Vent: The before and after on this 'repair' I saw at a local auction

A 2015 Civic came in with a dented quarter panel, and the 'fix' was just a gallon of bondo shaped with a putty knife... looked okay from twenty feet away. After a single Michigan winter, the whole patch cracked and fell off in the car wash, leaving a weird, cratered mess. Has anyone else seen a shortcut that spectacularly backfire?

3 comments

3 Comments

morgan.jason6d ago

That's the kind of hack job that gives shade tree mechanics a bad name. Bondo isn't meant to be structural filler, it's just for final smoothing. Seen a truck bed "fixed" with spray foam and a sheet of aluminum siding, which lasted about a month before rusting out worse than before. Makes you wonder what else they skipped on a car that's being sold at auction, right?

wood.uma6d ago

Used to think it was just cosmetic, but you're totally right.

ray_sullivan6d ago

My uncle's old F-150 had a floor pan made from a stop sign and roofing tar. The real problem is that these slapdash fixes hide the actual damage, so the next guy has no idea how bad the rust really is underneath. It's a safety hazard disguised as a cheap repair.