TexasFright

Jesus, long couple days. or maybe someone in dallas who can help with paint?

So Thursday backing out of my apartment parking spot i whacked my front passenger fender on the metal support for the car-port. Only going 5 mph it basically crumpled the fender on my 2011 with only 350 miles on it. So Friday I sent off on craiglist for a couple quotes, a guy tells me he has a cyber gray passenger fender (Just like mine) at his shop he can swap in and it has a lil damage on the corner but he can repair the spot and spot paint it. Said he would do everything for $350. Ok cool so I take it up, guy has a small body shop and he shows me the fender, same color, looks good, I see the spot and he says no worries. So I leave it with him for about 6 hrs. Come back and the fender is swapped in and the damage is repaired but the whole thing looks to be spray painted/cleared and does not match at all. The paint is even rough to the touch. I'm like wtf, he goes on to tell me how he couldn't find cyber gray to paint the spot he fixed and had to color match the whole fender as close as possible and they use spray cans to paint because they do not have guns. Basically after arguing, refusing to pay, police came out, argued again I agreed to just pay him $175 for the repaired fender.


So now I have a ****ty painted fender on my car, so i go sat to about 9 shops. each one wanted $500-$700 to pull off the fender, strip, repaint and put it back. Is there anywhere online I can get a painted fender for a decent price??? I can put it in myself, I can't spend $700 to fix the fender. I learned my lesson big time on this

JasonD

OUCH...that SUCKS. Don't feel too bad, I did the exact same damage to my Mom's car once when I was 19. I also drove my 1996 Camaro SS into my house (narrow driveway at the time) and completely jacked the rear quarter. It is a cold, hard feeling when you realize what you have done.

But, every time it did get fixed as good as new. You just need to find the right place.

Let me give you some advice...definitely let price be important, but don't let it be the number one thing for this fix if you can help it. Quality has to come as close to first as possible. You may regret it otherwise.

Keep searching for a shop that can show you solid work history, as well as offer a guarantee. I wish I knew of a shop in the Dallas area, but I will put my feelers out there for you.

Have you considered calling your insurance company? Even if you have to pay out of pocket, they may have a preferred shop in your area that will have a guarantee.

Good luck, please keep us posted.

fbodyauto

I drove my old 94 camaro into a carport once, years ago.

skuttduck

I know it is an old post, but check www.car-part.com

It is a good way to see which of the salvage yards near you might have one. You might get lucky and find the paint color you need already. I found a near perfect trunk lid that way, and got that for installing my highwing spoiler.