Need to Fix a Fender Bender? Use Your Cell Phone

A new business offers a service in which you can use your cell phone to get estimates from local body shops to repair minor dents and scratches.

Take a digital image of damages and send it to BodyShopBids.com. 

There are about 275 body shops that subscribe to the service, mostly in the Chicago area, said Brad Weisberg, founder and CEO of the online bidding service.

“We’ve come up with a whole new process,” Weisberg said Monday afternoon. “Before you had to drive around to different body shops to get estimates. Now you just e-mail a photo and wait for bids.”

Weisberg said he has been in business for about a year. So far the site has handled about 400 damage claims and issued about $1.5 million in estimates.

Brian Hirehert, owner of of , said he has been a subscriber for about a year. He added that BodyShopBids.com is a very, very small part of his business.

“I’ve had one job and about 15 bids from (BodyShopBids.com),” Hirehert said. “I found that people don’t want to use it to save money. They want it for the convenience.”

Hirehert pointed out that there are many cases in which he wouldn’t be able to give a fair estimate from a photograph. As an example, he said, a vehicle’s air-bag mechanism may be damaged during a collision. He'd have to see a vehicle with his own eyes to guage the full extent of the damages, especially after a more serious impact.

Weisberg agreed that his system only works for “fender benders,” or damages up to about $2,500.

Weisberg said he got the idea for his business after moving to Los Angeles in 2005. He found that his car had a dent after he came out of a restaurant.

Being new to the area, he didn’t know of any body shops and drove around looking for estimates.