Bonnet Repair

[Waugh-terfall]

Evening all, I'm fuming right now, probably never been so angry in my life as the most expensive thing I own has been damaged, so I'm in need of a little bit of advice. Story goes... Being the Easter holidays, everyone is back from Uni so we all met up for a catch up sesh in a pub in town. When leaving, as designated driver I'm driving some friends home, pootling through the town centre carpark when another friend who was at the same pub, but not with us is walking to meet his Mum a little worse for wear. We stop and drop the window to say goodnight when he decides to jump backwards onto the bonnet of the car I spent all afternoon cleaning! He's a fairly large fella and has left a nice set of dents across a large section of the bonnet (popped the massive one back out when I got home), and some reasonably nasty scratches from popper-type things and his belt from his jeans all the way down the bonnet. The scratches are very noticeable under the lights in my garage and looks as if someone's gone over a section of the bonnet with a scouring pad!

What's the best way of sorting this mess out? I'm guessing an introduction to the twin ambassadors of pain for my friend, and then a hammer and some wood to the underside of the bonnet? I'm not sure what to do about the scratches though as they seem quite deep and cover a fairly large area...

[Robatr0n]

Drunk or not, he's not much of a friend if he jumps on your car. He's very fortunate that you didn't punch him in the mouth.

Get him to pay for the damage?

[bmw2002]

tell him heb is a and bash the reoair money out of him. or just give him a clump anywast? actually i might gibe yuo an oroper asnwer latere.
but still bash hum antway

[fiveoclockhero1]

Use the hammer and the wood to get the money out of the bloke with the fat arse, dont use them on the car, then take the car to a body repairer

Edited by fiveoclockhero1 on Friday 2nd April 07:38

[funwithrevs]

Bonnets are too flat to easily repair once dented, though if the dents aren't too bad you mioght be able to t-cut out the scratches.

Easier & cheaper to get a replacement from a scrappy if the damage is at all bad.

[Shabs]

effectively what funwithrevs said - forget trying to repair it yourself, either get a replacement and paint it or see if a smart repair can be done (i.e. professional dent removal + scratch removal). It will probably be painfully expensive on a student budget, I would get your "mate" to pay up

[jimmy306]

hey tom, sorry to hear that, that sucks man. (i have my own issues with warning lights coming on on my brand new (to me) alfa )

When i was at uni two of my flat mates put a diversion sign on the roof of my 306, when it blew off it left some nice gouges across half the roof!

[Waugh-terfall]

Yeah, I had a football land on the bonnet of my old car, left two nice dents, never got it back to normal. Most of the dents are out now, though if you walk up to it or look down onto it parts of it looks like a choppy sea scene, as for the scratches, I found some old wax stuff in a box in the garage and spent a good hour or so polishing these scratches and they seem to have come out fairly well, but if you look closely they're still visible, I think I'll get some T-Cut and give that a go and that hopefully should sort that. As far as the rest goes, got a sincere apology today and £30 in petrol (1/2 a tank) out of him.

Edited by Waugh-terfall on Saturday 3rd April 01:35

[Waugh-terfall]

Right so I've managed to sort the worst of it, but there is one little one on the ridge along the middle of the bonnet that I don't think I'll ever get out and a fairly big one on the passenger side that I'm struggling with as it's above a cross-beam, anyone got any ideas for popping that one out?