First, do not force it through
The instinct is to keep moving and get clear. Resist it — most of the real damage in these incidents happens during the second and third foot of travel, when a half-open door or a bent track digs deeper into the roof or drags the length of a pillar. This applies double in condo garages, where clearance bars and low headers catch roof boxes and tall vehicles all over Toronto.
Put the car in park and find the contact point. If a roof rail, an antenna, or the door’s bottom seal is hooked on something, freeing it by hand costs a minute and saves a panel. Then photograph the car and the garage before anything is cleaned up or wound back.
- Roof panel and rails, photographed from a step stool if you can manage it
- The A-pillar and windshield trim on the contact side
- The mirror housing, which usually catches first
- The garage door panel, its track, and the opener arm
- Any paint transfer left behind on the frame or header
How coverage splits between two policies
One mistake, two claims. The vehicle goes on your auto policy under collision, because it struck an object, and your collision deductible applies — there is no other driver, so DCPD has no role here. A hit on a shared condo garage door may also involve the building’s management, so report it to them early.
The garage itself belongs to your home, condo, or tenant policy. Two deductibles for one bad morning is exactly why many people pay for the car directly, and comparing the repair estimate against your deductible before phoning anyone is the sensible order of operations.
What garage scrape damage takes to repair
Roof panels are the unforgiving part. They are large, gently curved, and lit from above, so a gouge there cannot hide in a shadow line. Straightening a roof means dropping the headliner and working the metal from underneath, and the refinish has to flow across one big uninterrupted surface without a visible border.
Scrapes down a pillar or a door edge are more contained but demand precise colour work, because those surfaces sit at angles that expose any mismatch. Cracked roof rails and mouldings get replaced rather than filled — they carry weather sealing that a patched part cannot be trusted to keep.
- Headliner dropped so the roof can be worked from behind
- Rails and mouldings removed rather than masked around
- Sunroof drains and seals checked before refinishing begins
- Colour measured off the car and blended down the pillar
- Seam sealer and corrosion protection restored wherever a seam opened
Bring it in or send photos
Roof damage photographs poorly from the ground, so an angled shot from a stepladder helps enormously. Send it with a wide shot of the car and the owner writes a free estimate with a real number and a timeline attached.
Prefer eyes on it? The shop is off Keele just south of Sheppard, open Monday through Saturday from 8 AM to 7 PM and Sundays by appointment. Paint and refinish work here carries a lifetime warranty for as long as you own the vehicle.
