I’ve been a long-time lurker on this forum and recently had my M3 hit while it was parked leaving a softball-sized dent and very deep scratches above the rear drive-side wheel-base (pic below).
I had seen some posts on here about issues with autobody shops paint-matching, especially with the pearl tri-coat. After calling around to different shops and having them take a look at the damage I was given quotes ranging anywhere from $2-4,000 which seemed exorbitantly high for the level of damage.
Then after getting creative with my Google searches I found a shop in Burlington, Massachusetts called “Q Car Care” that specializes in Ceramic coating and other modifications for higher-end vehicles, and decided to give them a call. It turned out that the owner is a fellow M3 owner and took one look at the damage and said “no problem, I can have that back to you by tomorrow end of day.” When I asked how much he said “$500”.
I was very confused, how could they paint and repair a deep dent within a day for hundreds and not thousands of dollars?
Simple. They weren’t going to paint. At all. The bulk of the cost came from Q Car Care contracting out their dent removal partner, and the scratches were completely fixed by doing a marathon session of buffing the area around the damage to essentially redistribute the surrounding paint. This completely closed the deep scratches and made the damage virtually invisible to the naked eye.
He did mention that it may reduce the shine slightly to the affected areas, but suggested adding a layer of ceramic coating to the car which would add further protection to the paint on entire car but more importantly, completely remove any inconsistencies in the shine to the car.
All-in, the cost came to $1,500 which included the dent-removal, scratch repair, and ceramic coating (Silver Package/5 year) a far cry from the quotes offered by the regular body shops. And it was all done within 24 Hours. Pretty nuts.
If you happen to experience scratching to your Tesla, this method is definitely worth considering before going down the re-painting path. And if you’re in Massachusetts, definitely give Ben at Q Car Care a call, he was excellent and definitely worth supporting as a strong Tesla advocate.
I had seen some posts on here about issues with autobody shops paint-matching, especially with the pearl tri-coat. After calling around to different shops and having them take a look at the damage I was given quotes ranging anywhere from $2-4,000 which seemed exorbitantly high for the level of damage.
Then after getting creative with my Google searches I found a shop in Burlington, Massachusetts called “Q Car Care” that specializes in Ceramic coating and other modifications for higher-end vehicles, and decided to give them a call. It turned out that the owner is a fellow M3 owner and took one look at the damage and said “no problem, I can have that back to you by tomorrow end of day.” When I asked how much he said “$500”.
I was very confused, how could they paint and repair a deep dent within a day for hundreds and not thousands of dollars?
Simple. They weren’t going to paint. At all. The bulk of the cost came from Q Car Care contracting out their dent removal partner, and the scratches were completely fixed by doing a marathon session of buffing the area around the damage to essentially redistribute the surrounding paint. This completely closed the deep scratches and made the damage virtually invisible to the naked eye.
He did mention that it may reduce the shine slightly to the affected areas, but suggested adding a layer of ceramic coating to the car which would add further protection to the paint on entire car but more importantly, completely remove any inconsistencies in the shine to the car.
All-in, the cost came to $1,500 which included the dent-removal, scratch repair, and ceramic coating (Silver Package/5 year) a far cry from the quotes offered by the regular body shops. And it was all done within 24 Hours. Pretty nuts.
If you happen to experience scratching to your Tesla, this method is definitely worth considering before going down the re-painting path. And if you’re in Massachusetts, definitely give Ben at Q Car Care a call, he was excellent and definitely worth supporting as a strong Tesla advocate.
