Fed

Went out saturday night, took my girl out for a night of partying in Georgetown, after leaving the club, went to get a bite to eat, parked the S on M street (dumb move). Have some food, come out, turn the alarm off, and I hear the dreaded 3 chirps!!!!! First thing comes to mind, F*@#!!!
Do the walk around inspection, passenger's side door, 2 dings!!!! Some drunken bastard put 2 dings in my 3.5 month old car!!!!!!!
Since then, can't sleep, can't eat, and I'm depressed!!!!

Now comes the dilema. Took it in to Dent Wizards this morning, paintless dent removal, guy told me 350 dollars, maybe a little less. Should I pay out of my own pocket? Or go through the insurance? My deductible is $100 and I'm insured through Geico.

1st solution, I don't make that much, so it's kinda hard to shell out $350, but they can fit me in tomorrow.
2nd solution, Geico will take up to a week to take a look at my car, IMO, and give me a check, I run the risk of them increasing my insurance preminum (this would be my 2nd claim due to vandalism to a car of mine). Is it worth the risk, and the hassle, as well as the extra sleepless nights??

Whooopasss

Go for the insurance. That's what it is there for. But the thing is, they might ask you for a police report.

Luder94

Go to another Dent Wizards!!! How big are those dings? Are they creased, or just quarter and nickel sized dings. Where are the dents, exactly? Do they have to drill new holes to get to the dings?

They are raping you on the estimate!!!! I work closely with the Dent Wizards in my neighborhood and have gotten to see how Dent Wizards are organized and what their philosophies are; one of which is their pride in offering a cheap, quality service!!!

Depending on the door ding, each should be more at a tune to $50 to $100 (max). In fact, publish their phone number and city, state location here.

I want to inquire about them through my Dent Wizards.

Seriously, go to another Dent Wizards, get a quote on paper and then take it back to the first Dent Wizards. They are independantly owned but have a strict guideline to follow on how rates work....this is one of the reasons why they don't give franchises to body shop people.

Jeff

Fed, was this a reportable accident with a police report? You didn't catch who did it? Don't be concerned about your rates going up, that's not an issue. Insurers know that these things will happen It was out of your control correct? I'm with Allstate which is concered premium coverage insurance. I've reported several problems with house, vehicles, and boat. All in the same year. No increase of premiums at all. How old are you? Have you any major accidents this year where you have been cited? There's no risk involved. You can PM me if you want so as not to put it out on the net. Maybe I can answer your questions.

Sondra S2K

It sounds like the surface of the paint was broken to cost that much. I let a Dent Wizard-type place fix mine when this happened, and again another time when I had other damage to the surface of the paint in another spot. One time they did a nice job with the paint, the other time they totally screwed it up and never did get it right.

I wouldn't make a claim for it, since you'll probably want to save the insurance hike for a more sizeable claim (I wouldn't claim anything under $600 personally), but I'll check around to look into pricing at body shops as well as Dent Wizard if the paint IS broken. If it isn't broken, go for it. They've done a beautful job getting dings out of my cars, but at only $75 per panel!

elviscos

I too feel sick. I was so excited that my rubber bumpers were installed and ready for testing, part or Rick's Aeroscreen fix, that I forgot to raise the screen before lowering the top this morning and --SNAP, the screen cracked in half. Damn
I share your pain. Also used dent wizard for a ding with good result $125

S TWO K

Man.....that sucks! Sorry to hear about it......I have one ding, and everyone points it out ALL the time because otherwise the car is in perfect new shape.

A couple of weeks ago I parked right in front of Urban Outfitters, and although I had plenty of people looking and pointing, my car was never messed with.....lucky for me!

If it was me, I wouldn't call the insurance company. Good luck!

nova s2k

If you're ever thinking about not making a claim because you're worried about raising rates ... you should at least call your insurance company. I've been in similar situations a few times ... and my insurance company (USAA) has always done an excellent job of explaining to me what types of impact any claims I might make will have on my rate AFTER I tell thm what happened, but BEFORE they actually finalize the claim and send me a check.

Have fun,
Derek

Gregg

Fed-

I've been very happy with Courtland Mooney's work, based in Tysons, I believe.

Mobile Phone: 703-969-7786
Pager: 703-702-2765

He charged be ~$100/dent.

BTW--this is who Rosenthal uses.

Fed

OK, here is the update!!!

My baby is being worked on as we speak by the guys at Rockville Dent Wizards.
I ended up looking around to get an estimate, found out the first place I went to was Dent Masters, which quoted me 350. Went to Dent Wizards, they quoted me 129. Looked at the guy, and said, can you do it now??? So that is getting resolved, and I don't have a dilema any more. Maybe I'll be able to get some sleep tonight!!!!

I'm 24 years old, no tickets, no accidents, only had 1 claim in the 8 years I've been driving when my car was vandalized, live 5 miles from work, the car is garage kept, and I pay 170 a month to Geico. Unfortunately, they are the cheapest. I'm trying not to push my luck with them at least until I turn 25, and then can tell them to go to hell, and go with someone else.

Oh, by the way, the paint was not broken, and the ding was at the top part of the door panel on the curve as it heads towards the crease at the top of the door (if you can picture what I just explained!?!?). I'll let you guys know in a couple of hours how it went.