Tried to do some DIY repainting in the home garage, please be gentle. Applied some 2 stage spray paint (QAA) and then got some flaky residue after applying the second step (pearl?). Didn't think much of it at the time and then applied 2k clear. 3 coats of each paint with 10min wait time between coats. For the 2k clear, i applied 1st coat light, then 2nd and 3rd coat medium thickness.

Will this smoothen out after a wetsand and polish? I was thinking 1000>2000>3000>5000 then a polish.

I’m 18 and have about 2.5 years of paint prepping/teardowns under my belt. I have a good opportunity with Caliber Collision in becoming an Estimator quickly. But I am wondering if there are better options/companies or routes to take when on the parts/service advisor side of the business? I work at a Mom and Pop shop in the Phoenix, AZ area and I am paid hourly (not flat rate). I enjoy it but it’s hard to grow at a smaller shop because we can only take on so much business as a 4 man team.

I think someone dinged my door while parked and left a pretty sharp dent and next to it, something happened to the coating or paint but the texture feels rough and dry as you can see in the picture. Is this fixable?

I took a gamble on a 2011 sierra 1500 sle with 147k miles. I was in desperate need of a work truck and the price wasn’t terrible. It started up beautifully and drove smooth and didn’t think to look under the body. How bad is this and will this thing snap after I hit a Chicago pot hole?

This is after I cleaned all my paint off her car, I’m assuming the dents can get removed somehow but I know nothing of autobody work

Did they try to scam me? Give me a ball park on mobile repair? I already went to a reputable body shop and was quoted 9k at a body shop. Is this an involved repair?

Had this wing sitting in my garage I was wondering if and or how I can repair this and if it would be worth it?

Hey Yall,

It has been awhile since I posted about my car and some things have happened, however first I will give some context about my car.

I have a Dark Polo Green 1991 C4 Corvette base model with a ZF6 manual and a square 275 tire setup on factory 17" sawblades. The car has a saddle brown interior, and I am trying to build a clean, understated "vintage motorsport/GT" look.

The previous owner had a loud, bright and shitty application of a gold 3-piece racing stripe down the center of the front bumper. When I removed it, the tension of the old film pulled up craters of the clear coat and factory paint right down to the raw urethane bumper (I believe?). I am looking to lay down a new 3-piece custom layout (a 12-18” wide center stripe flanked by two thin pinstripes, same shape as before) to perfectly track the remaining clear coat ghosting from the previous vinyl job. I want to change the color to "3M™ 2080 Matte Charcoal Metallic Vinyl Wrap | M211" (or other colors I am open to suggestions) to tie into my aluminum sawblades.

My target budget for the bumper prep and wrap is $700-$1000.

However here are the annoying problems: regular wrap shops won't touch it because they don't do in-house paint sanding, and traditional collision centers are quoting me $1,700 for a full-panel strip and respray because they won't touch a localized "sanding only" job due to liability.

If I cannot find an independent shop to handle the mechanical prep, I am preparing to wet-sand the bumper myself. Since the late C4 front bumper is reaction injection molded urethane and relatively soft, I want to make sure I don't gouge the material.

Any critiques, shop recommendations near Central PA, or tool advice would be awesome, the pics are listed below. Also I don't know if this is the right tag or not since this is a project but I am asking a question, I do apologize for that in advance.

me and another guy backed into eachother in a parking lot 😪

Have a 2012 Lexus CT, and the corner of the driver side is getting some significant rust. Is this something I can DIY (I’m relatively handy) or is it worth taking to an autobody shop? I know neglecting is going to make it worse, and I want to get ahead of it before it gets too bad.

I just bought this 2004 Toyota Avalon XLS for a thousand bucks. I'm trying to get this car back into shape but there's quite a bit of rust on the rockers, and a sizable dent on the passenger door with rust.

The holes are made from another dude that had tried to repair it for the previous owner, and looks like crap.

Any ideas what I should do? I have a guy that quoted me $800 for all, just regular bondi fill up but I know that won't last long.

Hi everyone, I’m looking for some technical input on the repair approach recommended for my car.

I have a 2026 Honda Civic Sport in Urban Gray Pearl. The driver-side rear door has two small shallow dents where the paint is chipped through to the primer, along with a few light scratches/smaller chips. There is also a very small chipped area along the quarter-panel wheel-arch edge.

A Honda-recommended body shop plans to:

• repair the original rear door shell rather than replace it
• repair the two shallow dents
• feather/prime/block the damaged areas
• locally repair the basecoat on the rear door
• clearcoat the rear door
• color sand/buff
• blend the undamaged front door for color matching
• R&I the handles, moldings, weatherstrips, mirror/trim as needed for refinishing

I decided not to refinish the quarter panel because the actual damage there is very small. I’ll probably touch up the wheel-arch edge myself and preserve the factory finish on the rest of that panel.

The shop explained that the front-door blend is recommended because Urban Gray Pearl is a pearl/effect color, and blending reduces the risk of a noticeable color/flop difference between the repaired rear door and the original front door.

I’m mainly interested in understanding the repair methodology:

1. Is this amount of R&I typical when properly refinishing a rear door?
2. For this type of pearl color, would you normally blend into the undamaged front door?
3. Is localized basecoat repair followed by full-panel clearcoat the normal approach here?
4. Does leaving the quarter panel factory paint untouched and touching up the small wheel-arch chip separately seem like a sensible compromise?

Photos show the actual damage. Thanks for any technical insight from people who work in collision/refinish.

Evening,

Earlier today, I noticed my bumper looked a little low sided - i checked this & can see that on the left hand side of the bumper, where there should be a long thing piece of silver plastic, there is only half of it there!... speedbumps 🙄

I have been trying to find out what the name of the part is, so I can sort it, but I've had no luck! Hope someone on here can help me!

I have attached photos, 1st is the left hand side, with half of the plastic missing & 2nd photo is how it should look.

Any help would be greatly appreciated, as i literally have no clue!

I have very very little experience in body work, I am more of a mechanic. With that being said I plan on painting my motorcycle (fenders, gas tank and corresponding parts) over the winter. I can use the auto tech shop on fort Riley (I am a veteran) and was looking at different paints. Would it hurt to use the spray paint cans that some of those auto paint companies sell on their pages? What about the spray cans that you can by at autozone, O Riley's and such?

My bumper was just replaced HOWEVER, there are like several paint imperfections and it looks as if it's not sitting flush? Like am I being too picky orrrr......

Just wondering if you guys think this level of rust is gonna bite me on the ass in the next year or 2 is all!

Thanks in advance :)

Purchased this white/silver golf nearly 1 week ago, didn’t notice obvious scratches initially, have been parking car in multistory car park, today I noticed these scratches on passenger side, wing mirror and deeper dent on passenger door handle. Is anyone able to comment on appearance on if they look fresh or longstanding? Trying to work out if post purchase. Appreciate any help. Thank you

Sooo I’ve been watching a lot of DIY videos on fixing scratches and pulling dented doors, but I run into a specific problem: the panel isn't flat. There is a sharp, distinct body line running across the door and onto the rocker panel (bas de caisse).

Standard dent pullers might pull out the deep dent but they won't automatically restore that crisp angle/edge.

For those who have done this before: what’s the best technique or combination of tools (trick) to get that sharp body line back in both the door and rocker ?

Thanks for the help!