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[triennial - points]
Visiting an out-of-town friend at her house last spring for her daughter's jr-hi graduation, we parked our minivan in a bad place in our friend's driveway where she couldn't see it till it was too late. She backed into it broadside, ramming her rear bumper into the lower-rear quadrant of our passenger-side sliding door.
The car is a 2005 model that we bought used (via eBay) in November 2004. It's got about 60,000 miles on it. We've hauled so much stuff inside when it's in stow & go mode that the interior has about double that mileage. In short, we decided to live with the dent instead of springing for body work.
Till today.
Driving home after a bunch of errands, we spied a white Honda Odyssey emblazoned Paintless Dent Repair, with a phone number. We called (cell phone). The lady said they'd come out & give an estimate. We said we'd call back when we were within 20 minutes of home. We did. They showed up at 2PM -- about 10 minutes after we pulled into our driveway.
After sizing up the bent place, they say they'll fix it "perfectly" for $590. The Chief Of Staff says perfection is not necessary -- major improvement will be good enough. Agreement is reached on $500 for the job, & the guy goes to work right there in our driveway. (As the sun shifs he moves the car to keep it in the shady area -- pretty smart.) I head out to the bank to get some cash.
By 6:15, the guy was done. His partner asked us to come out & look. She explained that original factory paint is so tough & durable that they just about always can do a perfect job. However, because the door had been repaired & repainted earlier (before we got it -- which I had forgotten till just then) she said their driveway "paintless" repair job had created some tiny cracks in the body-shop paint & the prior repair made it impossible to smooth out the dented area as well as they would have been able to do otherwise. She pointed out the tiny cracks, but I couldn't see any. Neither could The Chief Of Staff. In any case, because of that limitation on how well they could smooth out our dent paintlessly, they reduced their price after the fact from $500 to $450.
When we called these folks, it was spur of the moment & shot in the dark -- we just happened to see their number on their van. They showed up promptly. They gave a reasonable estimate. They did the work the same day. They did a good job -- better than expected. Their actual charge was $50 below their estimate. By looking at the car, I can't tell it was ever dented. Who'd a-thunk ?
The car is a 2005 model that we bought used (via eBay) in November 2004. It's got about 60,000 miles on it. We've hauled so much stuff inside when it's in stow & go mode that the interior has about double that mileage. In short, we decided to live with the dent instead of springing for body work.
Till today.
Driving home after a bunch of errands, we spied a white Honda Odyssey emblazoned Paintless Dent Repair, with a phone number. We called (cell phone). The lady said they'd come out & give an estimate. We said we'd call back when we were within 20 minutes of home. We did. They showed up at 2PM -- about 10 minutes after we pulled into our driveway.
After sizing up the bent place, they say they'll fix it "perfectly" for $590. The Chief Of Staff says perfection is not necessary -- major improvement will be good enough. Agreement is reached on $500 for the job, & the guy goes to work right there in our driveway. (As the sun shifs he moves the car to keep it in the shady area -- pretty smart.) I head out to the bank to get some cash.
By 6:15, the guy was done. His partner asked us to come out & look. She explained that original factory paint is so tough & durable that they just about always can do a perfect job. However, because the door had been repaired & repainted earlier (before we got it -- which I had forgotten till just then) she said their driveway "paintless" repair job had created some tiny cracks in the body-shop paint & the prior repair made it impossible to smooth out the dented area as well as they would have been able to do otherwise. She pointed out the tiny cracks, but I couldn't see any. Neither could The Chief Of Staff. In any case, because of that limitation on how well they could smooth out our dent paintlessly, they reduced their price after the fact from $500 to $450.
When we called these folks, it was spur of the moment & shot in the dark -- we just happened to see their number on their van. They showed up promptly. They gave a reasonable estimate. They did the work the same day. They did a good job -- better than expected. Their actual charge was $50 below their estimate. By looking at the car, I can't tell it was ever dented. Who'd a-thunk ?
-- Alan Cole, McLean (Fairfax County), Virginia, USA.
