It's much better to replace an entire flairside panel in one piece if it is badly damaged. Patching areas and counting on fillers to mask the repairs, will not often result in a long term effort. It all depends on the amount of area that is damaged. Many trucks in our area rust behind the wheel wells and cab corners. Body shops routinely glue in new panels all the time. This usually involves the bottom foot or so of the original body work. This is not a four week repair. Your job has been set aside while they have been doing other repairs. An entire fender can be removed and replaced in a morning, a patch panel in a couple of hours. It takes additional time to fair the patches and paint the new products; another couple of hours. "bondo" is necessary to properly fair a new repair to the original bodywork. The quality of the repair is measured in how little is necessary to properly finish the mend. Poor craftmanship results in heavy thicknesses, whilst in a good repair, most is sanded away. Proper priming and finishing of both sides of the repair is necessary for longevity. If the repair looks good from the outside, and has not been surfaced in the wheel well area, your repair will be short lived. Any body shop can make a repair look good when it goes out the door. The true test is how well the repair is holding up after experiencing some winters. |