Yesterday I stupidly backed into a Ford Excursion with my side mirror and left a trail of black from the mirror casing and a dent on his car. I've uploaded a couple pictures to photobucket.
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I left my information, and the guy said he'll get back to me in a couple days to talk about, and said "it was real nice that I left my information like that." I should also mention that the scratch appeared to be black scrapings from my mirror, and appeared to buff out with a little work.
I've never done something like this before, I'd love to hear your opinions.
We had someone do precisely this to our car last week. The driver managed to run their wing mirror down the entire length of the rear quarter panel, making a crease running the length[1]. Total cost to repair was 450 quid -- mostly in the panel beating labour: the paintwork was less than a quarter of the cost I think.
The damage you've done looks like a quarter of the area affected on ours.
(So far we've had £1350 of damage done to the car since we bought it last November. Fortunately for us, the culprits have been scrupulously honest & fessed up to the damage!)
Make sure they get a few quotes for the repair: one local garage wanted nearly twice the estimate of the other two: a little asking around revealed that they have a habit of 'upselling' their work...
The message from Phil Armstrong contains these words:
My son opened his door into a neighbour's car a month or two ago, denting it nicely with a deep gouge in the paintwork. We owned up and put our hands in our pockets for the damage, which is only fair.
Blow me if there isn't a dent in the same door again - and it wasn't us this time. Nor has the culprit owned up. Aaaargh.
Phil Armstrong ( snipped-for-privacy@kantaka.co.uk) gurgled happily, sounding much like they were saying :
Saturday afternoon.
Somebody wandered up to the front door - "Hello, think I've just reversed into your car"... Fairly tall but not very deep and not very long ding/scrape in the door, including the swage line, and some cracks in the paint. Not going to be an easy one - it's certainly beyond a paintless- dent-removal bloke.
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