How much to paint this?

Having car starting issues so I called a tow to get the car to the shop. Tow guy put this magnetic emergency brake light on the rear of my car, right below the rear window and above the third brake light. I said hey should we put a cloth or towel so that it doesnt scratch at my paint? He goes no it won't damage your paint at all, I do this to all the cars I tow. Bam when we get to the shop and he takes it off, the magnetic circles that were attached to my rear third panel brake light, right below the rear window, completely chipped up the paint. Not even scratched, it dug into the paint and tore it up. And to top it off the guy gave me a hard time about me not trying to pay full price for his service. Like really the thing I told you we should make sure doesnt damage my paint damaged my paint. And you ran your finger across the chips and know how deep they are. How much do you think it is to paint this panel? And what is this panel called. I tried looking for the part online but cannot seem to find it. I wonder how much a new one is. This is not my car, but this is the exact panel I am referring to where the 3rd brake light is mounted right below the rear window.

if its just that panel, should be @ $250 ish

Yeah that is in a the ballpark. It depends if you have the rear wiper like the picture shows. To do it correctly you are looking at an hour or so repair, remove/install your 3rd brake light and wiper, and probably 1.5 hours to refinish. I can look in my estimating software tomorrow if you want.

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Yes I would really appreciate that! Cannot believe I paid for that tow.

Ok I will get back to you tomorrow. Might want to follow up with the tow company as a lot of times they can file a fleet claim with their insurance.

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If I were you next time only allow a flat bed tow truck to be used and make sure you have the bumper hook to use and pull the car up on the bed. that way no hook is grabbing your suspension and yanking on it, and no lights need to be put on the car.

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First off, that sucks I really do hate it when you call someone out they ignore you then what you warned them about happens! +996 on only ever using a flatbed Anyway that panel is called "Rear center panel" $113.10 from Autoatlanta but its welded into place so you're better off having it repaired. I'd make some sort of claim with the tow company if possible. Number 13 on this diagram:

Unless this guy was a real fly-by-night he should have insurance that will pay to have it fixed. Take it to a reputable body shop that YOU choose. Shouldn't cost you anything under these circumstances. +996 on using flatbed in the future. I've always insisted and AAA never questions it.

IIRC, Flatbed is also factory recommended in the manual

Get the tow truck company pay for it. Have you reported it to them yet? Matching metallic silver is not easy.

FLATBED! Anytime I call for a tow whether for my C4S or my old 300ZX the tow company asks what type of car, year and color. They then send a certain guy with a flatbed who has experience in towing what they call "special" cars. He is very careful and seems understand car obsessives like me. I know I live in small town midwest but one would think CA. would have much more experiences with "special" cars. Tow hook for Pcar is a must! Make them pay for repairs.

Hey guys thanks for the responses. I wasn't aware I could make a claim against them/him. Do you guys know how I could start that? the only reason I had used the service was because I called my indie porsche shop, they recommended a different company, and when I called and told them my car was located in an indoor garage with certain clearance, they referred me to this guy. All input would be very appreciated. Is it as simple as calling him to let him know i would like to make a claim against him to fix the damages done to my car?

Yes, first step is to do just that and see what happens.

So this is without the rear wiper. If you have a rear wiper add $25-$40. And as mentioned before, welded on part so 4.5 hours to R/I so it will be painted on the car. Things can also be added if they are going to blend the paint into the surrounding panels or if they will need to mask the back glass, or polish and denib after. So just keep that in mind.

4.5hrs to repaint that panel?!?!?! Does paint drying included in the 4.5? You go to be joking, that's not more than 1.5 hrs at most.

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Not sure where you are looking but the paint is not 4.5 hours. R/I (remove/install) is 4.5 because it is a welded piece....Refinish is an hour.

youll get different estimates at different shops, get 3. its a good job though, small panel, you can do the whole panel, you dont have to do the whole side, etc

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I don't know about you Hawk, but don't you think this car needs to shipped back to Germany, have the paint stripped down to the metal, and fully repainted with factory Arctic Silver? "Anything less than the best is a felony!" Quote: Vanilla Ice

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Why would you want to suggest to remove that panel? It's a minor scratch, no dent, that can be just touched up to look like nothing happened. Doesn't even need a respray, just a proper touch up with wetsand and polish. This is an extremely minor job.

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Boo! You arent supposed to tell everyone where your quote came from! And to address lmo000, I was never insinuating the need to R/I the panel. No shop would do that. I will disagree with the comment about just needing touch up paint and a good polish. That sounds like the Maaco way of doing things lol.

You dont touch up 92U, that comes from 28 years experience painting porsches for the local dealership.

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Well on a good note I just picked my car up from my indie shop. Fuel pump was replaced. My symptoms were slow cranking when the car was already driven throughout the day, almost to the point it sometimes sounded like it wouldn't fire up. When I went to the car in the morning, the crank would be pretty fast and strong to fire up. Finally the car didn't start up at all so I had to tow it to the shop. (Bought a new battery thinking it was that at first face-palm). Heres pricing incase anyone was curious. Fuel pump = 397.34 and seal = 12.34 totaling to 409.68 for the part. Labor was 1.9 hrs @95.00/hr totaling 180.50. All together with tax and debit card processing fees it was $643.74

I'm going to call the tow guy tomorrow to discuss with him that I'd like to have his insurance be responsible for fixing the damage he caused to my car. When you run a service like that where you are handling other peoples vehicles, you have to be ready to take responsibility if you cause any damage. But judging by the way he acted after realizing he messed my car up (he offered to have one of his buddies do a detail and color sanding job on it LOL), I don't think he's going to do the right thing. I really feel like he's going to deny it and not give me his insurance information so I can go forward with a claim. If this is the case and he refuses to work with me, what should I do? Please point me in the right direction. The things I have on my side is camera footage at the indie shop my car got towed to, the owner said he's okay to let me use the footage and also be a witness. He was aware of what happened because as soon as I saw my car got chipped up I brought him over to see what he thought. I also have camera footage from my apartment garage when he was loading the car up on the tow and literally footage of him putting that magnetic light on my car. I didn't take pictures of my car towed, but I have pictures directly from his yelp page of several cars he's towed where he's put that magnetic emergency brake light on that caused damage to my car. My car was also in a very minor love tap accident where I got my rear bumper replaced and I picked up my car from a porsche certified collision center on 2/17. So they have a bunch of pictures of my car at every angle before they started to work on the car and also right after with the finished product. With all these things, he'd be smart to just cooperate I'm thinking?

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Why not?

It's rather simple what you need to do if he refuses to hand over the insurance information. You call the police and report what happened. It would fall under the hit-and run category. He damaged your car and refused to hand over the necessary information. The police should then call him and give him one last chance to surrender the necessary information or else they will have to charge him. This happened to me before and worked. Nothing puts the fear of law into someone that a call from the police. Let them handle it, they know what to do. This incident happened on a highway/road/street right-of-way so fall under the police's jurisdiction. Even if it wasn't, you have an independent witness to verify your story.

spoke on the phone with him. He was very unwilling to work with me. He said I was being annoying and a headache to deal with. He also said he could just tell me to f*ck off but hes being cool with me. I gave him options to either work with me out of pocket or through his insurance. He claimed he didn't have insurance. So I said okay I will go get 3 different estimates and we can go from there. To which he said he will only give me $100. He has a boy whose shop I can go to to get it painted and fixed. I said that's not going to work, if you aren't willing to cover a proper repair than I need your insurance information to go through insurance. Still claims he doesn't have insurance and he would beat my ***. I recorded this whole conversation lol. What should I do now? File a police report?

Called the police, they said there is nothing they can do. This is considered a civil dispute. SMH I really don't know what to do. I did nothing wrong, got my car damaged, the tow guy is not trying to accept responsibility, refuses to give me his car insurance. So I have nothing to work with. I created a claim with my insurance, and I guess they are going to try go after him to get his information. But what if he just dodges their calls or doesn't give up his information? Man I'm just really bummed about this whole situation. I feel like there's nothing I can do to get this resolved

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Looks like your only option is to take him to small claims court.

trash him on Yelp and social media File a report with the BBB if fail, take hostages

Take the $100.00 and don't look back..

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Wait, you have a recording of him threatening to "beat your ***," and the police can't do anything?

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This. File a claim.

It never ceases to amaze me the amount of seemingly illegal things the police can't do anything about...

Whoever you've talked to at the Police is too lazy to do their job. This is NOT a civil matter. He damaged your car on the road when he installed the magnetic light and then refuses to hand over the insurance info. The incident happened on the road right-of-way where the police has full jurisdiction. This is a hit and run and you need to talk to another officer and explain to them just like I did here. Go to the police station and talk to an officer there. It is no different than if he pulled up to tow you and accidentally side swiped your car. This is the same thing as that. Bring the recorded conversation with you and have the officer listen to it as well. The tow truck driver is playing a game with you and he has done this many times before. Don't let him intimate you. I bet he has insurance too. If not business insurance then he must have a vehicle insurance on the tow truck.

Here is what I would do: (1) Take the $100, because in doing so he is admitting liability; (2) Take your car to a high end paint shop and get an estimate; (3) Call your insurance company, explain what happened, give them the estimate and make a claim, and put the $100 towards the repair. Let the insurance company take over from there. If they want to pursue him, let them do it. Life is short and this is causing you too much stress. It can be repaired and then you move on. I have bigger marks on my car just from road debris and life/time/miles. Settle it up where you are in charge of the repair=less stress/more control over the situation.

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This is really rational advice. You can't let your future happiness be defined by how this works out; it's just not worth it. Take the $100 and get the scratches fixed, and never think about it again. Otherwise your blood pressure's going to go up every time you look at that scratch as you think about how you got screwed. I've had stuff like this happen to me and it's infuriating because it's not your fault. But I guess it's best to just put it behind you. Hell I have bigger scratches than that on my car and if somebody'd give me $100 I'd throw a tube of touchup paint and a little color sanding at it and be pretty happy

You guys are right. I was just caught up in wanting justice very badly because he is such a scumbag. My insurance contacted him today, on a recorded conversation on my insurances end, in which he responded that he needs us to send him a copy of the tow receipt to refresh his memory. Because he claims he doesn't remember who I am and he denied taking/towing me 1hr and 20 minutes to the mechanic shop 3 days ago. And this is after my insurance told him they already spoke to the shop owner who confirmed that you towed my car to his shop -_- If it makes you guys understand why I am so frustrated I don't know why I originally wrote he offered $100, he said he would only give me $50 to go get it done with his friend. If he offered 100 I would have not taken it as such a slap in the face. I found a lot of his information though such as his USDOT (Department of Transportation) number to be registered to tow, his government name, his home address, pretty much everything except his insurance information haha. wish I knew someone who worked at the dmv lol

What's the name of the tow company?

thank you all for all the input and support though. definitely helping me slowly get over this ****ty situation. i'll probably make a few more phone calls to some different departments on monday but if they can't give me his insurance info theres really not much I can do. I'm not too familiar with small claims court so I'd rather not have to go there. anything court related just sounds expensive plus do you have to lawyer up? here's some pics just to keep you all entertained haha. I honestly didn't think this thread was going to be as lively as it has. the man the myth the legend himself.

Well theres his number right there , how about everybody on RL gives him a friendly call today...........��

SILVER: Let your insurance company handle it. Thats one thing you pay them for! Personally I wouldn't touch his offered $.

I work for an insurance company and I agree, you files a claim, let them handle it. If you end up getting it repaired through your insurance, you most likely have small accident forgiveness (anything less than $500) and it would not be an at fault claim. And who knows, they might be able to recoup the money through subrogation. Good luck and if you have any insurance questions let me know, happy to help!

100 phone calls to have him tow a car that does not exist would be satisfying to me.