I have a decade old Honda Civic Hatchback, which is a super good car. (Naturally Honda discontinued it the year I bought
mine.) It’s probably good for another decade or five years. Also it still looks very nice.
Anyhow I scraped the rt rear wheel well against the garage door a couple of years ago, taking off the
paint in the crescent shaped part of fender directly above the wheel. I took it to a body shop
that repainted it, however the paint has come off, exposing the original scrape. Worse, the metal
is beginning to rust in places, perhaps due to our horrific winter.
Anybody know what to do about this? I’d like to fix this if I can, don’t want rust and ugly and…
Any ‘work on your own car’ fanatics out there?
Also can body shops fix this sort of thing?
The first one was a flop. The car-part itself is immense and, as the car has been discontinued
for ten years, I’m not sure what it would take to get a replacement, paint it, etc.
Somewhere near you should be an estimator shop for one of the major auto insurance companies.
They will have business cards for a few local shops that they trust.
I had a light blue Gold Duster. Loved it. Right before inspection time, my little brother would always do some kind of spakle thing to fill in the new holes. There was screening if the hole was big. He always wanted to sand things down to make everything smooth and then paint. I would ask if the car would still get inspected without sanding. He’d say yes. I’d say don’t bother. Do you know how much easier it is to find a distinct car in a parking lot?
Your car may have gone off the market a decade ago, but Honda sold huge number of civics before then. No part that’s capable of being salvaged by an auto wrecker is likely to be scarce. Open the yellow pages and start calling auto recyclers. From your description, I suspect that what you’re looking for is known as the quarter panel. See the pic below. Tell the scrapyard that you’re looking for the left (or right) quarter panel for a [your model year] civic, ideally in your car’s colour. Most will be able to tell you over the phone whether they have one.
I bought an old Buick that had rust spots in several places. I went to the Buick dealer and asked for a small can of touch-up paint to match the paint of the car. The dealer did this for no charge as a courtesy to Buick owners. I watched the man in the paint shop put the different colors together according to the formula for my car. My dad had an auto body shop for 40 years, and being in the paint room reminded me of working in my dad’s shop as a kid.
Any loose rust I scraped off with a stick, and with a small brush I painted over the old rust. I thought that it looked pretty good for a quick fix, and years later some of the areas that I painted still look ok. Other areas I had to do the same process again. I just gave the car to my 16 year old granddaughter, so now I don’t have to think about it any more.
I did buy a replacement car for me to putter around town. The 2003 Ford Focus was in mint condition when I bought it, no scratches anywhere on the surface. Yesterday I noticed four scratches where the paint has been removed on the left front bumper, which appears to be a scrape from a shopping cart. I soon will be at the Ford garage asking about some touch up paint again. Deja vu in the paint room.
The junk yards around here have some sort of communication system (maybe the internet but this system goes back to the days of CB radios, so I doubt it) that they can find the closest junk yard that has the part, if the part exists. The last time I went to a junk yard, it was to get a part for a somewhat new car. That was the problem, the car was so new, no one had totaled one yet and no junk yard had the available part.
There is a junkyard near my parents home that was not there when I was a child. My Dad took my wife there about 10 years ago. Behind the building, where the rows and rows of cars were lined up, was a sign that read, “No Children or Women Beyond This Point.” My wife was ready to rip the man’s head off and then shove it up his assistant’s @#$. I told her to ignore the sign and see what they said. They said nothing.
Thanks, it would be better to patch this up, especially as there isn’t yet a serious problem.
Also the part is huge and if the replacement isn’t the same color, we’re talking mucho dolores.
I had better talk to a body shop, see if I can find one reputable. Lots of em around here
are into ripping off on prices.
Heck yeah, you can sand off the rust. Do an internet search, there should be a website with video and instructions. Also, a body shop is going to be inclined to want to return this part of the car to pristine condition. Look around your neighborhood for some home where someone always seems to be working on their car. Especially a home with teenage boys. Teenage boys would be willing to fix the thing to serviceable rather than pristine and charge a whole lot less. If you time it right, you might be able to get your rust sanded and patched and painted the same time they are sanding and patching their car and it’s really no trouble to them at all.
We have a 1979 Chevy 1/2 ton. Terminal rust. Eight years ago Tom and Nate redid the body, but didn’t have access to a welding shop. So they sanded, bondo-ed, sanded some more, then took it down to base metal, painted undercoat, top coat (paint dealers can get the code from the VIN and match you exact shades) and clear coat on it.
It’s been parked outside every since, and now needs the clear coat redone. It really needs to have the under body pieces such as wheel wells redone, but Nate doesn’t have the place (or money) to do that. He still plans to one day, as well as drop a bigger engine into the thing so he can take it to the drag strip.
