Ding on hood

[I_am_Snake]

Do I need find a ford certified place or any body shop decent around me is fine? Most likely hood will need to be repainted. Anything to look for or be aware of? I wanted to get the new Cervinis GT500 hood but not sure if insurance could offset that cost. With deductible maybe it doesnt make much sense. Sucks

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[NoVaGT]

"Ford certified" is crap. Ask your local car folks and find out what local body shop is best. Find the one that works on exotics and high-end vehicles, who understand their customer's expectations.

Dealership body shops are useless. Might as well use Macco or something.

 

[NoVaGT]

who's good in nova?

http://www.dandvautobody.com/

 

[ORRadtech]

I've never used a Ford body shop and don't know why, or who it would matter to.
I've got two places I use. A really good local, non chain, shop that does my general insurance work and a small, one man, custom shop for special needs. He's really good but being a one man shop, it can take a while sometimes.

 

[pyrophilus]

"Ford certified" is crap. Ask your local car folks and find out what local body shop is best. Find the one that works on exotics and high-end vehicles, who understand their customer's expectations.

Dealership body shops are useless. Might as well use Macco or something.

Completely agree, Ford dealer body shops aren't shops that specialize in mustangs. That means they do body work for cargo Van's, cargo/work trucks, econobox, etc...

Unless they are Ferarri dealer body shop, I would go with the best local shop.

 

[Mr. Met]

Dealers have their own in house body shops? When I took mine in for warranty work they sent it out to a local body shop.

 

[FreePenguin]

Dealers have their own in house body shops? When I took mine in for warranty work they sent it out to a local body shop.

my ford actually has its own body shop. and its amazing. I take all my cars there, and even motorcycles there for work. they are indeed that ford's body shop, same name, same everything. but they will work on anything, but just expect dealership type prices vs mom pop.

that said, I get all my bodywork done at the ford body shop. I have a good rapport w them now.

 

[ORRadtech]

My insurance has preferred body shops for easy and lifetime repairs guaranteed. If I go to another body shop, they probably have limited warranty. Is that a big factor over a possibily better shop?

Why do you think the preferred shops might not be a "better shop"? Just because they have made a business deal to give an insurance company a price break to bring in more business? Being a preferred shop for an insurance company has nothing to do with the quality of work they do other than possibly insuring a more consistently quality product.
My independent, no chain, body shop is a preferred shop and I've never once been able to find fault in their work or even tell there had ever been damage done.

 

[ORRadtech]

I'm starting to get the feeling you're overthinking this.

Were it me, my biggest question would be "Do I pay out of pocket so there's no insurance company record or do I turn it in and have a Carfax body shop incident follow the car forever"?

 

[Schwerin]

Dealers have their own in house body shops? When I took mine in for warranty work they sent it out to a local body shop.

Depends on the place. Some doo, some don't. One place by me does, another has a paint booth but the actually bodywork/painter is a 3rd party, and another place contracts out to a place that also does Ferrari/Maseratti/Porsche.

 

[K4fxd]

Check the BBB for complaints. Lots of times the preferred shops are chains with high turnover rates.

 

[FreePenguin]

My ford body shop lifetime warranties their work. I think a lot of shops do the same.

But preferred doesn’t mean bad as stated. But doesn’t mean best either, my friends uncle owned bodyshop, and they did insurance job as cheaply as possible.

Not quite the same effort as you get from say: a real job paying real money to be done right. Ymmv

the jobs weren’t bad by any means, but the hours was definitely less, and imo. I’d pay the little extra

 

[JohnnyGT]

http://www.dandvautobody.com/

1+ for this shop. Pricing is on the higher end, but they do solid work.

We took the Expedition there after a minor reverse mishap. Came out perfect.

I'm gonna do a little bragging now; they used to run a couple old pics of mine from a G35 meet on their homepage.

 

[Cobra Jet]

It’s very hard for me to tell the extent of the damages in your pics, due to all of the reflections in the paint. A good PDR guy will be able to pop the worst of the worst dents/dings/impact points and when he’s done, you would never know there was prior damages.

As for the painted surface, you might be able to buff away the scratches IF they didn’t go below the clear. If they did go below the clear, you could have a body shop do the repair, or you could try Dr. Colorchip after buffing the surface to fill in any scratches.

The roof of all things should be easy for a PDR guy, because the headliner is easy to flex downward which gives him direct access to the sheet metal (if needed).

The hood could be tough, but they have plenty of tools and ways to remove sheet metal damages.

Look up online PDR or dent repair near you and check out the reviews given by other people before you pick a shop. Some PDR folks will actually come out to your house, business or work site so you don’t have to be inconvenienced.

 

[I_am_Snake]

I went to Pdr place and they said they feel confident they can do it. $500 which is same as my deductible but I guess no need to paint and deal woth that headache. I think that's the direction I'm leaning in

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