Hi Everyone,

On my honeymoon - the last day - back in June of 2006 in a TINY parking garage my truck made friends with a concrete column. Being newly married and not wanting insurance to go up I didn't report it. I'm really getting tired of the big dent in the bed though and was wondering what you all thought the best options for fixing would be. The local body shop wants $1600 to fix it. I was thinking I might could get a bed from a junkyard cheaper. Any thoughts? Thanks!

David

Images of dent bed:

The stick on bullet holes matched the primer so it gave a story to tell

 

What I would do...

As long as the inside metal of the bed isn't messed up I'd have a body shop just replace the side panel. Should be quite a bit cheaper than a new bed. still won't be cheap.
I wouldn't let them try to bend&bondo it back.

 

x2...i think a new bed is gonna cost too much...plus if you can't find one the same color it still has to be painted and installed so labor will be pretty expensive...just make sure you get a good bodyshop...stuff like that you want done by someone with alot of experience..

 

ouch, that sucks!
my g/f lives in a condo, and I have to maneuver my truck around those concrete pillars almost daily. I may have a similar problem someday...

 

1. New Bed- Not necessary
2. Repair Bed- Impossible, the metal is too badly stretched. If someone did
try to repair it, it would end up loking like a washboard.
3. Replace the Side Panel. I'll bet if you look at your Estimate again, the bid
is for a Side Panel replacement rather than a repair of the Side Panel.
$1600.00 is about right to R&R the Bed, replace the Side Panel, repaint
the New Parts and replace the Decal.
And, its not too late to turn it over to your Insurance Company and only be responsible for the Deductible.

 

Ok... my dad and I were talking about doing this ourselves, replacing the panel. We restore old cars so I imagine we could do it. Anyone done this before or know of a tutorial on the site?

 

The inside still looks great too so the idea you all have sounds good. The quote was to replace the side panel. I'd just had some folks tell me I could probably pick up a bed off a wrecked truck for about $500 from a junkyard but I didn't think that sounded right, sounded too cheap.

 

I found a place to get the panel here
http://www.trademotion.com/partlocator/index.cfm?action=getLocator&siteid=214290&chapter= DR2MA04&appSectionid=6628&groupid=54046&subgroupid =2313&componentid=7111&make=10&model=F%2D150&year= 2004&catalogid=2

Anyone have a place they use regularly?

 

I don't think this is something you want to attempt yourself. The 70s GM pickups had bolt off bed side panels but all of the modern trucks have welded on panels that are just like a quarter panel on a car. Even if you could do it, you would probably end up with a substantial amount of body filler to cover your errors and you would probably leave metal exposed to rust where you welded it and didn't get it properly protected. A good body shop can fix it and it will be as good as new.

 

i would go with them, a new bed from there is 3000-4000 greens