Home Forums Gear Hunting Trucks and Four-Wheel Drives Guess the repair bill

Someone at my huge work parking lot scratched my 2014 Outback fender. They left their contact number and want to use their insurance to pay. There are 2 scratches, largest being 3 inches. The scrape goes to the metal, so it needs repainted. Looks like they dropped something down the side because the scratches are like a check mark? I will take it to the dealer for an insurance quote. So guess what it will be priced at... Answer on Tuesday I hope. I asked some people and they told me some very high numbers in my view.

Had a similar scratch put on my wifes car, when a 16 yo kid was trying to park his dads long wheel based truck next to her. Right at a grand as I recall.

Probably opened the door with a big "tailwind" and it got away from them. I'll guess $1350.

Dealer quote- $1200+

The guy on the other side of town who does a better job than the dealer- $500 +/-

I kinda like scratches, so I'm just going to pocket the check. Interesting to see the estimate.

Cost depends on whether insurance is paying. Most small repair shops will give you a break if you are paying yourself.

OTOH, I once had a shade tree mechanic in New England decline to fix some damage, saying "Use them for seeds."

Norm

Cost of repainting a fender 1k +or minus a hundred

672.00 at Subaru.

WOW , not bad

I was going to guess $1000 also.

FWIW that can be fixed without painting the whole fender. Find a shop that specializes in small paint and bumper repairs and they'll be able to fix that by spot painting and blending it to the fender. I had a BMW 535 that had a couple of small paint scratches when I got it, both worse than that, and they fixed them both for $500 with the repairs being completely undetectable. I wouldn't have believed it but they turned out perfect. A big benefit to that is that you preserve as much of the factory finish as you can and with today's factory painting systems that's always going to be more durable than a repaint by a body shop. Of course if you go to a regular body shop they're going to say you have to repaint the fender, but after seeing what these guys can do I'd never let a body shop talk me into repainting a whole fender for a small scratch like that.

Call a local new car dealer and ask who they use for their touch up. All dealers have somebody on call because often new cars come off the truck with rock damage or curb rash from the high school kid that loaded it on the trailer. You'd be surprised how many "new" vehicles have been touched up. If the dealer won't tell you then call a local paintless dent repair guy, he'll more than likely have a touch up guy that he works with if he can't fix something 100% by paintless repair.

You need to paint that now before it starts rusting unless you let the shop fix it.

So what is your time and lost vehicle use worth?

Unfortunately, insurance doesn’t cover lost time and only covers a rental if you’ve paid for the rental car endorsement.

The payers insurance is USAA, and they offered me a rental car when it would be in the shop. I declined their offer for a rental. And I think you are right, this little event is a PIA. My time taking it for appraisal, dropping it off, picking it up, and filing a claim does add up. So a day lost for sure.

Geeze that's alot for that little bit of work. I hit a deer with my Grand Cherokee a couple years ago. Folded and creased the front fender, bent the hood, cracked the bumper cover, and broke the headlight housing and grill. Local body shop straightened the hood, replaced front fender, bumper cover, grill and headlight housing and repainted all. Total bill was 1600.00.

Buy a bottle of touch up paint and put the cash in the bank if that's all it did.

I have to get a door on my Tundra repainted because some idiot didn't know how to drive a shopping cart. Had the truck been older I wouldn't even bother but I have a 50 dollar deductible and the truck is right at a year old , i will have it painted. 516.44 2 days work. Erie Insurance there is no better Auto or Home insurer anywhere .

Yeah if they would give me a check for $672 for those little scratches, it would go in my savings and I would buy one of those little bottles of touch-up paint with the brush in the cap and call it "good".

So does it need to be fixed, or or you going to leave it and pocket the money?

If you are not going to get it fixed... I guess I'm different on that one. They were kind enough to leave their info - most folks these days just leave. If it's not bad enough to fix, I say thanks for your honesty... mistakes happen. No big deal.

If they are going to pay their deductible and their premiums are going to rise, the least I could do is get it fixed...

To each, their own...