Smart repair - very expensive.

[sausage]

Hi all,
I have had four or five quotes for a tiny smart repair. Approx 2x5 inches and a very shallow dent of approx 2-3mm deep.

Now, five years ago, my fiancee hit a pillar in the car park with her Golf. It damaged the door trim, the door, door frame, rear panel and significant damage to the wheel arch which needed to be filled and shaped. Paint was required across the door and rear panels. The cost was £75 and even 12 months later was still undetectable. Unfortunately that guy retired.

The area of damage on the golf was huge by comparison to the damage on the Merc, really really much much bigger. Like the difference between the size of an arm chair and a mars bar.

Quotes so far have ranged from £200 to £360 (Chipsaway). This is an increase way out of line with inflation.

Is this the "new normal"? 360% increase in cost over 5 years? Has anyone had a quote for a small smart repair that was less than I am looking at? I am near Loughborough if anyone knows a good but reasonably priced smart repair service local to me.
Thanks
Mark

 

[EmilysDad]

I've never had a smart repair, but I think your £75 repair 5 years ago was a bargain & a half

 

[rf065]

Unfortunately that guy retired.

Or went bust!

 

[sausage]

Or went bust!

Retired. I spoke to him.

 

[sausage]

I've never had a smart repair, but I think your £75 repair 5 years ago was a bargain & a half

I had a two smart repairs on one of my own cars some years before. Both were similarly priced for rear wheel arch repairs and paint. There are a lot of curves on a GTV and a lorry can do a lot of damage to an Alfa. Still both were less than £100. So, by my reckoning that was about the going rate for a long time.
Of course, all things are disproportionately more expensive these days. Wine I was drinking at £10 a bottle in London 2008 was £20 when I came back to the UK in 2012 and relocated to the E.Mids which is generally considered an area with a cheaper cost of living than London.

 

[Monday]

I paid Chips Away £216 incl VAT for a repair (in July 2019) to the panel under the radiator on the SL, scraped on a curb. Straightening and re-spraying a slightly bent aluminium front wing on an E300 coupe was £400 incl VAT in 2020. MB wanted £2k for the wing, mainly because they start from a new wing, removing the door to get at the bolts and then having to re-fit and test the door loom. I'm told that re-shaping aluminium is more difficult than steel.
As EmilysDad said, I think you have been very lucky with your £75 and £100 bills. Today's body shops won't open the doors for £75!

 

[alexanderfoti]

Yes, £75 is very cheap!!!

Also, the dentless type of smart repair guys/girls are usually more expensive specifically because they don't have to paint. In any case I think the price of £200-300 to fix a 3-4 inch area of damage is not too bad, considering the whole job.

 

[sl500amgsport]

My wife opened our gates and sat inside them looking at her mobile in her Peugeot not realising her bonnet had not reach the sensors, as she went to drive off the gates closed making a 6" dent across door and rear panel, cost £500.

The car has pearlescent red paint that has tinted lacquer, the repair shop had to respray door and blend into rear panel. Car looks like new again so I guess you get what you pay for...

Sent from my SM-G988B using Tapatalk

 

[peterws1957]

Prices vary hugely from these dent repairers. One recommended by a detailer wanted £150 plus vat to remove a tiny dent (not more than a couple of mms and no paint required) which was easily accessible. Body shop wanted over £800 to repair a large dent in friends Mondeo, yet a dent guy removed it for £125 and the repair was invisible. Shopping around works.

 

[Rory]

Did you pay the £75 or is that what you were told it cost?

As others hae said, it's a completely ridiculous amount which bears no relation at all to normal pricing (unless you meant 50 years ago, not 5) so it's pointless using that as a comparison. SMART repair on the driveway after a hefty firework landed on daughter's bonnet and did little more than break the paint cost £200 and that was around 2008.

Put a car with the slightest paint required into a proper body shop and you'll typically get a quote for over a grand - they use a software package to produce the price which even breaks out all the consumeables. I recall one in the paper (maybe Telegraph) some years ago that was a Merc - a lady slightly scuffed the front wing and the repair quote was £2500!

 

[EmilysDad]

This was the last body repair I had done ... but insurance paid. The only paint needed was the little bit shown in the picture, the plastic 'chrome' bumper was around £500 on it's own, but the whole repair was around £1100

 

[sausage]

Did you pay the £75 or is that what you were told it cost?

As others hae said, it's a completely ridiculous amount which bears no relation at all to normal pricing (unless you meant 50 years ago, not 5) so it's pointless using that as a comparison. SMART repair on the driveway after a hefty firework landed on daughter's bonnet and did little more than break the paint cost £200 and that was around 2008.

Put a car with the slightest paint required into a proper body shop and you'll typically get a quote for over a grand - they use a software package to produce the price which even breaks out all the consumeables. I recall one in the paper (maybe Telegraph) some years ago that was a Merc - a lady slightly scuffed the front wing and the repair quote was £2500!

Yes, we paid £75 and I still have the emails with the quote for £75, not £750, or 50 years ago, and recently re-read those emails to get the contact details for the man who quoted that price and did the work. Hence I found out he retired.

In 2014 I also had the front of a Porsche 911 painted after using it on a trip around the NC500. I had the wings, the bonnet and the bumper painted for £250 and in addition to the paint work, the body shop took a 911 turbo spoiler, cut it to length, plastic welded it together, and then modified the bumper on my 911 to take the modified splitter, fit it, bond it in, seal it and paint it and all in for the price mentioned. This was in a body shop that was recommended by GCR Wigston who specialise in race preparation of air cooled Porsches. That body shop did work on classic Ferraris, Jags, Porsches.

Some of you have been paying way too much for your body work.

Whilst I have received some ridiculously high quotes in the past on other cars, that are more in line with the hyperbolic prices mentioned above, these have been from businesses that are exploiting the insurance payouts, such as Chartwells in Derby who wanted 2x £500 to read the fault memory in a car, once at the start of the job, £500 and once at the end of the job, another £500. I told them where to go. Another time Chartwells quoted £5000 for damage that polished out in less than 5 minutes.

I paid £175 for the repair on the SL last week and am happy with the work.