Recently I had an accident and had the car towed to a 1st party Toyota body shop.

Aside from the exterior damage, the frame has been impacted as I had a brace in the engine bay which was mounted on the strut tower and supports the master cylinder right at its center, but has now shifted 1-2mm away from that point.

Toyota says it can be fixed, but I'm anal about the alignment. I had put a lot of effort into getting the entire setup the way I liked it till the incident happened.

Would anybody give some insights on how the frame repair is done? How would they know if it is back to factory specs? What is considered good enough and how would I be able to ensure it is done right before they start installing parts?

Many say the car won't drive as it used to, and indeed I had another car previously which rode up a steep sidewalk and it never felt the same even after pulling.

Would certainly appreciate any detailed answers. I'm not from the US hence some assumptions will probably not apply, but would appreciate any insights nonetheless. Thanks

We were going straight and got hit by a left-turning car. The car is with a towing company and the insurance process will start next week. My question is how likely that the car will be totaled based on this visual examination… it’s pretty bad to me… anybody has an estimated range? It’s a Tesla Model 3. The accident happened in Triangle Area in North Carolina.

!I hit a side garage wall while reversing from garage and caused a damage to my driver side fender. It looks like, if I can get the black panel (that's what it's called, I guess), I can fix it by myself. Is it this - https://www.hondapartsnow.com/genuine/honda\~w\~panel\~l\~fr\~fender\~60260-3a0-a00zz.html? !<

I am getting mixed opinions on whether or not this repair would need to be blended or if an acceptable colour match could be achieved from matching it to chips of variants or "scanning" the truck.

I was wondering about attempting this repair myself but have never done a blend and⁰ get sketched out when I think about how big the repair gets and spraying on existing panels

I have painted 2 full vehicles before, cut , buffed I have all that experience/equipment ect covered and would feel confident painting a panel at a time with good results

In a perfect world I can paint the parts ahead of time and swap them over on a weekend without Blending if I can get a close enough comour match

This is a 2019 with 100k miles, it's paid off, I get paid 800/mo for it to use it as a work truck and intend to do that until the literal demise of this truck while I save the cash. Needs to be a solid 7/10

https://preview.redd.it/1oipxaz6ozzd1.jpg?width=3000&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=2ddd6394be79fef79bb2ebb28682b8ba5798565a

Looking at this Honda with only 65km. Car is sound mechanically but has this rust underneath. We’re in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. Should I still be looking at purchasing this car?

I’ve never seen paint come off like this before. I’m planning to re-paint the car eventually, I’m just wondering where to start with evening this part out.

Bought this door at pick and pull and they used some sort of marker on the door. How to safely remove it without ruining the paint?

Sorry for the dirt, I need to head to a car wash soon 😃

Want to get this repaired how much am I looking at ?

I have a small spot of surface rust in my trunk about the size of a pea. I plan to dremel wire brush sand the spot which will leave a bare metal area the size of a dime, then use my paint pen to fill it in. It’s not a visible area so I don’t care how it looks.

Should I use an automotive paint spray primer first? Would it be better to just buy a can of metal spray paint over top of that as well rather than use the paint pen? I literally do not care how it looks I just want to do it in a way that seals it properly. Thanks

1. Their colorbuild primers aren’t thick enough and do not build very much but in tern they dry fast like in 10 minutes with the ir lamps at 140 degrees . The high build primer 3:1 has nice build but takes forever to dry and is hard to sand.
2. The colorbuild sealer is way too thick and does not lay down very smooth also it likes to dry very quick on your edges . In order to get it to lay down nice you have to add at least 10 percent flex additive in it with a splash more reducer say 10 percent more than the scale tells you . But doing this causes it to take 20 or so minutes before putting your base on sometimes longer . The recommended din4 settings on the sealer does not look that great.
3. The base-coat is fair and covers quite well for solvent taking 2 and a half coats on most colors but sometimes takes 3 and a half on some like 3r3 or psc . However in order to get the best blends you have to use the slowest reducers sikkens offers . 85 degrees you will be using slow , 90 plus extra slow otherwise everything is gritty as hell at the edges of your blends . This makes the paint take FOREVER to dry . High pearl content colors take twice as long even though I keep everything the same from solids, metallics, to pearls at a particular number on the din4 and I find I have to ramp the heat up to 100 degrees f for at least 20 minutes before I clear coat .
4. The blending additive mixed with your base to cut the strength of your color drys way too fast . It is ready to spray and once you dump that stuff in your paint to reduce the strength you basically just converted a slow or extra slow reducer into a medium reducer making it easy to get crusty blend edges if you aren’t aware . You can use the transparent toner but it is much more expensive to do it that way as opposed to blender so add some extra slow reducer in the cocktail to make it actually usable .
5. The clears , the lack of variety of clear coats Sikkens offers is lackluster at best . You basically only have a few options . You can go down the lv clear rout but when you apply it does not land like a regular clear they do not flow very well at all and they suck to sand for polishing but they do offer good gloss . Then you have the pc clears which are kinda like the hs plus clear but dry faster than it but will not lay down as good as the hs plus clear . Then you have their xpress clear a 1 and a half back to back application and it is okay it’s the only clear they have that offers a reducer and it serves its purpose for little jobs but if you aren’t careful and apply it right or you bake it too hot you will be redoing your jobs with that stuff . Then we have the hs plus who’s is the better of the clear coats though it does stay soft after baking longer than their other clears . The superior250 clear is kinda in the same realm as the hs plus but it is harder to polish . And that is basically it on the clear selection . There is no clear coats for different finishes , no thinner clears , no uhs clears , no clears that come with reducers besides the xpress. So you basically get left with finishes that all look the same and identical . The thicker European looking peels . I’ve tried everything with these clears , heating them up , putting reducer in them (do not do this haha) cooling them down , spraying them through 8 different guns . The results are all the same . The best gun I’ve used so far to bust these clears up is the iwata series 2 ws400. The satas just have a thicker and meatier look to the clear coats .
6. The color match , Jesus Christ the color match . I find this systems camera good but it isn’t great . Just good . You’re normal Metallic silvers , grays , blues , reds are usually good readings. White on the other hand is a different story . Everything that camera will tell you is a lie . It will give you the correct color , except it has WAYYY too much white added . You must must must take out at least 20 to 30 percent of the white sometimes more to get the color to properly match . Mixing it unreduced the reducing the color off the scale is the way to go because if you don’t when you reference your card if you selected the option to reduce the color 1 your coverage will suffer , 2 when you type your mix number the computer will change the values of the toners making your spray-out card useless . Also would like to mention , on color match this paint system the color match relies on that under shade of sealer to match correctly . I spray my colors over multiple gray shades when doing sprayout cards and it does make a massive difference in your colors . Also in regards to metallics , some colors will look fucking great on your sprayout card but have a severe milky look to them once on the bumper . If you get that you need to remove metallics out of the color not the 190 like you would think .

Overall I think the paint system is a 5/10 . I’ve never had a comeback using this paint , color match is fair but not excellent , but at the same time it is just slower is better in this system and there is not really many things you can do to make it not have that Sikkens look to it . I’m looking forward to switching to a waterborne system we are setup for water just spray solvent . God I hope we switch to second gen water im so sick of Sikkens autobase