Dents - Leave em? or break paint?
 

I have had a small dent in my hood, a big dent (6 inch vertical fold) in my quarter panel for years now and dent in my roof behind the moonroof, it is not something that can be taken out with the dent pro people, it will required body work. The dents are from garage incidents so the paint is still in tact. So what happened? When I lived in california, an earthquake knocked over ladders among other things, all landing on my car. Nice huh? That was the straw that broke the camels back on my decision to move back east.

My dilemma is this, the 94 RX I have is the emerald blue color, it has a nice green tint in the sun, and in the shade it is blue. The body shop tells me that they will have to sand my entire hood, replace the entire quarter panel, and then blend into the rest of the car. They tell me they can match this paint but I find it hard to believe as I think this is bidirectional paint mazda used for this at the factory, thus achieving the dual color effect.

So, do i get this body work done? Can the paint really be matched? or is it better that I just live with the dents and not break what is still a beautiful paint job on this car.

Thanks for the advice,

RXJoey

I would say fix it to make it look better. BTW the color is called Montego Blue. Where in SC are at?

I have the same color and two very small chips to just the clear coat. I talked to two body shops about getting them fixed. It is no easy matter. You have to have the new paint blended far up into the existing good paint to make it work. It is expensive work. let us know what you find out when you take it in. Estimates cost nothing.

there's probably 2 stage dupont/PPG replacements for this paint (which was prolly tri-stage, 2 base 1 clear, to begin with), either way, find a local paintless dent repair guy... most of this stuff that isn't HUGE or has broken the paint they can remove and it's affordable, i'm having 8 door dings and 1 goofball sized crease removed friday

A "golfball sized crease" is not quite the same as a 6" vertical fold, of which I'm thinking, would be difficult if not impossible to take out. And accessing the hood and roof dents where it's double-walled - forget it.

Yeah i also have dents on my car, a vertical one on my drivers side door and the paint is cracked from that spot and minor dents around the car but the roof is the worst, a garage door fell on it so it's all dented up -_-; does anyone know how to reskin the roof?

Bondo and a repaint will do the trick!

BTW, Mr. Lee, I'm in Frisco too. What 'hood you in?

i'm in richmond, but pretty close to golden gate park actually

If you are going to sand and repaint the roof I would ask them to continue with the work till both ends of the rare mudguards. Why? That is the only area where the panel is a whole without any line to inturrupt where the sprayer can hide the spray.

If he who will do the work for you is not really that good you will surrely notice defacts in the final finish probably at the start of the mudguards where they meet with the roof. In that bend near the key hole.

I have seen a couple of RX7 like that here. A good eye look and one immediately notices that the roof or mudguard must have been repainted.

fix

It sucks to see that I'm not the only person with a vertical crease on the side body of my car. (mine is on rear quarter panel) Haters fucking suck :mad: I think the design of the FD's body causes there to be a huge crease when someone slams their door into your car. This is not really something I see on other cars (dents tend to be much smaller) Maybe our cars are being especially targeted.

I repainted my MB front bumper, hood and leading and top edges of the fenders. I blended into the fenders without getting any colour on the trailing edge of the fender in case the paint didn't match the door.

I used Dupont and the paint was only 2 stage (1 base and 1 clear). The blend is absolutely invisible.

I had a foot long crease (large tool box fell on car in garage) in my right front fender removed via paintless dent repair. The double walled thing is an issue for sure but several people told me it couldn't be done.......I found a guru and he spent 10 hours on it. You can't tell where the dent was. Fritz sold me the car a few years ago. He was amazed when I told him. My car is silver fwiw.

Thanks for the replies. cpa7 its amazing that the foot long dent was able to be restored by a dent guy! I will have to look into this and see if anyone is up for the challenge. I really hate to break the paint job on this.

FYI, the paint code is M8. A good body/paint shop will not have any problems blending it. like stated above it is just 1 base and 1 clear coat.

The paint can be matched, and I would fix it if unless you are planning to re-paint it any time soon.