accident repair - use of filler okay?

[budgie smuggler]

Had some damage to my rear quarter panel.

Insurance appointed body shop phoned and said they would knock the dent out and smooth with filler. Is there any problem with this? (have to assume it'll be done to a good standard at this point)

Here's the damage for reference, as well as the visible damage on the pic, the whole panel is lifted about half and inch relative to the boot lid:


Just seems a bit shoddy to me. Also I thought those panels would be galvanised. The scratches are fairly deep into the metal, will it not mean that it's prone to corrosion in the future?

Sorry for the tedious subject matter, this fooking car is jinxed. Had it 6 months, damaged 6 times whilst parked up. Fat fking hippocrockopigs squeezing their fat arses past, smacking it with the metal corners on their burberry-innit bags or driving their stty 25 year old transit vans into it then not admitting liability

[budgie smuggler]

Thanks. No, they aren't approved as such, although they warranty the repair work corrosion free for 5 years. Not sure the manufacturer warranty is worth anything really.

I'm more concerned about the repair itself really; does the filler last well or will it cause problems 10 years down the line?

[budgie smuggler]

Squiggs said:

You shouldn't have any problem with the filler .. presuming they are going to do a bit of old fashioned panel beating and manage to get the bodywork more or less back to shape and the filler is applied as a final skim and not too deep. From then on as long as the panel is prepped correctly, filler applied correctly and then primed, painted and lacquered correctly it should be ok.
You would be surprised at the amount of jobs where skims of filler are used to finally flatten the damage - I've seen pictures of a new car (yet unsold) with a dented C pillar - the dent was pulled out as best as possible, skimmed, etc, etc, and then put back on the forecourt.

Great, cheers for that now taking bets on how long until another plonker parks their stmobile on it.

[budgie smuggler]

mrmr96 said:

If the damage was to a removable panel then they could remove and replace with new. (e.g. a wing, door, boot, bumper) however the damage on your car is to the main bodywork. That quarter panel will form pretty much the entire side of the car and there's no way to get it off that I know of. So it's not possible to replace the part and hence knocking it into approximate shape and smoothing over with filler will be the standard method of repair as there's no real alternative.

I guess they could cut a bit out and weld a new bit in, but the finish probably wouldn't be as good as what's been suggested.

Makes sense, cheers.