OK so last year one of my rear tires blew at really low speed during the worst part of winter, and lost control on a slippery surface. Long story short, my driver's side fender is REALLY messed up. It's all bashed in and s**t, but it's still attached well and doesn't mess with tire/steerting, the hood is fine, the bumper is fine, the driver door is fine, but my mirror (power) was whacked right off . So the fender, that corner light next to headlight, and mirror took all of the damage.

So I got a set of metal Z3 style fenders from ebay, and they look like they fit perfectly when compared side-by-side to my current fenders. Question is:

How much should a body shop charge to install those 2 fenders, paint them to match factory color, replace that corner light, and install new power mirror? Just a ballpark figure. Remember, the fenders have to be painted to match my car's factory color.

Thanks guys.

i would guess about 750-900 bux, to get the job done properly. Just a guess.








http://www.j-body.org/forums/read.php?f=1&i=333805&t=333704#333805

Put the fender on yourself, and the corner light, hell you can even do the mirror yourself, they aren't hard, would cut your costs signifcantly.





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You're probably looking at around 7hrs worth of body shop labor and paint (maybe 0.3hrs to spray each of the inner edges, 2hrs to paint each fender, and at least 2 hours to R/R the fenders, and maybe .2 to put your new mirror on.) Now thats strictly labor, and at my shop thats $42/hr, not including costs of materials, so maybe tack on another $50 or so at least. Thats honestly a low-ball estimate if you were to good shop, but thats to give you an idea of how someone giving you an estimate will be looking at it.




-- John

i did my mirrors and my corner lights and im planning on doing my own fenders. if i can do it you can do it.

they are so easy mount them your self. just have them spray them and mount everything yourself. you will save so much money for other stuff

Wow! Everyone I've spoken to in the past says it's near impossible to do fenders yourself. So I've never even tried. I can definitely do mirrors myself as well then.

Anything special I need to know about fender install? Tricks? Tips?
How much to just have the fenders painted to match the car? Do that before or after install?

I had my replacement fenders painted to match my car for $250. Installing them is a piece of cake, but a little time consuming to get them to line up good. I spent about an hour on each fender when I replaced mine. And replacing the corner light and wiring up and installing the new mirror should be fairly easy to do. Otherwise, you could end up paying around $700 for a body shop to do all the work.

if your car came to me here is what i would do: install new fenders, r&i both doors
paint the front end and both doors, i don`t care how good someone is with color matching or someone using a color scanner to match the color it will never be like factory matched perfect blending is the only way to achieve color match

installing fenders is not hard but if you never did something like that it can be a hard time for ya first thing would remove the bumper remove the fender liners, rocker moldings headlights if i am not mistaken the hood hinges on your car are spot welded to the fenders so remove the hood then the fenders
i make it a habit to make hole bigger on aftermarket sheet metal why??? for the simple reason that aftermarket sheet metal never ever fits right
if you have accsess to a spoon dolly, you will need that to align the new metal to the doors
again it`s not hard but if you never did anything like this before you better off taking it to a shop


can i haz bondo

big daddy wrote:if your car came to me here is what i would do: install new fenders, r&i both doors
paint the front end and both doors, i don`t care how good someone is with color matching or someone using a color scanner to match the color it will never be like factory matched perfect blending is the only way to achieve color match

installing fenders is not hard but if you never did something like that it can be a hard time for ya first thing would remove the bumper remove the fender liners, rocker moldings headlights if i am not mistaken the hood hinges on your car are spot welded to the fenders so remove the hood then the fenders
i make it a habit to make hole bigger on aftermarket sheet metal why??? for the simple reason that aftermarket sheet metal never ever fits right
if you have accsess to a spoon dolly, you will need that to align the new metal to the doors
again it`s not hard but if you never did anything like this before you better off taking it to a shop

That all makes sense. Guess I never took the time to think through how much of a pain it would be overall. I'll go ahead and get some quotes from a few shops for the whole shabang to be done all at once. That's a hell of a price to pay, but the car's been like this for over a year since I keep blowing my money on performance parts, and it's bugged me the whole time.

One thing I did think about is, what if I just brought the car to my Chevy dealership, which has a body shop, and told em I just wanted one OEM painted fender, mirror, and light. Then just sell the Z3 fenders... I bet the dealership would charge out the ass big-time though...