Bashed door repairs

[Talltree]

Hi folks , hopefully someone in the coachwork business can answer this.
My wife's 63 plate, 59k miles, immaculate Seat Ibiza was hit while it was parked at her work, the person that done it buggered off.
An adjacent shop has cctv which covers the wife's car, police are looking into it right now.
Anyway, we kinda had the option of it being a total loss, insurance said 'severe ' damage to door would be a total loss, but if she listed it as 'hard 'damage it would be classed as repairable.
Don't ask me why , or the ins and outs of it, I don't know, but that's what insurance said, so we told her
to list it as hard ' damage rather than ' severe' as the wife loves the car and does not want it written off.
I've been told by a garage owner that I know that it would be quite normal for any coachwork to repair the damaged door , to beat it out and apply filler.
Somehow I thought it would need a new door , at the end of the day there is no filler in the door just now, so why should there be after an insurance repair , let's face it, we pay enough for insurance.
Should the door be replaced?
Or is a repair satisfactory?
Your opinions please , preferably from folk in that line of work.
EDIT- a few folk saying it will be difficult to match the paint.......if we notice a colour difference would we be within our rights to reject it until its a perfect match ?
Thanks

Edited by Talltree on Monday 15th May 21:34

Edited by Talltree on Monday 15th May 21:38

Edited by Talltree on Monday 15th May 21:40

Edited by Talltree on Tuesday 16th May 07:14

[anonymous-user]

Most of that will pull out, just take it to a decent body shop, you’d be amazed at what they can do.

[sherman]

The paint match in that colour will be harder than the repair

[Ninja59]

Definitely not to be replaced, the paint has not even cracked. Window down and manipulated. I really doubt filler maybe required, then prep and paint.

Loads of cars get bodywork on the line post completion, arrival before they even reach a customer.

Why throw away a perfectly repairable panel?

[Geertsen]

I can’t imagine what they value the car at if they consider that a write off! I’m shocked.

[Geertsen]

...I’d call that repairable for £100s not £1,000s. No filler necessary. As has been mentioned above, the colour match will be the biggest issue and you’d probably see it’s been sprayed from certain angles and in certain light, unless Leonardo da Vinci is doing the spraying.

[Talltree]

Geertsen said:

I can’t imagine what they value the car at if they consider that a write off! I’m shocked.

That was over the phone without anyone actually assessing the car , she asked us what we'd describe the damage as , and if we said 'severe' door damage it would be a total-loss , i found that very strange myself.
it's going to be assessed tomorrow.

[Martin_Hx]

We had this done to our insiginia earlier this year, chap on a round about just pulled straight into the side of me.

Repair garage through insurance... new (2nd hand) door and spray down the side and good as new... hopefuly. It goes in to be fixed later this month

I did worry they would also write it off.

[paintman]

New door or a new doorskin might be more cost effective than hours of panel beating & filler work. Will have none of the possible issues of large areas of filler.

Insurance company will likely price as genuine part new door at full MRRP. They don't do second hand doors. Plus labour, materials etc, all at full price.
Quickly mounts up to the point that on a 10 year old car it becomes, as far as they are concerned, uneconomical & they write the car off.

If they do do that, then look at the option of keeping the car & using the payout to find a good used door & have it fitted & necessary paintwork done. Have done that a few times with our family cars.

The colour might be an issue. Insurance companies often only authorise the repaired panel to be repainted.
This can result in that panel being different to the rest of the side of the car - not necessarily noticeable in all lighting conditions, sometimes look fine in daylight but street lighting might show it up.
Need to be blended into the adjacent panels & if likely to be an issue the whole side fully resprayed. Whilst this will mean one side of your car might be different to the other you can't normally see both sides of your car at the same time & it may only come to light if you are unfortunate enough to need more bodywork in the future.
Come across this a few times over the years when both sides of a vehicle have needed minor paintwork.
If they do go ahead with an insurance repair if you're not happy with the end result then you would need to go back to your insurers & raise it with them.

[Talltree]

Thanks guys.
The car has now been assessed by the Insurance company's designated repair specialist, a big well regarded company.
The guy straight away said it will need a new door fitted , as the panel has hit the safety bar, he showed me where the line of the safety bar was, it's actually obvious when you see that it's stopped the panel being pushed further in.
He said no Insurance backed repairer would sort it any other way , once the panel has hit and probably distorted the safety bar inside the door , it needs a new door.
He said they'd blend the paintwork in to the adjacent panels too .
He said mid-July at the earliest.
I'd imagine this all has to go to the insurance company and they make the 'big decision', though he never implied that at all.