Hey Hutts, long time viewer and big fan! Not sure how frequently you check the subreddit, but I'm sure someone will be able to get this to you!

I caught your stream vod on the hutts2 channel regarding your car having a ding in the door and the quote you were given. For context, I've been in the automotive repair industry for almost 20 years.

The 'mud' the panel beater was referring to was most likely body filler, sometimes referred to as mud, bog or bondo. It's a common filler used to repair dents in metal panels, such as doors, guards, fenders, etc. What I think they were trying to say is that the door has had a previous old repair before, and the new dent while under your ownership has exposed the old body filler underneath. It can also be observed by what's called shrinkback in the panel, where the old sanding scratches from the previous repair has sucked back into the body filler. It can have the appearance of having fine lines that can be seen in the finished clear coat.

You mentioned that the car isn't that old, 2019 I believe? It is not as uncommon as you may think for brand new cars to have repairs done on them. A lot of time, it can get damaged in transit from production to car showroom. I have worked at shops that exclusively cater to showrooms.

You also noted how they would need to paint the door next to it. This is a common practice is accident repair, based on the colour of your car. Anything that's a metallic colour or a pearlescent, it's near impossible to get a perfect colour match so the colour is blended into the surrounding area to hide any slight colour differences. However, on a white, or indeed any solid colour, a good spray painter should be able to get an edge-to-edge match for it. The reason it's done in metallics and pearls is because there are so many different grades of the metal and pearl flakes used in car colours now

Not sure if this is of any use to you, but the more you know I guess 😊