Poindexter

I'm not going to say what you should do, but there are times when Bondo should be used over replacement.

If a factory weather seal has to be broken for replacement, try to bondo first. Breaking a factory weather seal will cause problems with inner rusting down the road. This would be the case if you were trying to fix a door panel.

Fenders are easily replaceable items, but when you do major paint work like this, paint blending is required. If the paint is not blended into the panels around the replaced part, the environment (sun, rain, dirt, jet fuel, acid rain, etc...) will eventually show a difference in panels. Painting over small sections of bondo keeps the paint work at a minimum.

True - Bondo is not the greatest stuff over replacing metal when you first think about it. Bondo falls out or it indents over time - BUT - bondo can easily be reworked to be straight again - and bondo is an additive to your car it is not a replacement, so your factory alignments and seals can stay intact.

Punisher

i would definitley fight it! who the hell would want their rear quarter panel all bondo up..

Ledfoot

tesseract got it right...you're insurance company should have your back in this situation.

I recently had my Prelude daily driver get it's nose ripped off by some schmuck. His fault entirely. The guy tried to get me not to call the cops or go through insurance....my ass...when i popped the hood the front bumper fell off the car! (All the damage was cosmetic...nothing mechanical was harmed...not even my alignment).

When this guy gave the officer his insurance information he added the fact that he "didn't know if his policy was paid up". Naturally to get my car fixed I went through mine first. No sense in waiting around to hear if his policy was good or not. If it is...my insurance company will hound them....Seeing as his car is still on the side of the road and it's been over a week? I don't think his insurance is still active.

Bondo is well and good in certian situations, but this isn't one of them...just my $0.02

xjohnx

just got back and feel better about things. Talked to fletcher's and they said the same thing you did Poindexter. They said it'd be better off to push it out and use filler, but as little as possible. They did say the geico adjuster was low on her time estimates, didn't put any time in for blending, and needed to have the rear bumper added on since the clips were broken it wouldn't line up straight once they fixed it. So the Fletcher's guy said they'd talk to Geico and have all that taken care of so when i drop off the car in two weeks i'll be good to go. he was confident they could get it back to where you'd never know...good enough for me.

it will take about 7 working days to fix they said. so i'm guessing 2-3 weeks knowing body shop talk.

sweetj

Poindexter

I love it when the bodyshop says that

It usually means that they aren't afraid to take the car back again if something doesn't hold up

Glad to hear things are looking better

Ledfoot

tesseract

good news, keep us updated.

xjohnx

I wonder if they'll let me keep the old bumper... that'd be nice to rig up with one of the exhaust outlets closed off if i ever decide to go to a single exhaust setup