I have the oem rubber mats. they look ok, nothing special. They are designed to fit perfectly though, which means the carpet underneat has zero salt and sand on it after winter.. which is a plus. Your car didnt' look too bad.. I should take pictures of mine..Canada winter ftl..

 

yeah, I think I'll take it to another place tomorrow and inquire about the PDR.

1600 bucks for that is ridiculous, before I pay that I will remove the pannel and just bang it with a hammer. So right now.

However, should I find door, how much electrical is involved in replaceing the door?

 

None. Front door is a molex plug that plugs directly into the jamb. Theres a 10mm bolt holding it in though. You may have to swap door panels depending on interior color. Door panel info can be found in the stickies in the audio forum.

 

I completely agree.

 

spotted some coffee stains there lol. anyway nice max

 

Thanks Tom..

How ya doing?

 

Apparently, filling the cups up to the brim is not in tune with my driving style...


But those are gone now.

 

Rydicule,

The coffee is what adds to our spirited driving. I mean, we already like driving with flair, now add caffeine.

(Getting that second estimate today?), or are you gonna replace the doorpanel?

If you lived closer, I could help. Sorry I'm too far away.

Trish

 

Hey Trish, appreciate the sentiment. The estimate I got yesterday of 1600 bucks is to replace the door panel. It's outrageous, it's cheaper to replace the whole door.

The guy that I brought the car to is a perfectionist. He's actually much better for getting the car fixed on insurance dime, because he's expensive, although the best in the area for getting things done right. I don't think this is the kind of repair that I need that level of work done. I don't particularly care as much about the scratches, I can touch them up so they're hardly noticeable. I think the first thing to do is get a quote for a PDR, and then worry about the paint. If that doesn't work out, I'll start looking around for full doors. It would still probably cost far less to buy a full door and have it paint-matched than that repair...

 

Ok, I knew you had gotten an estimate yesterday, I just didn't know if you were still kicking around the idea of grabbing another.

They probably wouldn't vary much anyway huh?

Good luck with that door. I am bummed for you though that it happened at all.

 

I took my lunch break from work to go down to a couple of places nearby and get some estimates on a PDR, and a second estimate for full repair. The PDR place gave me two estimates:

1.) The guy said he could make the dent so it "doesn't jump out at you" like it does now for $150 PDR.

2.) To fix the dent back to 90%, $300-$400

He also sent me to a buddy of his at Premier Motorsports to get a quote for a full repair, which was much better than the previous quote. The guy there said he could do the job for $400-$600.

Now here is my stance, I want the door look like a normal door from a passerby, I don't care if it is imperfect upon close inspection. However, I don't want a hack job done, so if any of you have had a PDR done or seen PDR work before, I'd like your opinion as to what the best avenue to run with is.

Thanks...

 

That's a pretty decent estimate. I'd still try to find a junkyard door (preferably in the same color) for maybe $350 or so. That would be your best bet, otherwise $600 is a fair price for that kind of repair.

What I don't understand is why the PDR place gave you two estimates - is the cheaper one just a half-a$$ed job? Try another PDR place.

 

LSD FTW...


anyway ur car looks awesome. **** you live in farmington drive a town over and give me a hand! haha

 

I'd be happy to help out if you want a hand with some interior restoration

 

Actually, the guy at the PDR place knows my dad . I think what he was trying to say was that he could do 80% of the job for $150, but if I wanted, he could continue from there and spend lots of extra time doing little nit-picking things if I wanted, but the labor would be a lot more expensive.

I think the 300-400 dollar PDR is out of the question for me, because if I were to go that rout I might as well pay the extra 0-200 dollars for a full repair w/ paint. But I'm considering the $150 option, as it is the cheapest, and I'm not looking for mint condition here, just so that it isn't noticeable. I don't know, I have to think about it.

 

So basically its
$150 for a basic PDR - not sure how good it's going to be (assume it will be decent)
$350 for a new door - only as good as the condition of the door you get
$600 for a perfect job.

 

Those kind of door dents SUCK... Sorry about that. It happened to my wife on her Sienna. Took it to a place to get it to look descent. $325 and it was a hack job. So bad, that I only gave the guy half. TERRIBLE TERRIBLE JOB. JUST TERRIBLE. Just be wary of where you go.

and also., hardwire that radar detector... That wire looks horrible.

Great job otherwise. Kudos.

 

I did consider hardwiring the radar detector, but the only thing is I would lose the mute button, I'm currently trying to figure out a creative way to hide the wire and still maintain the mute button. Thanks for the heads up on the PDR job!

 

www.car-part.com

 

Rather than start a new thread, I figured I would just continue this one because this really is just part II of this thread. This time I did the whole exterior seeing as how the temps don't really seem to be getting below 40, I figured this was a good time to do the pre-spring detail. Here are the pics and process, enjoy!



BEFORE PICS:

 

I don't own any detailing machines like buffers or other things, so this is all going to be done by hand. Everything needed for the detail costs about a grand total of 80-100 dollars, and includes the following: Dish soap, Mothers Clay Bar kit, Meguiars Deep Crystal paint cleaner, Meguiars deep crystal car polish, Permaseal sealing/cleaning wax, Meguiars Gold Class Wax, Meguiars Plastix, Mothers Powerball, Meguiars deep gloss tire gel, 600,1500, and 2300 grit sand paper, and 12 terry towels. Optional things are Rainx and wheel cleaner. The only things I have not yet done are the wheels and wet sanding the headlights, which I will do this week.








First part of this process... wash the car with dish soap. This is to strip any remaining wax off the car, so I can begin to work with just the paint.




And this is after the first wash with the dish soap.




Once you've done this, there is really nothing left over the paint, so you need to smooth the paint out.


The claybar is just a peice of clay that you run over the car to remove contaminants from the paint.

 

The kit comes with the claybar, a spray lubricant for using it, and an after polish that I didn't use because I had my own preferred polish that I was going to use.




After using the claybar, you wash the car again because the lubricant, whether you use the one in the kit or your own mix of soap and water, leaves residue. Then you have to dry the car. After I did this, I had to move the car in the garage because it was getting warmer than predicted outside, and the remaining steps require a cool surface in the shade to work with. This is after the claybar, wash, and dry.







One thing I did notice after using the claybar and the subsequent wash, some oxidation was left over:

 

That means it's time for paint cleaner.





Meguiars Deep Crystal Paint Cleaner did well to remove all the oxidation, though I didn't take any after pictures of the hood alone, I assure you, there was not a trace of them left.





Once the paint is de-contaminated and cleaned, then it's time to polish those swirls away.





And After:




After the car is polished, then it's time for the cleaning wax.

 

I call it cleaning wax because they call it a sealing/cleaning wax at the car show where I bought it, but I really don't know what it means. All I knew is that there is zero wax on the car right now, and this stuff is a wax and a glaze, and I think two coats of wax after removing it all is necessary. So I used this stuff to shine it up before I moved on to my favorite stuff.





Once this is done, it's time to put on the final layer of protection. I love this stuff, in my opinon, nothing works better.




Puts a sweet shine on the car, though the glare makes hard to see.

 

Now that the paint is all taken car of, it's time to get the headlights. I foolishly didn't do the headlights first, and I didn't feel like taking them out, so I didn't do the wetsanding yet. I just used the plastix and powerball to clean them up a bit, though they are a bit scratched and pitted and will need the sanding next week.







After that, I threw on some high gloss tire gel to finish up the days work.

 

And the finished product, before/after:



BEFORE:



AFTER:

 

 

Good job.... looks like a brand new car!

 

Wow that cleaned up nice. It looks great! Dare I ask how long this 83 step process took? And what a feeling to know that you did it yourself eh?

 

I envy your crackless foglights....

Car looks good! I need to do that as soon as school's over with. My paint's getting pretty rough again. It's gonna love being clayed

 

All in all, this took about 6 hours. I took the day off work to do it. It's rewarding every time I go to drive somewhere and I walk out and look at it. Until God said "let the be pollen" and it gets that little green coating over it. But, it's just a good wash and right back to looking new.

 

I know, I was worried when I did the Lexus capsules because they came real close to the glass

but so far so good, knock on wood...

 

we have the same head unit.

 

How about that rain making it's way up to you? I cleaned mine this last week and it's raining now.

 

Well those should be the least of your worries...

Glass foglight + rock =

 

Wow man, my condolences. The sucks... I guess I'll have to be a bit more careful on those back roads... sheesh.

 

I know, right now the car looks like a mess because of the rain and pollen, I would take it to the quarter wash with a few towels if it wasn't going to rain tomorrow also . I'll wait for a stretch of nice weather before I wash it up again. Should be pretty nice down there now though!

 

sucks for your dent, but may i suggest a couple things? maybe someone has suggested as well, but i don't like to read comments too much =)

take off the steering wheel cover
get new floormats
hardwire your radar!! <<MUST!!!

 

Car looks good, gangster floormats.

 

Appreciate the suggestions. Since those first pictures I picked up OEM floormats, expensive, but I managed. I'm still working on the steering wheel cover, I explained earlier on why I have to have one. As for the radar detector, I'd love to hardwire it but I would lose the lower mute button that I always use on it. I'm currently working on some kind of scheme to hide the wire without hardwiring, not sure how to do it though.