How Can I Fix a Dent on the Drivers Side Door Panel?
Just imagine driving your lovely car, you have just had it washed and cleaned, the sun beaming down on the immaculate and shiny paint work, and you are enjoying listening to the music as you cruise around your local town or city. During the cruise you decide that while you are out that you could do with picking up a few groceries from the supermarket, so you park up and head inside. On your return to the car, you are horrified to find that someone has left a massive DENT on your driver’s side door panel. This is all something we have experienced or that we have heard happen to someone else, and lets face it, this is not only extremely frustrating but at the same time is definitely going to cost you a lot of money to get it fixed.
Where can I go to get this dent fixed?
Once a door is dented and the paint has been disturbed, then it is essential that you get this fixed as soon as possible as rain, snow and cold weather can cause the paint or body work to decay and rust. There are several options where you could get this dent repaired, and there are varying costs associated with which of the below options you select, these are as follows:
Solution 1: Claim it on your insurance policy.
Cost: Probably the most expensive option.
The first option car owners tend to choose is to get it fixed using your insurance. In terms of repairing the damage, you can rest assured that the work will be carried out by an approved garage and to a high specification. However, although this option does sound attractive, watch out for the hidden penalties that you could face, such as, having to pay the voluntary excess for making a claim on your insurance, and most importantly the increase in the cost of our premium the following year due to you having made a claim
Solution 2: Take your car to a body repair specialist.
Cost: This could be reasonable in price.
Instead of making a claim on your insurance, it could be worth the while in taking your car and the damage down to a recognised body repair specialists in order to get a quote. This option could be viable as it will give you a really good idea as to how much you will have to pay to get your part repaired, the scale of the damage to the door, and you will be better able to assess weather to make or not make a claim on your insurance. The disadvantage of using body repair specialists is that there are many companies out there that promise the highest level of work to the damaged area, but actually produce a poor level of work. If the level of work is poor, for example, the colour does not exactly match the rest of the car then YOU will be solely responsible and could lead to a lot of hassle and stress getting this resolved.
Solution 3 : Ring a MOBILE dent repair specialists.
Cost: This could be very the cheapest of the 2 options above.
Mobile dent repair specialists can be found online and in most telephone directories. These companies are present in most towns and cities across the UK, and not only can they do a good job in fixing that dent but they come to your home address, so less hassle for you to get down to the garage and find a way of getting back home again. The mobile dent repair specialists can carry out the work on your drive way or in your garage, and usually take a few hours to get the job complete. In addition, due to them having less overheads as they do not have a fixed address, the price you pay for the repair job is normally a lot cheaper than the above two options.
What if these companies are too expensive?
If these companies are too expensive, you may be better off buying the whole door panel from a breaker-yard. This may seem a bit drastic at first thought, but consider the following:
Due to you only requiring the door shell, this will be very cheap. Usually a door shell can cost as little as £25. You could ask a mechanic to swap over the mechanisms in the old door over to the new door.
This will be a lot faster than getting the dent repaired as replacing the door is simply a bolt-on job, and if you find the door shell in the right colour you will save your self the hassle of re-spraying the door with the dent.
The part will look more original, if you get the door with the exact colour match then the manufacturer would have used exactly the same colour on all of its doors. This will be better than fixing the old door and risking the colours not matching exactly.
Finding the door will be probably faster than taking your car to the repair garage or getting the Mobile repair company to come to your home, as sourcing a door on the internet using a specialist parts locating service could be as quick as 15 mins.
In conclusion, fixing a dent on your drivers side door can be fixed using a variety of sources, from making an insurance claim, using a dent repair garage or using a mobile dent repair specialist. However, the price of the repair job, the convenience of the service, additional costs at a later date and the quality of the job have to be considered carefully. If the costs are just not affordable then do seriously consider using the breaker-yards to get a drivers side door shell, as you could get your lovely motor looking gorgeous again for a little as £25 and in half the time.