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Out of Body Shop Experience

What to know and do to get the best repair results for your car

Not that anyone ever wants the experience, but chances are at one point in your life, despite every precaution you take, you will probably get into an accident. Whether or not it's your fault, that will be the moment when you're going to need to enlist the aid of one of those myriad body shops you've driven past over the years. It seems they're on every corner, especially in some parts of your community, but when you need them, they're booked up (especially after rainy weather).

Be Discerning

It's not advisable to take the first body shop you run across in any event, despite the fact that you've lost your daily driver and you want your ride back as quickly as possible. Desperation forces hasty decisions and you can't afford to do that, literally and figuratively—especially if you were at fault.

Generally, most insurance companies will offer a rental car based, of course, on the type of policy you have chosen, but it may still cost you a small per diem. If the other party caused the accident, you will likely get the rental car as part of their coverage, but unfortunately you may encounter that regrettable situation where the other party, who caused the accident, doesn't have insurance. This is where it gets stickier, but this isn't about the legal ramifications, so the focus remains on just getting the car repaired. Most importantly, it pays to have good insurance coverage and a good agent, so think about that today, before an accident occurs. Hopefully, the body shop you choose can help you with securing a rental car.

The Art of Estimates

In most cases, you will have to provide at least two or more estimates of the damage, and the winning bid your insurer will accept is likely the lowest. It's safe to say that there are body shops and then there are other body shops. Just because they may have a sign out front doesn't mean they do the same things. Look around the facility or yard. If there are a lot of cars in various states of (dis)repair and a lot of them look they've been there for a while, walk away. It's important to recognize that in the field of body repair, cleanliness, readiness and presentation all mean something.

Ask Questions

Be prepared to ask some questions—don't be intimidated in the least. This is your car, after all, and you want it to be fixed properly so that it operates the same as it did pre-accident. Many people will agree that once damaged, a car is never the same. You want to try and avoid that feeling, and having a good shop take care of the repairs will go a long way toward making your car look fresh again and helping you overcome any negative thoughts you may have toward the vehicle.

So, ask the body shop if they have a paint booth on premises. How new is it? Is it airtight? (You want to make sure all the dust particles and specks flying through the air from the surrounding frenzied activities don't find their way into said booth and ultimately into your paint. It's happened more than once.) Does the shop have sufficient tooling and is the staff trained to work on your specific vehicle? And with respect to your make and model, another appropriate question is: Does the shop use genuine factory (OE, or original equipment) replacement parts or some other kind of brand? Check out the office. Is it a mess, or is there a nice customer service area, or at least care taken in keeping the bathroom clean? In other words, do they care about you, the customer, or are you just a number to them (albeit a profitable one, depending on the insurance company)? Is it painfully obvious they don't care about customer retention? After all, there will be a bunch of new people coming in the door tomorrow.

The Repair Process

Repairing a car and smoothing out the sheetmetal is both an art form and a technical skill. As many people will note, you can plug up a hole or cover a crumpled panel with a bit of bondo, a sander and a quick spray, and the untrained eye may never see anything amiss. Bondo is for many a body shop the magic putty and is, in fact, a brand name and trademark of the Bondo Corporation. However, like the names "Kleenex," "Xerox," and "FedEx," it has entered our lexicon as a generic term used to refer to all auto-repair fillers or the action of such labor (as in "just bondo that quarter panel").

People, one body shop owner states, have a "misconception about bondo." Previous generations of the filler, when generously coated over the damaged area, had a tendency to crack and in more serious cases, fall off. That's not the case in today's modern body shop. Technology, competition and the Bureau of Automotive Repair have all contributed to improvements and advancements in the marketplace, and bondo, produced by a number of companies, has steadily improved in quality.

About Bondo

Obviously, there is a place and a purpose for bondo, and it is all about the application and the extent of the damage. It should not become a replacement for sheetmetal in more serious accidents. However, for small holes or dents the size of softballs and other filler jobs, it's a lifesaver—and when it sets, it becomes extremely solid. Modern day bondo doesn't shrink and typically doesn't peel, and when the damaged area is properly prepped, using a grinder to get down to clean, bare metal, and filled with bondo no more than 1/8-inch thick then sanded to a smooth finish and painted, it will hold up extremely well. Body shops will utilize this method more readily than replacing metal finish because the latter process involves more time and, ultimately, more expense for the owner, since the metal has to be cut out and a new piece welded back in. Painting becomes more involved as well.

Regrettably, there is still in existence the body shop that lathers on bondo two inches in thickness, putting it on like mud to drywall. Eventually, such actions will result in certain consequences, many of them dire. Thus, when there is more substantial damage, nothing replaces a metal fender like a metal fender, and it is wise to choose a body shop that does what you expect it to do and that it is to utilize proper replacement parts and the skilled technicians to handle the repairs.

Look for a body shop that will stand behind its work and offer a guarantee. That's the only kind of business you should choose to get your pride and joy looking beautiful again.