Argh! Some blaggard has gone and plowed what looks to be a shopping trolley into the back end of my beloved MkI VRS - which i have owned for barely 5 weeks!

This has caused a very slight crease (About 1cm in height and 7cm in length) which runs just below the bottom of the number plate on the boot. To be honest, its barely visible, but every time i look at the back of the car, its all i seem to be able to notice and its driving me to utter distraction.

I went along to a body shop tonight which is owned by a friend of a friend and was quoted £120 at "mates rates" and was told the car would come back to me with all the rear badges removed, and that it would be up to me to re-affix them.

Now it could just be me, but that strikes me as a bit on the heavy side. With that said, i am no expert when it comes to body panel work. I was just wondering what those with more knowledge that me would expect the "going rate" to be?

Cheers for the help!

With out actually seeing it couldn't really say. Have any pictures to share?

My friend had three dents nudged out for £60

Has it caused paint damage?

I have to say it is a bit random to take off all the badges? Where you say it is, it is no where near them!

I've had previous small 'dents' removed for £30 by the local Dent Devil tech.

You dont need to remove badges, Sounds to me like the bodyshop wants to fill the dent and then spray the backend of the car which is most likely completely unnecessary.

Depending on how low the crease is it may not be possible to access the rear to do a PDR (paint-less dent removal) the bodyshop has clearly quoted you to fill and paint the bottom half of the tailgate.

I had a few removed from my MKI Superb in a group buy, IIRC we paid £50/60 per car - no matter how many dents there are, most PDR gut's will charge about £30 per dent or £50 per panel.

FWIW £120 to prep and paint the tailgate is IMO not bad.

Ive attached some Pic's. Unfortunatley they arent particularly great, and contain far too many reflections of my ugly mug, however it does help to illustrate where the crease is:

As always, your thoughts are appreciated guys

Just popped along to another place and got quoted £65 to pull the dent out, which is much more agreeable. However in terms of the minor crack to the bumper paintwork (Which can be seen at the bottom right of the last image i posted) they quoted £250

Again, im not an expert, and the dent removal quote sounds okay, but £250 sounds a bit on the rich side to me!

Just popped along to another place and got quoted £65 to pull the dent out, which is much more agreeable. However in terms of the minor crack to the bumper paintwork (Which can be seen at the bottom right of the last image i posted) they quoted £250

Again, im not an expert, and the dent removal quote sounds okay, but £250 sounds a bit on the rich side to me!

Your friend didn't give "much of a mates rate" then did he lol.

That is expensive!!! Fair enough plastic primer, filler, colour, lacquer, sand, polish. £100 for all the bits maybe 190 all in but 250... hmm.

To be honest, im happy enough with £65 for the dent if he can get it done, going to take it along on Friday.

However £250 for the scratch to the bumper paintwork seems totally ridiculous to me. The guy was saying it would be because the entire bumper would need removing, the work doing on the scratch, then a complete respray on the entire panel, re-lacquer the entire panel and reseal. That seems totally overboard for this:

I've since cleaned the area aroudn the scratch up with a bit of Polish and the crack in the paint itself is at best 1mm thick and quite clean to be honest, which makes me think the above is a bit Operation Overkill.

As such i got in touch with Chips Away who are coming round to have a butchers at the bumper, however the chap i spoke to said that £250 was way too much

Will keep you posted

Cheers

Spoke with the Chips Away fella, he reckons that the bumper will simply be a case of quite literally "Painting over the crack" - for which he quoted £90.

He had a look at the dent as well, and he is of the opinion that it will NOT be removable by means of PDR, regardless of what the other body shop said, and explained the reasons why. He recommended a nearby bodyshop, said i could probably get both sorted out there for around £250 - which is still a bit on the wince inducing side.

Got one more place to check out tomorrow for a quote, then it loosk liek im going to have to dig deep :(

Cheers

Well, think ive sorted out what im doing.

Went to see the other guy this morning, he came recommended by my mechanic mate.

Has quoted £200 for both the Bumper crack and the Tailgate dent. Says both will be baked, filled, resprayed/relacquered, although i will lose the "Octavia" badge on the tailgate (Which im not too fussed about).

Told him about some of the other quotes i had been given and he reckons they were way over the odds, also said that Chips Away's suggestion of simply painting over the bumper would most likely result in it recracking in the future.

Only downer is he cant do the work for a couple of weeks, but with Tax and Service due in the next couple of weeks thats probably not a bad thing!

Cheers