i recently bumped my car into a lotus elise after my handbrake cable failed (after bieng parked for 20 mins) but the car was not travelling very fast at all and only made a small scuff on front bumper and a tiny hairline crack in rear bumper,(hairline meaning barely visible even from 6 inches away) i know the guy who owns the car and said i would pay cash to sort out the marks.he then got a qoute from a garage where he said he wants the car to go and they said minimum of £600 as the crack cannot be repaired and the whole back end would need a re-spray! i want to get another quote but he does not want this. is he spinning me a line or can tiny hairline cracks not be fixed?

send a u2u to hugh paterson, fibreglass is what he does

i think the problem with the crack is the fibreglass is already broken, so if you try and repair, then vibration would crack it again

Sounds like he is trying it on a bit - any of the mobile dent/scratch people (shine is the one we use at work) would be able to do it for a lot less .

i honestly thought i had done £100 worth of damage at the very most its barely visible. but he did say that the fibreglass would keep on cracking if not done properly

He is talking tripe. I work with CF/GF everyday. I worked for Sunseeker for a while - whilst there, we 'updated' a yacht with the older style windows. This meant seemlessly cutting out the old and grafting in the new windows (the size of a patio door)! And beleive me, when you pay that much, it must be seemless!

The crack will need to be ground out from the gelcoat side, past where it ends. Then fill with gelcoat (+wax). Layup a bit of extra grp on the back of the repair to beef it up. Lots of wet n dry, then Farecla will have a mirror like finish in no time...

Have you got a photo?

I price bodywork as a profession, without images, and colour info it is difficult, but £600 does not buy you much quality bodywork these days. On a 'normal' tintop, you can allow £200+vat just to paint a standard panel like a wing, so the unitary front of an elise where there is no clearly defined place to 'stop' the paintwork is at least 3 panels worth. Sounds reasonable for a top quality job.

If it was your elise, would you go for the cheapest estimate?

i dont have a photo. the elise has a one piece clamm shell back and and he wants it all spraying so there is no visible patches.(which i can understand) but i know £600 is crazy! his son is in car body repair and recommended the garage as they specialise in fibre glass. he does not want it going anywhere else.i dont want to be ripped off so it looks like an insurance job!

Ouch, didn't realise it was paint and not gelcoat. In which case, yeah, you are kinda stuck. Gelcoat is easy to repair, paint is very difficult to blend seemlessly....

Newer elises have GRP that is 2mm thick, or is that 2mm thin. If they have gelcoat, it is the thickness of paint. I've seen them out of the mould, from a distance and the surface is fit for painting , shall we say. Good quality, but not a presentable coloured gel coat.

It is surprising how much good bodywork repairs cost these days.

Go through your insurance if you don't like the quote. He is quite right to want it doing properly and if you've admitted liability I can't see your problem.

i have no problem really. my main worry was that if his son has contacts at this garage then they could be pulling a fast one. the car has stone chips all over the front end and it looks like they will all get sorted at my expense! the last thing i want is for someone to do a crap job on his car, but dont want to be conned in any way

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Originally posted by daniel mason
i dont have a photo. the elise has a one piece clamm shell back and and he wants it all spraying so there is no visible patches.(which i can understand) but i know £600 is crazy! his son is in car body repair and recommended the garage as they specialise in fibre glass. he does not want it going anywhere else.i dont want to be ripped off so it looks like an insurance job!

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As it happens I know a bloke with a set of moulds to make front and rear clam shells for S1 Elise and Exige and a complete new front would be half the cost of OEM..

regardless of anything you have got to think the car did not have a crack before the bump, it wasn't his fault, if it was you 30k car would you want it filling? It cast me £150 to paint and fit a new bumper to my mondeo and i did all the work.

He is holding all the cards at the minute, if you go via your insurance it will cost way more in the long run

My tuppence worth!! the paint quote seems kinda cheap imho, doubt u are getting ripped off, the gelcoat is "minimal! and would need a good prep job to get a good colour match, not the kinda car u want to skimp on though not that i would want one anyway har har
Shugster

A bit cheeky but why dont you phone the garage and request a quote over the phone for a similar car (but not lotus) and get a rough idea of the cost.
If the cost is about the same, you know they are not pulling a fast one.

Bargain. Been there done that, those lotus clams are a bastard.