yeah - no not really , i've had all sorts of plastics repaired in CA the past and when you find someone
who does it - it's quite reasonable . Finding it hard to believe that no one's got any go-to places in the GTA .
Restoration is expensive because of the number of hours required. What's your time worth and do you have the skill sets? What are your expectations?
An on the road repair with duct tape and wire gets you home cheap.
Just for giggles I kicked a round some numbers that could be way off as I've never done commercial bodywork.
I'm guessing that commercial shop labour rates would be in the $100 an hour area.
I've done a fair bit of amateur fiberglass boat work and getting a yacht level finish is four hours per square foot. For a tugboat finish it's four square feet per hour. Bikes could be worse because of tight fitting tolerances.
If I crashed a Goldwing and wanted to restore a panel first would be building a jig so the panel would fit on the bike and not interfere with the various protrusions afterwards. Then the restoration work and finishing. I can see it taking a week. A week of commercial shop time is maybe twice as fast but 20 hours at $100 = $2,000 plus materials. A hobbyist would put in more hours at a lower rate but end up the same. What would it look like???
Then there's paint and trim. For a Chevy you can repaint a fender with $50 worth of paint from Canadian Tire but they don't carry matching bike colours. Goldwings tend to be two tone at $100 or so per colour. Then the decals and clear coat.
A DIY project would make sense if the rider had the space and skill sets.
It's easy to understand why insurers write off bikes with what appears to be repairable damage.
