just rip the fender well lining out

 

Are you saying that will make room or show me what's behind that needs to be removed to make room.

I need to drive it 400 miles home lol. But I have the weekend to wrench on it before I go.

 

Should just be the fender liner causing issues. There's nothing behind that part of the liner that I can think of. If you rip it out you should be able to drive it. I dunno about 400 miles though, I find it hard to believe there wouldn't be frame/alignment issues after getting smacked that hard.

 

He said they had the frame/alignment checked and it was fine. The guy that hit me was coming from a stop and couldn't of been more than 8 feet away from the pass. side of my car. Small side street pulling onto a main neighborhood road, I was going straight at about 10-15mph. It wasn't that bad, you can't even tell the car was in an accident from the inside. Except the glove box wont open.
No leaking fluids, and everything works as far as I can tell. Only problem is I accidentally hit the window button on the pass side door and now it is stuck 3/4 closed lol. Oh well.
How hard is it to replace a door? I can find one at the junk yard I'm sure.

 

I'm sure you can too, did a adjuster contact you and check out the car?

I got a estimate of $2700 to fix my car, it was back ended by my aunt and her insurance offered to fix the scuff you see in my bumper because they thought it was a result of the accident. Did that collision give you a estimate with used good quality parts from junk yards or brand new oem stuff?

Regardless hope you're okay, you can get something else just be happy it wasn't on the driver side. I've been in two accidents and each time i had terrible stress and nightmares from them for about 6 months for each.

 

my a4 had the rear driver side door pushed in it was barely noticeable and no damage to paint. shop charged their (other driver was at fault) insurance 2600 to get the dent pushed out and respray the door and a the corner of the rear bumper that was slightly scuffed... you could not see the door was damaged at all unless if i told you to go look at it within an foot haha. Also bumper was scuffed in my High school parking lot aand broke my corner light that was 2200 for bumper and paint (also not my fault other insurance paid)...

 

yeah for only $1000 that would only cover putting a new fender and hood on my car.

Shops estimate for removing, prepping, painting, and re installing each piece of the car. On my estimate from the insurance it has time and $ allocated to removing the side marker signals and license bracket. Its a nickel and dime thing and I don't think body shops would make money charging $1000 to paint a door and put it on.

 

No one warned me of all the bugs that will make a home of behind the fender liner.

Drove the car home without a hiccup. She drove just like before the accident.

However, getting her on the road was not as simple as I expected.

Front pass glass shattered at the shop, battery was at 8 volts (prob because of the alarm going off constantly), tank was completely empty of fuel (?? normal business practices?).

Got 4 gallons in the tank, jump started her, cut out a large section of fender liner, taped over the window (started to rain! dammit) and realized the radio is in safe mode. NOOOOO

Safe mode radio for a 400 mile trip with a busted window is no fun haha. It was actually still a fine trip, but I would of liked the radio.

 

As an auto body mechanic myself, I call BS. Just replacing the doors would cost more than $1000, and that's before paint. $4500 sounds like an accurate estimate to me for a job done properly.

Having said that, I paid $2995 for my '01 A4 Avant TQM. It was bone stock and unmolested. So it's hard to justify spending $4500 rebuilding something that would be cheaper to find elsewhere.

 

Good thing both you and the Focus driver are okay! $4000ish seems about right from my experiences too, so the estimate is probably decent.

p.s.
That Avant that Kriptonik posted... I think I'd just live in my car and do two years of road trips throughout North America if I had that. lol