mx5cartalk.com

Hi all,

Some of you may be aware of a bit of a storm we had in perth. Long story short I now drive around in a little red golf ball. Luckily (to some extent at least), a vast majority of the damage was done to the boot, bonnet and roof with the side panels fairing reasonably well all things considered.

I want to start on the repairs and so far I see two options for going about this:

1. Replace the bonnet and boot with second hand items.
2. Repair/respray the bonnet and boot

Obviously either way I'll have to replace the roof.

I'll get pictures of the damage up shortly but consider the damage as 20 or so golf ball sized dents in the boot and 50 or so in the bonnet. Is it feasible to even consider repairing and respraying these or will I be better off just replacing the panels. Also does anyone know of a good wreckers/spares place in Perth WA that I could pick up a clubman boot/bonnet and are these items any different to regular mx-5 bonnets (I did a search and came up with an old thread referring to west coast imports who I'll be calling today).

Clubman boot & bonnet are the same as the standard NA8 - indeed you should find they're same as the NA6. Ref fixing hail damage - might be worth getting one of those dent removal specialists to have a look, but one of the WA forumites would be best placed to advise where.

I don't know any wreckers in Perth with MX-5 bits, if you find some please let me know.

Sorry to hear about your hail damage, seems like a good excuse head out to the track with the MX-5 club of W.A. www.mx5club.com.au and make good use of the aerodynamic advantage of your dimples.

Btw, in a rush yesterday, but also sorry to hear about the Clubman now having a golf ball like texture! 'Paintless dent removal' was what I was trying to think of when I first posted. Haven't tried it, but have read some good reports about it on here. My understanding was that it required access to the reverse side of the dent for best results, but have since read that's not always case to get a good result. Could be worth Googling 'Paintless dent removal' along with 'Perth', & when you find a reputable business get them to demonstrate it.

Aren't the NA6 and NA8 boot lids cosmetically different?

Bootlids should be the same. You're thinking about the beaver panel around the rear plate.

if you want to repair the car my bet is that it will cost quite a lot of money and if insured maybe a write off. The dentless panel repair as far as I am aware is limited in what can be done and it is used where traditional panel repair and repaint can be avoided. A recent post gave an indication of paint and repair cost per panel and it is not cheap. The way to check is simply to get some quotes.

Yeah Mr M I thought it was limited, but Keith gives it a good wrap:

Keith wrote:Hail damage isnt as bad as it looks, or as expensive to fix as the panelbeaters say, and the loss assessors think. Paintless dent repairers do whole hail damaged cars very reasonably. I once bought a hail damaged mx5 (insurance write-off) and got it fixed for under $500. It had over 100 hail dents- bonnet, boot, scuttle, door tops and quarter panels. He got them all out with 2 exceptions, and in 2 places on the bonnet there was very slight paint cracking. USED CAR DEALERS use these guys all the time. Forget panel beaters, they just dont want to know about paintless dent repairers as they are the competition and hugely undercut them.

viewtopic.php?f=73&t=39513

It cost me $300 to have a heap of dents removed from my NA6. Not hail damage but still there was lots to remove. I was thrilled with the result. You should definitely try a paintless dent removal before considering a respray. Just did a google search and there are dozens in Perth. Suggest you get on the phone asap for a quote. They'll be busy for a while!

I am surprised at the extent of dentless repairs. In the recent hail storm in Melb my daughter had 3 cars written off - one car to be replaced and the others paid out.So why do the insurance co's not use the dentless repair system? Certainly it is horses for courses in that small dents that can be pushed out from behind the panel is cheaper than traditional filling /. panel beating painting etc.I had some done on my car but it was small stuff. Worth getting the quotes to find out and let us know.

I guess it may be difficult to understand the extent of the damage to some of these cars and the sheer amount of cars damaged. Panel beaters, paintless dent removers etc. will be busy for at least the next 2 years.

Paintless dent repairs are very effective, but you need to watch that they don't leave damage on the inside of the panels, especially bootlids and bonnets where they use the framework to lever their spoons in. New MX-5 panels are not particularly expensive, and of course if you can find second hand ones in your colour you can save on painting. Dave is correct though, there will be a long waiting list for every repair shop in Perth. It may even be worth taking a road trip to Adelaide to bypass this. Is the car insured?