What we fix

Plain names for plain things. If a dent doesn’t need paint, we’ll say so first. Every service runs through insurance from our office when there is a claim.

Most cars that come in need two or three of these at once rather than one. A car that has been rear-ended needs the bumper and its brackets, the panel behind them, structural measuring if the rails took any of the hit, refinishing on whatever was replaced, and — where the car carries radar or cameras behind the damaged panels — a sensor recalibration before it leaves. That is why the estimate is written after teardown instead of from the photos alone — the photos tell us what to expect, not what is there.

The split that matters most is whether the paint is intact. If it is, a dent can often be pulled without any refinishing at all, which is faster and keeps the factory finish on the panel. If the paint is broken, cracked or already lifting, the panel is going to be filled, primed and sprayed, and at that point the real work is the colour match and the blend into the panels beside it. Rust is the third category: it is wear rather than damage, no policy covers it, and the decision is about how many years the car has left.