Well, last time I posted one of these, my diesel was keyed

But now, as luck/fate/karma would have it, the car was hit, basically one foot below where it was keyed. Here's the story. This morning, my car, which is usually parked in my driveway, as such:



had to be moved, because I decided to permanently park the car in the garage. But in order to put the car in the garage, I needed/wanted to have a two-stage epoxy coating on the garage floor (think Rustoleum). In order to do that, I needed to smash and remove all the asbestos tile in there, then sand the floor karate kid style, so that I could prep it for the primer that goes on before the rustoleum garage floor coating.

I moved my car out of the driveway and parked it across the street, so that the car cover and the car wouldn't get covered in asbestos and tile glue residue as I sanded it down with my orbital polisher with sanding pad adapter. I had already removed the asbestos tile for three weekends prior to today, and today's goal was just to go rent a sander, and to sand the floor to bare concrete, and hopefully begin the de-greasing and concrete etching process. Well, I didn't get that far, I just sanded it down about 90% to bare floor, and was so tired and covered in dust, that I decided to call it a day after 8 hours of sanding, and go inside to watch the hockey game then to take a shower.

No sooner did I get inside and have a seat, than my next door neighbor, who is an MBA student instructor (he teaches the capstone course over at CSUN business school) and his sister from Massachussets, ring my doorbell. "I think I hit your car. Actually, the damage to my rental SUV's rear bumper is consistent with the damage on your car". I'm about to **** my pants, but my neighbor is a super cool guy and I don't want to mess up the relationship, so I try to keep my composure. His sister had rented the SUV and she "doesn't know how to drive it" (do women even know how to drive???), and she was backing out of the driveway when she hit my car.

Now that the initial anger has subsided, I honestly don't know whether to be thankful or to be pissed. The part of me which which values a flawless vintage Mercedes is very upset as I'm sure anyone here would be. But thinking about it from an insurance persepctive, I'm also thinking I could kill two birds with one stone. When my car got keyed last time on the left rear quarterpanel, this is the same panel on which the damage is, and the left rear fender arch also has some light rust on the back inner part of the arch. Maybe I can get a quote to have the left rear quarterpanel completely replaced with an OEM part from the dealership, and also replace the chrome impact strip molding, which was dented to begin with, but is now really toast.

Obviously I don't have pics of the damage yet, but what do you guys think about how much a decent body shop would charge for the labor for complete removal of rear left quarterpanel, replacement , welding, and painting? Is this going to be more work than it's worth? This car has only a little bit of sentimental value to me. It used to be parked at my dad's house (now deceased), and we did work on it together a little bit, but unlike my 190e which belonged to him, it doesn't have much sentimental value to me other than that link.

I bought the car at the junkyard as a salvage title car --it belonged to the daughter of the owner of the junkyard. I got it for $1,300, with 282K miles on the broken odometer. Since then I have repaired the odometer, put about $2,500 in parts into it (most labor done by myself, some more difficult stuff done by Jorge at Mr. MB motors) and driven it about 500 miles. It is overall a good+ car, with no body damage other than being keyed and dented, all functions working, a vacuum leak in the cabin which affects the door locks, and no mechanical issues that I discovered in my two+ years owning the car. Since owning the car I've probably driven it less than 500 miles, mostly I just went to my dad's house every other weekend to work on it, around the Rancho Palos Verdes penninsula as a victory drive. Since then it's been in my driveway as per the above picture. I definitely want to keep it, and not interested in selling it for the time being. But I don't know if I'm so attached to the car that I want to have this work done. Honestly, I trust no one to work on my car except Mr. MB motors, but he's not a body guy. There are plenty of really good body shops in the Los Angeles area, but I know myself, if I took the car to the body shop, I would completely empty out the trunk, removing everything but the gas tank so that they wouldn't touch anything they didn't need to. Heck, I'd probably remove the entire interior, especially the rear seats, left rear door panel, and everything around that area before taking it to the body shop. I'm probably paranoid, but I feel there's no one better qualified to take apart this car and put it back together than myself, so I'd just let them do what they specialized in, and I'd do what I specialize in. But I don't know if I want to do that. I might just 'cash out' and roll around with a dented fender, and maybe have a dent specialist come in and try to bang it out, hoping they don't chip any of the paint in the process.

I apologize for the long story. Tomorrow morning I will post pictures of the damage. Any comments or suggestions would be appreciated

-Sev

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Cool story, bro!

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All things are burning, know this and be released.

82 Benz 240 D, Kuan Yin
12 Ford Escape 4wd

You're four times

It's hard to

more likely to

concentrate on

have an accident

two things

when you're on

at the same time.

a cell phone.

www.kiva.org It's not like there's anything wrong with feeling good, is there?

thank you bro! here are the pics of my car after damage:








Not as bad in the morning as it was last night, but time heals all wounds

Whaddya guys think? Try to bang it out or it must be replaced and painted? Or keep the insurance money?

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That's a very difficult place to reach from the inside.

The best way would be to use those spot weld on and pull from the outside dent pullers.

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1992 W201 190E 1.8 171,000 km - Daily driver
1981 W123 300D ~ 100,000 miles / 160,000 km - project car stripped to the bone
1965 Land Rover Series 2a Station Wagon CIS recovery therapy!
1961 Volvo PV544 Bare metal rat rod-ish thing

I'm here to chat about cars and to help others - I'm not here "to always be right" like an internet warrior



Don't leave that there - I'll take it to bits!

Now you get to deal with the insurance company. They will not allow replacement of the quarter panel I believe.

I would simply get an estimate and see if the party involved just wants to pay immediatly under the table or process through insurance.

Sev, I would do exactly what you mention. Remove everything in that area and take it to a body shop. That doesn't look like it was too terrible that the whole quarter needs to be replaced, but you might as well have them try and hammer it out and fix the rust in the wheel arch while they are at it.

I know when I have my car painted I'm going to strip everything from the interior except the drivers seat. Plus that should save some labor

Yup, weld & pull. Have your neighbor pay for it-should be too bad "just" a couple hundred

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$60 OM617 Blank Exhaust Flanges
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No merc at the moment

That's not as bad as the story made it sound. I think it can be pulled and smoothed out.

yep looks like a blessing, have them quote it like it was just the neighbor damage then put your key and rust damage in out of pocket. they are painting anyway so youre going to get a great deal on your portion

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1982 300CD Turbo (Otis, "ups & downs") parts for sale
2003 TJ with Hemi (to go anywhere, quickly) sold
2001 Excursion Powerstroke (to go dependably)
1970 Mustang 428SCJ (to go fast)
1962 Corvette LS1 (to go in style)
2001 Schwinn Grape Krate 10spd (if all else fails)

well guys, i finally got around to going to the 'west side' (aka west hollywood) to the body shop of a guy my uncle knows. he's an official body shop affiliated with the costco group (never knew until yesterday that you could get car insurance through costco, but apparently it's good insurance and relatively cheap). here's the breakdown of the costs: $1,176 for labor, $137 parts, $219 additional costs, $1532 total.



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i was told that i'd have to drive the car back to the body shop when one of the adjusters goes there because they are going to want to take a look at the car. my guy knows all the adjusters, and he thinks i'm going to get the estimate amount.

i dunno. part of me says 'not bad' considering i paid about $1500 for the car including brake and light inspection, tax and registration on the day i bought it. another part of me can't help but look at this ding and focus on it every time i look at my car. i think in the end i'd rather have the un-dinged car than the $1532, but then again the cost of gas isn't getting any cheaper these days...

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barry. yes, the guy i spoke to said the damage isn't bad enough to replace the entire quarter panel. the qp costs $850 from the stealer (his cost). and he would not be willing to take my 'patch panel' (i.e. i go to the junkyard and cut out a panel of the quarter panel with a cutter and bring it to him to weld it). come to find out that diminishes the structural integrity of the car and it's a liability issue for him, because if i get into a crash with this patch panel welded in, and that is the cuase of my injury, he is liable.

he told me that to replace the entire quarter panel would be much more than the value of the car. allegedly, if you are welding a panel onto a car, then legally in california the body shop is required to remove all electrical components from the car (antenna, interior lights, speakers, dashboard, everything), so that the welding doesn't cause an electrical surge which blows out this equipment. he says i'm better off beating the dent out or weld and pulling it, and then treating the rust several times until i get to bare metal, and then primer and paint.

honestly, it's too much work for this car. this car's in nice shape overall, especially the strong engine and nice interior. the exterior was an 8 out of 10 before the ding, but this is no collector car to restore.

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