Yet another Body Shop conundrum

Yet another Body Shop "wat do?" opinion thread! Voice your serious, unserious, experienced or smartass answers!

The background: When on vacation we left the Mazda3 in the garage. Surely it will be nice and protected from the storms while I thrash the truck on the trails, I thought. Nope. At some point my ladder decided to spontaneously launch itself off its wall hooks and land squarely on the hood.

Damages: 99.5% on the hood panel. Two golfball sized dents, one quarter sized dent, and a whole host of scratches. Driver's fender has a tiny paint chip and a scratch that didn't penetrate the clear coat. Driver's headlight housing has a tiny scratch, can probably be buffed. At least two of the dents have creases, so not an easy pop-job.



Estimates: So far I pulled one estimate from a body shop. Asking for estimates is like pulling teeth around here. $1950 for the hood repair/repaint, $2050 if I want to include the fender repair, add another 200 if I'd rather replace the hood with new instead of hammer and Bondo the old. That seems damn high to me. Will likely be pulling more quotes. Alternatively, I can order a painted hood online from a questionable parts site for 1300.

Options:

• Call the Gecko and pay my $500 deductible. - high probability of being reported to Carfax. High probability of difficulty when pulling competitive insurance quotes during next year's annual renewal. Cheapest short-term route (I have about 3-5k worth of medical bills about to hit my mailbox).
• Find a high rated mom and pop chop shop and see if they can do it cheaper. - realistically I'm guessing anywhere between 1500 and the 2k quote I have in hand. Local warranty. Cash in hand means low probability of a Carfax hit. Won't show up on the insurance rap sheet. I can swing it, but this plus aforementioned medical crap is going to put a big hit on my savings.
• Buy a hood online. - probably 1300-1500, if I can find a website I'm willing to gamble on. No local warranty if it shows up fucked. The car is six months old so I'm not worried about paint match issues (as long as the hood uses OEM paint.) It's fairly easy for me to swap a hood and operate a polisher. Saves a couple hundred for the convenience of it, but that's a big gamble.

... Wat would you do?

 

Convert to 4wd and add 35s.

 

Mazda is already 4WD. 35s on order.

 

Find a hood at a scrap yard, have it painted, bolt it in yourself. Done for probably ~$750.

 

If it were me, I’d buy the new hood and install it myself. Do your homework and find a decent retailer. If you can’t find one you feel good about, buy the hood new from Mazda and still do it yourself.

Then add the 35s.

 

Is there really a reason to sweat the CarFax? I'd think the biggest reason would come into play if you would be eventually selling in a private sale. But if you save pictures of the damage to explain to some future buyer that "this is all it was for the $2000", it would seem that most wouldn't hold up a sale for that.

 

The bigger problem might be tracking down whatever is running around in your garage at night . . .

 

Valid. Just worried about resale in general, though i know deep down it's moot point. . I love the fiancee, but she doesn't treat her cars nicely.

 

Its pretty new man. I would have it done right.

 

not moot at all. insurance companies run numerous vehicle history reports, that can far exceed what carfax has available. this absolutely can effect your premium with your current company, or a future company.

 

Cut the dents out and put on a hood scoop and louvers.

 

A hood from certifit isn't that expensive but I don't know about the quality. Plus you'd have to get it painted.