[giveMyMDX]

Folks,

I've seen people lamenting about door dings and having
had to fix'em. Well, it's my turn to rant. My 3-week new
X got hit by a falling rock (yes, a fairly large sized rock!),
this past wknd. near an Avalanche area enroute to Lake
Tahoe ;-( And, this was the 1st time I took my X on a ski trip.

The rock seemed to slide down from no where (slope on my
right side) and what a bad timing/luck it was I had minimal
reaction time, so was unable to totally avoid it. Perhaps the
impact was lessened by the direct hit on X's rear right tire.
Nevertheless, the rock ricocheted from the tire and hit the
very lower side of the rear right door on it's follow thru'.
There's a sizeable ding (though not visible if you stand right
next to the door) with a 3" scratch at the very bottom of the
right rear door, just below the lowest crease. The raw metal
underneath the scratch is visible too. I couldn't see any effects
of the ding on the inside bottom of the door, though. It's a
real painful ordeal to go thru' on a brand new 41K X. I felt
so bummed about it that the skiing wasn't quite enjoyable.
My wife consoled that it could've been far worse had the rock
struck elsewhere!

Now, those of you who've had the misfortune of having
to fix dings/scratches, what did you do? There're body shops
galore, but any recommended places to fix it (particularly in
the SFBay area)? Any pointers will be much appreciated. Or,
should I first approach the dealer?

thanks, and thanks for reading this!

 

[TheWorm]

DentPro or DentWizard. I used DentPro for our pinecone-inflicted dent(s):

http://www.acuramdx.org/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=2101

It sounds like you need some touchup, too, so be sure and let them know that in advance as some of their trucks are dent-only whereas others do both...

 

[giveMyMDX]

Thanks, Worm.
You da man!

BTW, are there any located in the east bay? Fremont area?

 

[srpbep]

There are several different "de-denters" around [Dent Pro, Dent Wizard, Dent Doctor, Dent Masters, Dent xxxxxx]. Depending upon the damage, may be more than they can handle [they or the dealer can tell you]. Additionally, your dealer works with one [possibly more] of these companies on a routine basis [e.g. can provide you with a reference].

If the damage can be "de-dented", the next problem is paint repair. Depending upon the damage, might not handle touch-up too well, this is also affected by the color of your X [e.g. white is easy, black is easy, Red/Silver are difficult, etc.].

Good luck [well, may your luck improve]. Keep us posted.

 

[Emerald01]

Worm,
Can I ask how much you paid for the repair of your three dings?
Did they give a discount for AAA members?

I have three of my own. All dings are are on the left side of the vehicle (two on drivers door, one on passenger door). Two dings occur where the body creates an edge/ corner (one on upper edge and one on lower edge). They are about nickle to dime size dings. I got two of the dings in Tahoe by an inconsiderate person parking next to me and left. And the other ding is unknown.


I saw several other companies in the south bay in this buisness:
Dent Terminator
DentMaster
Ding King of Santa Clara
and Dent Pro

 

[TheWorm]

I don't remember the exact amount but it was slightly over $100 (like $108 or $112 or somesuch) -- after the AAA discount. Just tell them u want the AAA discount before they write up the bill. My rear-hatch dent was right on the crease and they did a good job of fixing it. Not perfect, but still very good. It was in a brutally tough spot behind the rear wiper motor assembly and I was not in the mood to remove everything!

I've heard of DentPro and DentWizard the most; seen a DentKing van driving around quite a bit lately. Never heard of the "Terminator" or the "Master". DentPro and DentWizard are franchises. Not sure of the others -- could very well be a former employee now freelancing it.

 

[ardvarkus]

The dents are always the easy part....

ask any body shop and the paint is the tough part.

My understanfing is that if you've gone through the clear coat, color coat, primer into metal- to get it back to perfect you need to repaint. Depending on color and metallics, it may need just that panel or even a larger area. Usually clear coat needs to be applied to the edges of the particular panel affected.

Of note, on a 'perfect finish' the body shop has to shoot a perfect coat, color sand perfectly flat, etc. But what do they do with an 'orange peely' finish? Match the orange peel too?!? SOmetimes a repaint is BETTER than the surrounding factory finish.

If it is down to metal, I'd get it recoated- it will rust and look like crap. In my experience, the dent repair part will only add like a half hour to an hour to the overall cost of the repaint.

Ard

PS Look at the bright side: your first ding and NEITHER you nor your wife was responsible! ...

 

[giveMyMDX]

Ard,

You were right on the money with your analysis! It was
exactly what one of the body shops in Sunnyvale suggested/
estimated.

First of all, it is more of a dent rather than a ding (if you will)
and the scratch is longer than I originally thought, about 6+"
and it does require a re-paint job, not a mere touch up. I have
a quote for 700+ bucks (ouch!!) to get it back in shape. I'm
gonna shop around a few places b4 fixing it. There're scratches
on the horizontal plastic part(??) below the door that I'll
probably ignore.

I believe the paint job is done on an area larger than the
actual spot to blend in with the surrounding (to get that
'perfect finish') while they primer/color/clear coat the area.
Hopefully I can keep that to a minimum, cuz the area of damage
is in the lowest section of the door (which is at an inward/
acute angle to the panel above it and you cannot see it if
you were to stand besides the door)

I'm not sure how they'd do an 'orange peel' type of a paint
job on a Mahogany X to match the surrounding areas. And
yep, I've nature (and my bad luck) to blame for ;-) Did I mention
I also had a stone hit (never heard/saw it) my windscreen that
caused a tiny internal crack on the glass that needs fixing too?
:-(

thanks