Just thought I would follow up on this sordid tale. The other party accepted liability. The damage is a small dent and deep scratches that broke the paint at the leading edge of the front passenger door, about 12 inches high and 6-8 inches in length. Maybe small damage to the trailing edge of the front fender. No other apparent damage.
The body shop said this is a very hard paint to match, 3 stage he called it. Snowflake white pearl mica cost an extra $400, less than soul red or machine gray, but still...
The job is running over $3000 so far. In order to match the paint, the door gets repaired, which includes removing the trim, and lots of one use only parts including the chrome waist molding. The fender has to be removed to be repainted because it is next to the door. There are a number of one use parts on this piece also. The hood has to be blended to match the fender.
The headlight has to be removed to get to the fender, the grill has to be removed to get to the fender. All sensors have to be recalibrated to the steering angle sensor by the dealer. I worry about that.
The PPF on the fender and hood have been stripped and have to be reapplied.
The rear door and rear quarter panel also have to be blended...
My wife started getting all these alerts from My Mazda. AFS malfunction MRCC malfunction parking sensor malfunction BSM malfunction, as the car started coming apart.
This new paint is pretty, but it is expensive. I might have the car back in another two weeks. In the meantime, my wife has said she really likes driving my WRX now....
The shop is a high quality repair shop that has the reputation for doing things the right way, and repairs exotic cars like Ferrari, Maseratti and Lambo, in addition to Porsches. Most of the cars are more pedestrian like the Japanese brands, the Korean brands, and domestics. They do really good work, but it comes at a price.
than driving his CX-5 
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