Disaster strikes!

Technical Area Body, Interior & Styling
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 Disaster strikes!

Or rather my mum does… She’s recently backed her cumbersome Merc A Class into my go kart and pickled the front wing and part of the bumper on the drivers side.  I think the bumper will be okay as it appears that the wing is pushing it out of place.  The things I might need to replace are the wing and the fasteners for the wheel arch lining. 
 Now the Spray bob I’ve spoken to says he can get me a pattern wing for £30 but I don’t thinkthey are going to be as good as a genuine one.  MX5 Parts advertise a genuine one for about £100 odd - is it worthe the extra?  Also someone told me aftermarket wings, even genuine mazda part ones are not treated as well as the factory built cars - is this the case and if so would it be worth the extra to pay to ge mine panel beat out?  It’s do-able but it probably only just as it’s creased at the wheel arch.
 As for the spraying itself he says he’d do the wing for £120, the wig and bumper for £150 (The lacquer is coming off the bumper really badly.) or the whole car for £450 same colour respray.  One concern is that he thinks there might be an issue colour matching because my paint has gone a bit milky.  To solve this problem he suggested getting him to respray the whole car in base coat and lacquer, same colour though.  This should protect it and stop the fading issue being anything like as bad.  This would be £500 for the whole car.
 What do you think?  I’ve not been to see some of his work yet, I’ve seen something he’s been preparing, and there was nothing obviously wrong with it.  I suspect for these prices there is going to be little or no strip and rebuild and it’s mainly going to be masking.
To me this sounds cheap, it is an elderly chap who’s been at it for donkeys years and his son and they have a good reputation.  What do you think?  If his work looks okay should I get him to do it or go to someone more expensive?  Would it be worth getting the whole car base coat and lacquered?

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Kill Her

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 In my experience, (admittedly not specific to MX-5s) pattern wings tend to be quite badly made and the amount of work taken to make them fit properly often costs more in labour than you would spend on a genuine panel.

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 For the price, get the whole car done. These old geezers know
tricks of the trade that youngsters would even think of. It will be as
you say, minor strip down and mostly masking. With his experience he
should be able to do a really good mask off job.
With the wing,
it sounds like he may be sourcing one off a scrapper and tarting it
over, shouldn’t be a problem. Ask him though to confirm and also what
he would dismantle on the full respray. Go round the car with him and
see if he thinks it’s worth taking any other trim off. Would probably
charge extra, but may be worth it. [:)] 

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£450 sounds bloody cheep to me. If I was quoted that for a spray job I think I’d want to see some of there previous work.

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 Some patterns are good, some are not.  For a guaranteed ‘no problem fit’ then a genuine panel is worth the extra but I have used many non gen panels and saved a small fortune.  Pattern wings are not as bad as ‘pattern’ sills which are often designed to fit over the existing sill and an absolute ‘no’. Talk to the guys and see what they say.  If you are prepared to pay the extra they will say if the pattern panel is good enough. The MX5 wing is bolted on and if the fit was poor then I would return it! Mind you, £30 does seem very cheap and I am suspicious of the quality at that price but I would certainly offer one up and see what they were like.