Porsche aluminium bonnet damage - saveable?
Porsche aluminium bonnet damage - saveable?
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Discussion

sshenton1975

Original Poster:

788 posts

239 months

Thursday 31st July
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Hi all

Porsche 997.1 - aluminium bonnet. Ive been an idiot - had car on trickle charge amd didnt re secure bonnet. Flew up on me at 20mph

Fortunately wings and roof are ok but corners of bonnet are damaged

Spoke to a bodyshop ive used before - they havent seen it yet but suggested that ally is very difficult to manipulate back to shape....

Views on this please?




Dont really want to go new bonnet - would like.to keep all original as whole car is mint

Repairable?

Master Of Puppets

3,726 posts

80 months

Friday 1st August
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Could have been much worse, be thankful it's only that, easily repairable but if you want it mint then it's going to need painted
by a good bodyshop.

M138

756 posts

9 months

Friday 1st August
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You might find a s/h one on something like eBay in the right colour especially if they’re the same as a Boxster of similar era.

Dog Biscuit

1,102 posts

15 months

Saturday 2nd August
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Easy enough to repair and repaint.

It will need repainting as any form of manipulation of the metail will likely cause the fractured paint to worsen/flake off

DaveF-SkinnysAutos

51 posts

2 months

Wednesday 6th August
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That’s an easy repair for a body shop. Aluminium is tougher to repair than steel, it doesn’t have the same ‘memory’ as steel, so doesn’t want to pop back into shape and tends to need careful heat to get it to move, but that’s an easy repair.
Your problem is that although the repair is easy, to get it back to a factory finish the entire bonnet would need to be resprayed, unless you could live with the fact that on close inspection the paintwork is cracked in that corner?

rodericb

8,235 posts

144 months

Tuesday 19th August
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Ouch. Aluminium in those areas is surprisingly soft. I've had my GR Yaris back from the dealer for service and found the left hand rear corner bent downwards about 4mm due to some idiot leaning on the car there or something. I just bent it back up.... But it didn't have a crease like yours, nor broken paint. You might have some luck with a PDR guy - getting those bits straight won't be too much trouble I reckon. Hopefully they can repair the cracked paint and save you having to get the whole panel painted. Obviously cost vs benefit of PDR vs trad body shop will come into play which you'll soon know if you get some estimates from both specialisations.

paintman

7,826 posts

208 months

Wednesday 20th August
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Decent bodyshop.

There are cracks visible in the paint in the pic you posted so after the metal has been reshaped it will need paint.
Likely small amounts of filler may be necessary.
Bonnets need the whole panel painted, trying to do small areas ends up with the edge of the new clearcoat usually being visible as a thin dull line. Once you've seen it it will bug you.