Cost of a Repainted Hood or Bonnet

[CheresX]

Hello!

My 5 series's front bumper has been damaged and has to be repaired. I've never had any auto body work done before and was hoping to get some advice.

The appearance of the bonnet is the most important thing to me. No mismatched colors or sun-fadeaway paint as someone at my office experienced after having her vehicle doors resprayed (wtf).

A body shop in Bristol charged me £750, and they said it may cost up to £1500 to color match and integrate the wings.
When I told the guy at the Hereford body shop that the estimate was inexpensive and asked whether the car would end up looking the same, save the scratches, he indicated it would.

If it costs £1500, I'm willing to pay it. I haven't checked the price of a new authentic bonnet, but if it's above £1500 I may as well simply get a replacement.

Do you believe that £400 is too low and will lead to subpar work? The Hereford repair business was reputable and well rated, whereas the Bristol repair shop said that £400 wouldn't even cover the cost of materials. Since then, I've had serious doubts about the honesty of the proposed £400 worth of work.

Thanks a lot!

[Mistral]

Hello!

My 5 series's front bumper has been damaged and has to be repaired. I've never had any auto body work done before and was hoping to get some advice.

The appearance of the bonnet is the most important thing to me. No mismatched colors or sun-fadeaway paint as someone at my office experienced after having her vehicle doors resprayed (wtf).

A body shop in Bristol charged me £750, and they said it may cost up to £1500 to color match and integrate the wings.
When I told the guy at the Hereford body shop that the estimate was inexpensive and asked whether the car would end up looking the same, save the scratches, he indicated it would.
In my opinion, it's best to go with the factory finish (even if it's not perfect; I'll settle with 987.4% ;)). - If it's simply paint and not a dent, I'd fill them with a touch up pen (several layers), flatten, wet sand, then polish back to shine.

A fresh coat of paint may appear great for a year or two, but I've found that it's easy to recognize a painted panel.

[VWDaveBMW]

Due to several negative encounters with body shops that promised the moon but failed to achieve the desired result, I find myself siding with Forsh here.
You can only obtain a "insurance approved" bodyshop to undertake the repair if you insist on a "original" finish, and if they don't do it right the first time, you may send it back to them until they do.
The inspectors employed by insurance companies are notoriously picky when it comes to approving repairs, repainting, and the like.

Being an engineer over the last half-century.

[Rashman4u]

If you could find a similar bonnet from a junkyard, you might save a lot of money.

[CheresX]

I ended up spending £540 at Brin Jones' Bristol Garage. Outstanding work overall; it holds up well after a year (as one would expect).

[Allan8932]

The average price per panel is £250.

Since older paint is more likely to have faded and been impacted by UV rays, it will be almost difficult to match fresh paint to old.

In order to make the freshly resprayed bonnet match in with the rest of the car, most body shops will extend the sprayed area to the wings and feather it out. The end effect will be invisible to the human eye. However, you may find that the overpainting accentuates any orange-peel look already present on the front wings.

[developer]

Things must have progressed by now, right?
It's not exactly cutting-edge science to have a color spectrometer read the color and then suggest a blend for blending.