Repair or Replace Fender
 

My neighbor clipped my front fender with the running boards on his truck.

The body shop says they can either replace the fender, or repair the damage but will require some filler. If they replace it, I'll have one piece without the vin, If they repair, It'll have bondo and probably not be 'exact' match to the original. What would you do? VIN Tag and Bondo or fresh metal and no VIN? Either way I'm going to lose the clean carfax. I don't intend to sell the car anytime soon so I'm leaning toward fresh metal.

https://cimg3.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.s2k...c9f7f035c3.jpg

Most likely replace is your best bet here. Will probably cost less too. Front fenders bolt on so most of the labor is just prep and paint work. Rear quarters require seam boding removal, cutting, etc and if damage is small a shop may opt to repair vs replace there.

If you REALLY want to keep original panels with matching VINs, then I guess you could go the repair route. I hope they meant they would actually rework the metal and there would be MINIMAL body filler as a skim coat and they are not indicating simply filling it all in with body filler and painting... if the latter I would not let them touch it. Using quality body filler as a skim coat and sanding to level out very small surface issues is one thing. Filling a dent with it and painting is shade tree body person all the way and is not the way to repair a panel.

I think someone posted a source for replacement VIN tags in the past couple months. See if you can find the source.

-- Chuck