Got hit yesterday.

Coming down a relatively slow street, some kid ran a stop intersecting it and clipped the right rear of my car. Car still runs fine, no exhaust damage, power antenna still even works, but the back is really smashed up none the less.

The problem I'm seeing is that the right rear is made of the same piece of metal as the roof and left rear etc etc... I'm not looking at a simple bolt on fix.

Does anyone know how much it would cost to fix my poor car? I've talked to some guys at work about it and they said I could take it somewhere that would cut the same piece out of a junker car, cut my damaged piece off, and weld/bondo the new piece on, paint and sand it. That or they would cut out the new piece, bang it back into shape (I don't see how), and weld/bondo it back on, sand it, and paint it. Sounds like more money than I'm going to get from this guy's insurance, so I don't know if this is going to work out or if it's time to sell my poor GS.

 

a pic would help. there is a body tool called a "stud gun" and it basically welds a rivit looking thing to the body and you use a special puller to pull the metal back out. if it isn't too bad, you can use it. if not, then you will have to cut another section from a donor car and it will have to be precicely cut and welded. look for shock tower damage as well.

 

FB's have a unibody, or monocoque, design which means that the rear fenders are joined in a fashion that forms the frame of the car. On the front fenders, it's obbvious that they're separate pieces that can be unbolted and replaced if damaged, but in the rear, the rear fenders are the same frame that forms the roofline and center channel.

In short, that piece cannot be easily replaced by ordering a new fender and bolting it onto the rear. As described above, the only way to get this done is professionally by a bodyshop that does full body/frame repair.

Unibody construction paved the way for lightweight cars that have superior structural rigidity compared to frame/body cars. This is one reason why the FB is build to be light and sporty for it's size without compromising strength and durability in a crash. HTH,

 

Take it to a body shop, the rear quater has 2 seperate pockets of space, so 3 layers of metal. Unless you dont really care about your car, then hack away.


John

 

i was hit in the quarter panel about a month and a half ago. so, i have a pretty good idea of whats going to happen. If you cant find any panels locally. what you will probably want to do is call up a place like mazmart, mazda recycling, or rx7heaven. (all these shops have webpages, search on google.) and have them ship you a used replacement panel. these shops have rust free cars in stock and will cut the panel of the car whatever way your bodyshop needs them too.

As far as the actual body work. its something you will definatly want a body shop to do for you. there's a lot of work in there to make everything look right again.