Two nights ago I managed to dent the right
hand rear door of my MY00 DBM. The dent is
small (reckon I could push it out myself if
I could get to it), but the paint has
unfortunately cracked. Has anyone had this
happen to them and can they give me an idea
of what it cost to fix? Will the entire door
need resprayed or is there a touch up paint
available? Also does anyone know of a good
panelbeater in Edinburgh with the requisite
skills or should I just use the dealer?

Cheers

If the paint hadn`t been broken you would have got away with using dentmaster or the like, but you`ll need a paint repair so if you want to protect yourself from any problems when you come to sell it, use your dealer.
Not that there aren`t a great deal of excellent body shops who could probably do just as good if not better job, but there are a lot of pedantic *******s about.You`ll have a subaru dealer receipt to prove it was a minor paint repair.

Des,
I can tell you exactly as mine has just come back from bodyshop today after the missus scraped rear door coming into drive
they relived me of £400 plus vat!!

they had to remove all trim from rear door,front door,bumper and wheel arch liners! it was a wee bit more than a dent( a couple of gouges along door and dented door aperture) then it was sprayed from the rear door and blended into rear arch and half of front door!!
to put it into perspective they said it would cost £150 to sort a dent in the wing,although i have used dent devils on a previous impreza and the result was terrific
they rub down the area with V fine wet + dry so cracked paintwork isn't a problem,esp on base colours

regards
Dave

Hi Des,

Sorry to hear about your car. About 3 months ago, my dad decided it would be a good idea to reverse into my drivers door.

After speaking to the dealer (Fraser Anderson, Stirling), they recommended replacing the whole door; cost for the whole job - only £450!

Other estimates were close to £800, so it doesn't cost the earth to fix even the whole door. Given that mine was an insurance claim, it was in the dealers best interest to make a good profit from the job.

I've even had my bonnet and front bumper repaired after an experience with some motorway debris. These only cost £150.

Sorry, for going on, but I guess my point is that it shouldn't cost the earth to repair your door. If it's a small dent, then they only need to push it out and give the door a respray. If they charge any more than £100 - £150 then their taking the p**s. Guess it varies from one extreme to the other with certain dealers.

If your near Stirling, then ask Fraser Anderson to give you an estimate.

Stefan