[s-cars] D. oh! A deer!

[Varon H. Fugman]

While driving to work the other morning at 65mph, a deer materialized out of
nowhere directly in front of my car and managed to give a good kick to my
right front headlight, washer & trim, smash the turn signal to smithereens,
and leave a dent in the fender before galloping into the woods.  Guess that
deer must have a had a sore foot!

 

Darn, I don’t mind the replaceable pieces so much, but I’ve never had to
have body work that involved painting done on this car before.  I’m worried
that new paint on my 14 year old car will stand out like a sore hoof, er,
thumb.

 

I’ve gotten estimates from 2 body shops.  One recommends repairing the dent
in the fender.  The other recommends replacing the fender.  Much as I don’t
like the idea of body filler, repairing seems like the best option to keep
the repair area as small as possible.  The dent is about 3” by 3”, maybe ½”
deep.  Just behind the turn signal assembly.

 

A third option I’ve consider is paintless dent removal, but I haven’t found
one locally to talk to.  The paint is unbroken, so it might be an option,
although my understanding is it wouldn’t be perfect due the metal having
stretched.  But at least it would still be my original paint.

 

I should add that my car is far from cosmetically perfect.  The front has
quite a bit of road rash, and there a couple dings and scuffs, and the
clearcoat on the hood is starting to loose its shine.  But the car still
looks pretty good from a distance, especially when wet!  I dislike the
thought of an area of new paint making the old paint elsewhere look really
bad.  Emerald, in case it makes a difference. 

 

What sayest the list?

 

1. Repair fender (pull dent, body filler and sand, repaint area and blend
into rest of fender.)

2. Replace fender (paint entire fender and blend into front passenger door
and hood.) 

3. Paintless dent removal to massage out the dent.

 

Varon

’95 urS6