy jammed his door into mine...I waited in the parking lot till he finally came out of work and he was nice enough to give me his insurance info...and offered to pay from his pocket....good guy..

Anyway, can someone please give me adivce on what to do with respect to the paint? This is my first car...and have no experience at all.

There are 3 scratches....all three are deep enough that the grey metal below the paint is revealed. One of the three is an actual dent in the body (1 inch diameter circular concave dent)...they are all about 1/8th inch diameter (the paint taken off).

A friend said I have two options:
1) touch up : but the paint color will not be the same...dents still visible
2) repaint a huge area of the door: if not done correctly...you will notice a huge "blotch" on door...

Is there no option without disadvantages? Is there such thing as BMW Paint ? friends said they will just match the color...but how can u match the sparkling graphite ?? (the sparkling part... ) Anything I need to be aware of when repairing?

Any help appreciated...i want the best for my car

thank you very much guys....
Skimo

ps- some of you might have noticed I probably have bad luck so far with my BMW (wrong interior trim on order....dented new Alu trim with hammer...no nets...chip in windshield...and now the 3 scratches...140 miles on the car..... )

You need to have pros work on something like this. Take your car to reputable body shop pronto. They'll handle the rest.

[res_ipsa]

Skimo sorry to hear about your troubles but hopefully you're getting everything out of the way early on With the dent take it to Dent Wizard near you they will be able to make it flat again. Regarding repainting, it's tough to perfectly match metallic paint (check out this thread on why: http://www.e90post.com/forums/showthread.php?t=169) so I'd be afraid of painting a whole big part of the door, it could mismatch noticeably... so if the scratches aren't too huge maybe touchup paint will be th best option.