Cost of fixing three dents

[Leo]

Couple of things here jump out,
There should not be a difference of €2k verses insurance repair to private repair on a 3 dent vehicle damage. That’s very questionable to be honest. I wonder was the €1100 repair a cash incentive price?

Look at the premises of the places the insurance companies use, state of the art facilities with all the latest tech. They make it easy for the insurance companies to use their services and tend to go for replacing panels more so than repair them because it's a much quicker job with better guarantees of success.

The backstreet places will look very different, but will be a lot cheaper.

 

[Purple]

@jim, I use Paul Stewart, Stewarts North City Garage, in City Business Park, Finglas, Dublin.
He's excellent, good value, fast and the insurance companies like him.

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[noproblem]

I dont seem to be able to upload actual pics from my phone or computer so instead i have included links below to similar dents from google images.

Do those plunger type yokes work. If so i could give it a go myself.

100% they do as long as it's just a push in hollow type problem. Dents at angles can be problematic but some can be pulled out with a plunger using warm water.

 

[jim]

Given the dents in the three pics, which are similar to mine, does 1100 sound reasonable to fix without involvement of insurance? I was surprised at the amount, thought it woukd be 400 or 500 but what do i know.

Ill shop around anyway.

 

[twofor1]

If you are not looking for perfection or it's an oldish car, get an online quote from Carcraft or similar for comparison. Not recently but I have had repairs done there.

Workmanship was not 100% but acceptable for the price which was one third of main dealer quotes. I was paying for it myself, so I was happy to save several hundred euro.

If it is a newish car and / or you want perfection, go elsewhere.

Fill in their form on line, upload photos and they will email your quote.

https://www.carcraft.ie/quote

 

[LS400]

Look at the premises of the places the insurance companies use, state of the art facilities with all the latest tech. They make it easy for the insurance companies to use their services and tend to go for replacing panels more so than repair them because it's a much quicker job with better guarantees of success.

Completely untrue,

Insurance companies promote repair over replace, that comment is just makey up stuff for the want of a better word,

Parts supply is abisimil, what ever about before brexit, its just an extra nightmare since.

Repairing a panel, is a skill, and a dying skill at that, there are very few in the trade that can metal finish a panel repair, its much easier to slab on some filler and cover the repair with a nice shiney coat of paint, I see it quite often with rectifications from the Main Dealer trade-in I'm tasked with sorting out.

Disclosure, I'm one of those nice shiney places,

 

[Leo]

Insurance companies promote repair over replace, that comment is just makey up stuff for the want of a better word,

I've only ever gotten quotes from the shiney places twice, but it was always replace at significant cost with the ultimate repair work being completed for a fraction of the cost elsewhere.

 

[peemac]

Is it your car? Or have you done the damage to someone else's car?

Avoid all main dealers. Very few if any, do bodywork. They farm it out to the likes of Stewart's or Ace Autobody and others, then add 50% .

If it's your car, then a dent repair service will probably be good enough. If it's someone else's, they may want a "back to perfection" repair