Hello,
To anyone in the Boston MA area, if you need a body shop, you have to go to Mike's Auto Body located in Malden MA.
I have spent so much money on scratch repairs to the point that I could have bought a new car from all the money I spent on fixing a stone chip.
The first body shop I went to originally filled the spot, then buffed burned the paint, then decided to re-paint it. From there, the nose needed to be repainted to match, then the door, finally my wife got involved and contacted the North Regional Rep of PCA, and advised her to go to Mike's. I brought the car, and then agreed to have the entire car repainted.
For a 2004, it seemed almost unheard of, right?
Prior to this, I was one of those people that lived by the rules of a paint gauge tool, which is to NEVER repaint a car, especially a turbo. All I can say now is those rules are over. The work that has been performed on my vehicle has been pheonemenal and all my worries and fears of a bad paint job are gone.
You have to understand that I have all my life, I have been a garage queen, never driving my vehicles because of the fear of getting a scratch or nick that could never be fixed properly.
I am writing this, not as a plug to Mike's Auto Body, but to give people hope that there is an actual body shop that can remove your fears and that the quality of work perfomed will allow you to enjoy your car again.

 

I don't know about Mike's body shop...and am certainly not near enough to take advantage of his work....but I can say that after being backed into by a hit-and-run in a parking lot and having to have the door repainted....I quickly lost my high-falutin' mindset about paint gauges and their seemingly intrinsic value. Although we all would like to get an "unpainted virgin"...the fact remains that there are a lot of cars out there where the hoods have been redone becasue of stone chips, door dings....bumpers repaired and/or repainted, a keyed car repainted....none of which has anything to do with the unibody or structural integrity of the car....except in the mind of those place the emphasis on paint gauges. Granted, a car that passes the gauge test can be said to never have been in an accident or had the structural integrity of the body compromised....so I guess there might be some great values out there for those who might make an offer to those of us who have had to repaint a panel, or hood, or bumper. I know that I'd disclose what happened, and I took pictures of the original damage and the process they went thru to repaint it. If some think that's worth detracting $5K from the value, then I guess I'd just opt to keep it.