Hey yall. I just bought my second cobalt and the thing needs a bit of love.
Starting with this dent. Any suggestions on how to approach repairing?

 

Slight of replacing the quarter panel, a slide hammer and body filler.

 

Or if you get lazy, just make sure the body lines are correct and just fill it, forget the puller.

 

True, but with a puller you can get it closer and use less filler. Thats going to take some filler to get it right.

 

For perfection of course. It's in an area that isn't so conspicuous and you can hide most of it as long as the hard lines match. You can use wire mesh to strengthen it to do a layer approach.

 

He did get into two body lines. The one on the side and the bumper will have to come off to finesse the line by the bumper. Most likely a body hammer to get it back up straighter. I would go rent a body puller and a body hammer and get to work. That is just me. I have done so much body work over the years. I have restored 3 cars on my own.

 

I don't think you would need the slide hammer, you should be able to pull back the trunk lining and get to it from that side. The quarter panel replacement is a nightmare, rear bumper, rear glass, door, windshield, rocker cover, all have to come off.

 

If you can work it out from the backside, just remember first in/last out when it comes to dents.

 

i wouldn’t suggest a quarter change. It’s a absolute last ditch. OP can play around with body filler, but you will never make those lines meet. I’ve done everything from 90s foxbodies to a 67 camaro and we won’t talk about dents and rust. I look at those lines and would want it to be as perfect. Just me giving me advice.

 

Yeah the body lines would be tough to get them correct, oh the 90s foxbody rust boxes were fun

 

Thanks for the great info you guys.
I'm going to see how accessible the backside of that dent is and try to work some magic, but it looks like there's going to be a solid amount of filler there in the future.

Not sure how a dent like this even comes about, but I'm more than ready to make it go away.

 

I never had any rust issues with mine. The worst was if you ever had a hood fly up and crunch the cowl vent. There is no replacing that. I had a super low mile 93 GT. 34k miles. Girl got into Texas A&M drove it for 3 years. Hit a bad rain storm and slid off the road. It messed up the front end, but not totaled. It scared her so she wouldn't drive it again. Anyways long story short that thing had something like 36 door dents in it that I had to fix. All from sitting in a college parking lot

 

Being in Texas I wouldn't expect it, but in Michigan holy rust on anything that came near the roads during winter. They get extra salt happy

 

I will say this with the joys of getting a southern car. My 67 camaro was almost rust free. Those things were rust buckets. My dad bought his 69 and it was from Kansas and it had so much cancer. It was restored in the early 90s and had already had extensive floor repair and it lived in Texas for some time. It was a college kids car at UT. It still had the sticker. It was parked in a garage until the owner passed away. The only things that were salvageable were the doors. All the floor pans, quarters, tail panel, trunk, and fenders had lots of cancer. Luckily it didn't get the rails.

 

Yes indeed.

I bought a 2014 Jetta TDI in 2018. The car had 23k miles and was from Auburn Hills, MI.

I had to replace every single nut and bolt on the suspension when I installed coilovers and end links. It was bad. Crusty.