38 replies to this topic

[Mini_Magic]

if you dont mind me asking, why was your roof pelted with fruit?

My supposed friend and her boyfriend has a huge fight where she locked him out the house. They were both drunk after a night out and he was throwing fruit up to her window on the 3rd floor to get her attention and my car was below the said window... obviously if it goes up, it has to come down, all over my roof and bonnet for, according to the next door neighbour who heard it happen, for 10-15 mins.

They managed in about 20 mins, to dent my bonnet, dent my boot and shallow dent all my roof as well as scratch it all over, bar the side against the wall... and they tried to clean up the mess whilst still drunk, which resulted in lots of carp being ground into my nice paintwork.

Over a month later and i'm still fuming and very upset by it all!

I assume they're going to pay for all the repairs to your Mini?

[mini_lover]

some prat decided it looked like a suitable dance floor

its just the problem of it being such a large panel and so has more freedom of movement

i think your best bet is to ask the last body guy how much, whats involved and if he does use filler if it would crack, if he does a good job i.e lets the filler shrink and dry well, shapes it properly and does a good job of the spraying then it should be fine

good luck getting it sorted mate and if it doesnt get sorted in a months time have a look at my project thread, i will be updating it at christmas time and tackle my roof.

edit: what an idiot! your poor mini, sounds like more of a mess than i thought, have you got any pictures?

I have some pictures yeah, but it doesn't hardly show up on them. Only thing you can really notice is the boot dent, most of the rest are too shallow to show up on pics. None of its horrendously bad, its there and therefore its annoying me as its not right. :s

[mini_lover]

if you dont mind me asking, why was your roof pelted with fruit?

My supposed friend and her boyfriend has a huge fight where she locked him out the house. They were both drunk after a night out and he was throwing fruit up to her window on the 3rd floor to get her attention and my car was below the said window... obviously if it goes up, it has to come down, all over my roof and bonnet for, according to the next door neighbour who heard it happen, for 10-15 mins.

They managed in about 20 mins, to dent my bonnet, dent my boot and shallow dent all my roof as well as scratch it all over, bar the side against the wall... and they tried to clean up the mess whilst still drunk, which resulted in lots of carp being ground into my nice paintwork.

Over a month later and i'm still fuming and very upset by it all!

I assume they're going to pay for all the repairs to your Mini?

Well thats the other issue, they said they would and then kicked off really badly when I got the first quote and give it them, said they wern't willing to pay for that and all they would pay for, and I quote 'is for the dents to be bashed out and the scratched sorted' She was screaming and shouting at me, basically she was just bang out of order. App it should only cost 'a few hundred quid' which just shows how naive she is. And now apparntley the boyfriend is paying once I have the 3 quotes (im still waiting on the last) But we shall see....

Oh and I live in a shared house with the girl - which is lovley! haha

[lewis]

she sounds like a right devil!

good luck getting it all sorted mate

[midridge2]

i recommend you take it to garages that know what they are talking about.
dints in roofs are a pain in the bum to repair, because you need to take the paint off to fill the dents a grinder will make the metal hot and distort so you need to use a sander or do it by hand and be gentle rubbing filler down as the roof skin is very flexible.
any good panelbeater can make it look as good as new.
regards fitting a new roofskin its not a hard job and does not need any bracing but a new skin is not cheap and the roof lining would need removing so labour costs are high.
i think a lot of bodyshop workers have never done a mini roofskin before and are talking nonsense.

[panelbeaterpeter]

As above. Any good panelbeater will have it looking like new again without any problems, especially as they are shallow dents, means it won't have stretched the metal too much. Also as Bert998 said, white is very good for hiding imperfections, not that there should be any.

Vibrations would never do any damage to fillerwork unless someone went mental with a pnuematic hammer.

[lewis]

thanks for solving the vibration myth peter, i was dubious but believed it when i first heard it lol

while were here on the subject of roof dents though what would u reccomend for deep dents on the side of the roof

can it be dolly and hammered out then lightly skimmed over with filler?

[Spenner]

Im having the same problem i have around six shallow dents over my roof spoken to a couple of panel beaters and 1 said wouldnt like to do it and the over said he would do it for £100 that was replace the roof panel, but he's afriend of a friend and i was tip off saying dont trust him lol. It really bothers me knowing that the rest of the mini is sound and the roof is the only thing that is letting it down.

So does anyone knpw of a decent panel beater in the swindon wiltshire area?

[itscomealongway]

roof repairs seem to be about one of the most expensive things on a mini, i've got a dent on the back end of my roof, a real shallow one where the paint has hairline cracks in it.Even taking it to the bodyshop i normally go to with my other motors, which usually cost peanuts, it's proving to be costly to repair, and the guy does it cheaper if you take hin something interesting. He quoted me £300 quid for a decent job. so that makes me a little less keen, paint fixed and leave the dent there i think.

[mini_lover]

i recommend you take it to garages that know what they are talking about.
dints in roofs are a pain in the bum to repair, because you need to take the paint off to fill the dents a grinder will make the metal hot and distort so you need to use a sander or do it by hand and be gentle rubbing filler down as the roof skin is very flexible.
any good panelbeater can make it look as good as new.
regards fitting a new roofskin its not a hard job and does not need any bracing but a new skin is not cheap and the roof lining would need removing so labour costs are high.
i think a lot of bodyshop workers have never done a mini roofskin before and are talking nonsense.

Thats very reassuring and now I know how it should be done. Now the problem is finding an expert panelbeater/body specailist... The guy that suggested filling it, sounds very very good, but he didn't want to say he could get it looking perfect, even though it possibly could ones hes finished. I need to have a chat with him me thinks and sound him out, see how perfect he thinks he could get it.

Or, does anyone have any ideas who could take this job on in the manchester/lancashire area?? Ive has a few recommended, but not specifically for this...

Would replacing the roof affect the handling and stability of my car?

Thank you

[duncancallum]

theres 2 ways of fitting a rooof ones putting a skin on the 2nd i have seen done a few times is use a donar car ad cut the pillers into a steped joint and seam weld it.

Your Panel man will be covering him self also unless you have a very good eye his idea of perfect is probably diffrent to yours

[panelbeaterpeter]

Will replacing the roof affect the handling and stablility of the car? No. Nor is it that bad of a job to do. The bodyshops that have told you that probably don't want/need the work, and so have told you that rather than telling you to go away. It's far easier to work on new stuff, lots of plastic/bolt on panels etc.

To remove your dents you would have to carefully beat out the dents and get it as smooth as possible, the aim being to use as little filler as possible. You then apply a skim to finish off the repair, prime it in high build 2k primer, rub down and paint.

Bearing all that in mind, plus you would have to remove the rooflining and re-fit it again afterwards, I'd have thought it'd cost you around two/three hundred quid.

[jack_marshall]

Check out this Fiat Panda we got in at work.

The bloke said 'Anygood at knocking dints out lad?'

'Not bad' I replied. Then he showed me this.



And when we had finished, it looked 99% spot on.

So a few shallow dents can definately be put right by anyone whos decent.

[Bungle]

come on jack we needed the after pictures

[panelbeaterpeter]