[Ram]

Dear friends:
Yesterday I was driving a Maruti 800 in rush hour Pune traffic.

A 25-ton 3-axle Ashok Leyland Taurus-2516 truck touched my car in the right-hand-side rear quarter panel below the rear quarter glass.

I felt the car being pushed, in a split-second guessed it was a truck and steered to the left pulling away from the truck, to contain the amount of damage done!

The projecting steel footstep above the truck’s bumper level gouged a deep 30 mm x 150 mm cut into the sheet metal, lacerating the rubber liner below the quarter glass.
See red color in the diagram.



I took the car to Millennium Maruti at Dapodi, Pune.
They told me, the only thing to do was to replace the dark-blue contoured panel.





This will mean buying a new entire (blue) sheet metal component (including A, B, C1 and C2 pillars), worth Rs. 6,700, cutting away and discarding the light blue sheetmetal, plus tinwork and painting, plus the rubber gasket around the rear quarter glass. A total damage of Rs. 9,000+.

Wow! Such a trivial accident in a Maruti 800. So much damage!

I thought, some sheet metal and some gas-torch work, followed by filing, sanding and painting would have done the job. Am I being taken for a ride by the dealer?

[Rudra Sen]

Find out the better workshops in Pune.
This whole job shouldn't cost you more than 4000/-. This includes tinkering and painting. I think, I'm slightly on the higher side though...

Maruti 800 has come down to Amby/Fiat level in terms of repair. Don't fall for this dealers' advice..

[adya33]

wow RAM thats a great detailed post
lemme guess you must be Engineer

as for damage,
if its a cut it most likely should be replaced
if you are fine by getting job done from outside (it will be cheaper) I will be happy to take you to my Mechanic

if interested PM me, I will give you his contact no

[nitrous]

This will mean buying a new entire (blue) sheet metal component (including A, B, C1 and C2 pillars), worth Rs. 6,700, cutting away and discarding the light blue sheetmetal, plus tinwork and painting, plus the rubber gasket around the rear quarter glass. A total damage of Rs. 9,000+.

Find a decent tinker, he'll bang it straight, apply patti, scrape it smooth and repain that part alone.Shouldn't cost over 3k for a maruti(Colour matters).
u might get an almost perfect job.

[hell_on_wheels]

Nitrous is right but he should have put the ALMOST in capitals...

[Ram]

Dear rudra-sen, adya33, nitrous, hell_on_wheels:

Thank you all for your advice.

Being somewhat strapped for time at present and nursing hopes of a near perfect repair job,
I entrusted the car to the Maruti dealer (Millennium Mobility, Pune) and ordered the punctured and ripped sheet metal, replaced.

As of this evening, they were to have readied the car for delivery.
Called them a short while ago. The word is that they've replaced the rear quarter panelling with new sheet-metal and the car is now in their paint booth. They've promised delivery tomorrow evening.

The car is a Moonbeam Silver Maruti 800 MPFI 12-valve with the 5-speed gearbox.
Let's see how it turns out.

Regards
Ram

[Ram]

Update: The reason the Maruti dealer now gives for the delay is as follows.

When Millennium-Mobility Maruti painted the quarter panel yesterday, their mixture of the color Moonbeam Silver would not match, the surrounding bodywork.

Frankly, I am somewhat shocked to hear they have to manually mix and match to achieve the colors required.

I was under the impression that Marutis came in some standard readymade colors, such as "California Gold", "Sapphire Blue", "Exotique Green", "Riviera Red", "Moonbeam Silver", etc. I thought standard paint cans and touch-up sprays would be available in these colors.

The dealer tells me that colors are always mixed to match the panel required.

Am I wrong to assume that standard pre-mixed colors are available?

What do you think?

[unBound]

Originally Posted by Ram

Update: Frankly, I am somewhat shocked to hear they have to manually mix and match to achieve the colors required.

Hi Ram,
Some time ago I was under the same impression as well, when I took my Getz to the ASC for tinkering and repair work after our coconut tree decided to bless it with a fresh coconut.

When asked about why they couldn't just apply standard factory paint (H2-Rare Earth, per their catalogue), the explanation given by the painting booth engineer was: Due to weathering, colours fade / age. So during repainting, they start with the closest matching factory shade and then modify it (by mixing) to match the shade to which the surrounding panels have aged to.

I see exactly what he meant now, when I see an Innova that parks closeby. On viewing from the side, the door panels are a distinctly different shade from the front and rear quarter panels of similar silver shade.

However, even after matching+repainting, one after effect is that the freshly painted portion will age differently from the surrounding areas and may show up a few years later. And I guess that's where Meguiar's or 3M and others show their value.

Hope this helps!

[Eddy]

Originally Posted by unBound

Hope this helps!

After more than a decade, I don't think so

Closing thread.