Quote:
Originally Posted by BK911
Talked to the body shop.
They will remove the bed, drill out the spot welds, and plug weld in the entire panel.
Should (hopefully) look factory when done.
The truck has running boards. He hit that first, and kept on going.
Musta been cruising.
They have been professional so far.
Gave me a used truck off the lot until mine is fixed.
Going to fix some minor scratches on the other side of the bed from one of my off road excursions.
Also said they will hook me up with some accessory.
Not sure how much they have in mind, but I found a cool under seat storage box for $400.
No, didnt really freak out.
Trying the honey approach first!
|
I think that I'd rather have the original panel repaired by someone who knew what they were doing than replaced. The damage shown could be popped-out close to 100%, once again by someone good. A true metal man. The ascendancy of PDR has revived actual metal workers as opposed to bondo artists. I don't think that most body shops appreciate these people, #1 because they could ear into a significant part of their business and also because the work takes time and they'd rather do the quicker, more profitable job of replacing or filling damaged panels.
Don't get me wrong, there are times when panel replacement is the only solution but this isn't one of them. And replacement of factory spot welded panels is never going to be completely correct or undetectable because the body shop welds are not made by a million dollar robot that the factory uses when they build the truck.
Hope this link works, just to give you an idea of what a real metal man does:
https://youtu.be/cY4TZkNfKLk