New Doors please.

[Kell]

My daughter's managed to mangle both nearside doors of her 59 plate Polo.

Quotes for new door skins and painting have come in between £1,000 and £1,800. Which seems ridiculous.

So we were thinking of trying to source 2 SH doors and fit those instead.

Couple of issues. The first is that the car's red. I've had red cars before and they're very susceptible to fading, so the doors may not be a perfect colour match. But to be honest anything would be better than they are now.

The second is that I don't know what's involved in removing and fitting the doors. The only guide i've found online basically says "Remove the doors"

Is it really that easy?

TIA.

[amer6R]

https://youtu.be/xco4fAIzNSY
2:10

Give car a polish job if the colors dont match up.

[stevo8375]

I’d check on eBay for the parts, prob the best place for secondhand bits

[Kell]

https://youtu.be/xco4fAIzNSY
2:10

That's brilliant, thanks.

[SRGTD]

Couple of issues. The first is that the car's red. I've had red cars before and they're very susceptible to fading, so the doors may not be a perfect colour match. But to be honest anything would be better than they are now.

Faded red paint certainly used to be an issue - Vauxhalls with solid red paintwork used to be particularly prone to it where the paint turned a shade of pink. I’ve owned red cars (including a Vauxhall with solid red paintwork) in the 1980’s when fading was a potential issue, and I never had an issue with it on my cars; I think to some extent it depended on how the paintwork was maintained and cared for on these older cars. It’s also possible to buy car detailing products that provide UV protection against the effect of sun’s rays and fading paintwork. I’ve not used any of these products so can’t vouch for how effective they are.

I think modern automotive paints are much less prone to fading; I can’t recall seeing a modern VW with red paint that’s faded. I think the main issue for you with your daughter’s car may be a possible slight mismatch in shade between the car’s existing paintwork and replacement used red doors, as the paint used for the car / doors will have come from different batches.

If you can’t find replacement used doors of the correct colour, you could always source doors of a different colour and get them repainted, which is still likely to be cheaper than buying new door skins, getting them fitted and then painted. A good body shop should be able to match the colour of new paint on the doors to the car’s existing paintwork, especially if they use spectrophotometer paint matching technology. They can also blend the new paint into the existing paint on adjacent panels to disguise any very slight shade differences if there are any.

[Kell]

Couple of issues. The first is that the car's red. I've had red cars before and they're very susceptible to fading, so the doors may not be a perfect colour match. But to be honest anything would be better than they are now.

Faded red paint certainly used to be an issue - Vauxhalls with solid red paintwork used to be particularly prone to it where the paint turned a shade of pink. I’ve owned red cars (including a Vauxhall with solid red paintwork) in the 1980’s when fading was a potential issue, and I never had an issue with it on my cars; I think to some extent it depended on how the paintwork was maintained and cared for on these older cars. It’s also possible to buy car detailing products that provide UV protection against the effect of sun’s rays and fading paintwork. I’ve not used any of these products so can’t vouch for how effective they are.

I think modern automotive paints are much less prone to fading; I can’t recall seeing a modern VW with red paint that’s faded. I think the main issue for you with your daughter’s car may be a possible slight mismatch in shade between the car’s existing paintwork and replacement used red doors, as the paint used for the car / doors will have come from different batches.

If you can’t find replacement used doors of the correct colour, you could always source doors of a different colour and get them repainted, which is still likely to be cheaper than buying new door skins, getting them fitted and then painted. A good body shop should be able to match the colour of new paint on the doors to the car’s existing paintwork, especially if they use spectrophotometer paint matching technology. They can also blend the new paint into the existing paint on adjacent panels to disguise any very slight shade differences if there are any.

Maybe that's what I'm thinking of.

Had a 1990 Cavalier a few years back and am pretty sure every panel was a slightly different shade of red.

Though our last car was a Red Audi and that seemed to stay bright throughout. I know modern German paint is known to be very hard.

[amer6R]

Maybe it was one stage paintjob