Short version: in North Jersey, a door ding comes out for $150–$400 with paintless dent repair, bumper repair and paint starts at $450, a fender or door at $600, and a full-panel respray at $800. Structural work runs into the thousands and is priced from a teardown, not a walk-around. Below is the full table, the four things that quietly move every number on it, how long each job takes — and the math for deciding whether your insurer should be involved at all.
The price table
These are our own starting prices at the shop in Jersey City — not national averages scraped from somewhere. Every figure is the visible-damage starting point; what teardown finds behind the panel goes on a documented supplement, never on a quietly grown invoice.
| Repair | Typical price | Time in the shop |
|---|---|---|
| Door ding, paint intact (PDR) | $150–$400 | Same day to next day |
| Larger dent or crease (PDR) | $350–$900 | Same day to 2 days |
| Dent with broken paint | $500–$1,200 | 3–7 days |
| Bumper scuff — repair and paint | from $450 | 2–3 days |
| Fender or door — repair and paint | from $600 | 3–7 days |
| Full-panel paint | from $800 | 3–7 days |
| Curb rash — one wheel refinished | $150–$350 | 1–2 days, all four in one visit |
| Powder coating | from $75 per rim | Quoted with the set |
| Camera / radar calibration after repair | $250–$450 one system · $500–$1,200 several | Done in-house, same visit |
| Structural / frame repair | several thousand and up | 1–3 weeks |
Why every honest answer starts with "it depends"
Four things move a body-shop price more than the dent itself:
- What lives behind the panel. A modern bumper cover hides parking sensors, radar and sometimes a camera. Repairing the cover is the cheap part; recalibrating what is mounted in it adds $250–$450 for one system, and the carmaker's procedure — not the shop's mood — decides whether it is required.
- Blending. Silver, white pearl and most metallics cannot be painted panel-by-panel without a visible edge, so the colour is faded into the neighbouring panels. One damaged door can honestly mean paint on three surfaces.
- Aluminum. Hoods and doors on many recent cars are aluminum, which needs its own tools and its own area, and does not behave like steel under a dent puller.
- What teardown finds. The photo estimate prices what a camera can see. Broken clips, a bent reinforcement bar or a crushed absorber only show up when the bumper is off — that is what an insurance supplement exists for, and it is the single most common reason a final bill differs from a first estimate.
How much does it cost to fix a dent?
The question that decides the price is one you can answer from a photo: is the paint broken? If the finish is intact, the dent comes out from behind the panel with paintless dent repair — $150–$400 for a typical door ding, $350–$900 for a crease — and the factory paint stays exactly where the factory put it. That last part matters at resale: a repainted panel is what dealer appraisers hunt for with a meter.
If the paint is cracked or scraped through, PDR is off the table and the job becomes body work plus refinishing: $500–$1,200 for a typical dent, depending on panel and blend. Hail is its own case — priced per panel, not per dent, and usually a comprehensive claim rather than out-of-pocket work.
How much does it cost to repair a bumper?
A scuffed or cracked cover is usually repairable: plastic welding, tab rebuilds and refinishing start at $450, and most covers can be saved rather than replaced — how that call is actually made is covered in bumper repair. Replacement wins when the mounting tabs are shattered, the absorber behind the cover is crushed, or a prior repair is already stacked under the paint — then the part price drives the number, and on cars with sensors the calibration line from the table above joins it.
One more bumper fact worth knowing: rear-end collisions are the classic other-driver-at-fault claim. If you were hit, the repair belongs on their liability policy, not on your record — details in our collision repair rundown.
Scratches, panels and wheels
A scratch that only marks the clear coat often polishes out for less than any repaint. Once it is through the colour, the honest fix is refinishing the panel — from $800 with blending — because a brushed-on touch-up is visible from across a parking lot and appraisers read it as concealment. Wheels are the cheapest cosmetic win on the car: curb rash refinishing runs $150–$350 a wheel, powder coating from $75 a rim, and the whole set goes through in one visit — most of it explained in wheel repair.
How long does collision repair take?
Honest ranges, assuming parts are available: paintless dent repair is same-day to two days; a bumper repair 2–3 days; a panel with paint 3–7 days; structural repair one to three weeks. The two things that actually stretch a timeline are parts availability — a backordered sensor can idle an otherwise finished car — and supplement approval, the days an insurer takes to authorise what teardown found. Neither is labor time, which is why a shop promising an exact calendar date before teardown is guessing. The stage-by-stage calendar, with realistic totals for common Jersey City accidents, is in how long collision repair takes in New Jersey.
Calibration is the timeline trap most people have never heard of: if a shop sends the car out for it, that is an extra shuttle and a day. Ours is done in-house in the same visit. And if a claim is paying for a rental, remember the cap — typically $30–$50 a day and 25–30 days in total — so a car waiting on a backordered part is also a car spending your rental days.
Insurance or out of your pocket?
The rule fits in one line: compare the repair to your deductible. A $450 bumper scuff against a $500 deductible is not a claim, it is a phone call to us. A $3,000 structural repair is a claim every time. The full decision math — including what a claim does to renewal pricing and when a repaired car can still lose value on paper — is in our guides to cosmetic damage and insurance and diminished value in New Jersey.
And whoever pays, in New Jersey the shop is your choice, not the insurer's — how to answer a steering attempt is covered in can I choose my own body shop.
The number that matters is yours, and it costs nothing
Averages end arguments; they do not fix cars. Send 4–8 photos of the damage — whole car, close-ups, the panel at an angle — and a real estimator prices your damage the same business day, in writing, free: start the photo estimate. If the car is not drivable, call (551) 325-3030 first and we will arrange the tow straight to the shop, so you are not paying for a second tow later.