Dent repair...
Thread Starter
Registered User
Joined: Jan 2003
Posts: 19
From: Florida
Car Info: 2003 Legacy Sedan
Dent repair...
Owned my new 2003 Legacy not even 2 weeks now, and already some a**hole has gone and dented it. Appears to be from someone hitting it with their car door while I was in a parking lot at some point.
Anyway, I've got a 2-inch tall verticle dent on the right side just above the rear wheel well.
I've noticed that there's a rubber strip about 18" long or so that is attached to the top inside wheel wells on the rear wells only. This piece of rubber curves upwards about a 1/8 to 1/4 inch as a kind of molding I guess you could say along the top of those rear wheel wells.
The dent seems to meet this piece of rubber molding, and the paint it chipped right there. Repairing the dent shouldn't be a problem, but fixing that paint chip I think will be a problem since that part of the Legacy is all one piece that extends upward and basically consists of the whole roof and the left rear side of the vehicle as well.
Just had the local auto-body place look at it, and they said that normally with repaints, they have to rough up the rest of the panel and repaint it so everything matches. This is obviously not do-able with the Legacy rear side.
So.... my long, drawn-out question is... I'm thinking that maybe they can just put something on the chipped area to stop any rusting.... then replace those rubber things described earlier with something that extends "upward" a little farther.... to cover the chip. Anyone know where I could find some kind of wheel-well trim that would actually look decent?
Sorry if this post doesn't make any sense. Hard to explain the actual damage, and I don't have a digital camera at my disposal to take pictures.
Anyway, I've got a 2-inch tall verticle dent on the right side just above the rear wheel well.
I've noticed that there's a rubber strip about 18" long or so that is attached to the top inside wheel wells on the rear wells only. This piece of rubber curves upwards about a 1/8 to 1/4 inch as a kind of molding I guess you could say along the top of those rear wheel wells.
The dent seems to meet this piece of rubber molding, and the paint it chipped right there. Repairing the dent shouldn't be a problem, but fixing that paint chip I think will be a problem since that part of the Legacy is all one piece that extends upward and basically consists of the whole roof and the left rear side of the vehicle as well.
Just had the local auto-body place look at it, and they said that normally with repaints, they have to rough up the rest of the panel and repaint it so everything matches. This is obviously not do-able with the Legacy rear side.
So.... my long, drawn-out question is... I'm thinking that maybe they can just put something on the chipped area to stop any rusting.... then replace those rubber things described earlier with something that extends "upward" a little farther.... to cover the chip. Anyone know where I could find some kind of wheel-well trim that would actually look decent?
Sorry if this post doesn't make any sense. Hard to explain the actual damage, and I don't have a digital camera at my disposal to take pictures.
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You're sort of asking for the impossible, but I'll give you a possible solution.
Call Dent Wizard (800-Dent-Wiz), they can have their local rep look at it for you. They are the leaders in paintless dent repair, and if there is access, they can work out the dent.
The chip is the problem, but they also do chip repair. They can't make it invisible, but they can fix it so it looks decent and won't cause the panel to rust.
Otherwise, what the body shop is telling you is correct, that's the only truly 'correct' way to fix it.
Call Dent Wizard (800-Dent-Wiz), they can have their local rep look at it for you. They are the leaders in paintless dent repair, and if there is access, they can work out the dent.
The chip is the problem, but they also do chip repair. They can't make it invisible, but they can fix it so it looks decent and won't cause the panel to rust.
Otherwise, what the body shop is telling you is correct, that's the only truly 'correct' way to fix it.
Thread Starter
Registered User
Joined: Jan 2003
Posts: 19
From: Florida
Car Info: 2003 Legacy Sedan
Well, fixing the dent itself shouldn't be a problem for anyone to do. But that chip in the paint is what bothers me the most. However, after looking at it, it's close enough to the wheel well, that I'm just going to see about patching the chip up, and then putting some kind of black, rubber molding along the wheel wells. Nothing too thick, maybe 1/2" or less. I think it'll look decent and it should cover the chip.
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