Door panel damage

[bigdogrondo]

    Have 1 year old Bennington pontoon boat and had recent damage to one of the panels on the door.  Paint on the fiberglass panel rubbed off in one area (2" x 12") right down to the fiberglass.  Sounds like difficult to get the panel out of aluminum flanges to replace. Wondering if easier to just obtain matching paint from Bennington and smooth this out and paint the panel.  Anyone else had similar issue and repaired.  Thanks

 

[cwag911]

I thought the panels were aluminum. And..........pictures would help. Oh, and welcome.  It's actually easier to order a new door.

 

[bigdogrondo]

    Yes your right - they are aluminum.  Try to get some pix on shortly.  I had initially thought about new door but thought this would be fairly expensive (several hundred $$ ?)

Thanks

 

[cwag911]

Insurance?

 

[JeffS]

You can take the door off - it's not the easiest thing in the world but not the hardest thing either. If it's black - then that's awesome because black is the easiest color to match and blend. I'd check with the dealer and see if you can get a can of touch up paint. If it were me, I'd take the door off and in the nice clean still air of my basement, I'd carefully tape it, sand it a bit, repaint it with Bennington black, sand, paint again, wet sand, add a couple of coats of clear and then start blending the repair with lots more wet sanding. My guess is it will cost about $20 for the paint and a couple 3 hours of work. There are lots of YouTube videos on repairing paint damage. And black is the easiest to do.

 

[kaydano]

You've got nothing to lose trying to paint it. The other choice will involve throwing it away.

You are very lucky it was the door and not a fence section.

 

[bigdogrondo]

Thanks for the help!  Color is Matador red and have some touch up spray kit coming from dealer (around $40 which is much cheaper than new door).  Hopefully will blend in well but can't look any worse than it does now.