I'm taking suggestions on how to remove a nice dent some jerk put in to my driver side rear quarter panel just behind the gas cap. The idiot decided to drive into reverse at full speed and ram into me as I was turning left. It took great effort to not rearrange his facial tissue. He was driving a Mercedes SUV too. Another reason to bitch slap him. Back to the issue at hand. the large dent as you can see by the picture attached needs to be popped out. Should I just beat it out with a 2x4 and a mallet or is there another proven method to remove the dent without spending a small fortune on tools. Body shops want to rob me blind so I decided to give body work a try myself. Any suggestions are welcome.

 

The metal is stretched so it's not gonna pop out.
You could beat on it and get it back close then use body filler to smooth it out, but that's iffy at best. with the body lines and compound curves it will take some time to get it right. Then there's always the possibility if it cracking and falling out also..

Correct way would be, go to a junk yard and find a rear quarter panel to cut a patch panel from.

 

An experienced body person could bring it back close to original, but as DySfUnCtIoNaL mentioned a thin coat of filler would be needed to make it perfect. If you don't mind a little filler you could go that route, but (imo) it's not a job for someone with little or no experience. I'd just replace the entire panel. If the other guy backed into you, why isn't his insurance picking up the tab to have it repaired?

 

To answer the why isn't the other guy paying, I went to a body shop to get an estimate and the cost was over $3k, his insurance wouldn't pay that since my truck's book value is less than that. I originally wanted a new panel, but they only payed 1500 and I was in the middle of a move from that state I decided to take what the final offer was, due to incurring costs of the move. I decided that I would eventually fix it myself no matter how much it cost. Maybe cutting out the bad and piecing in a straight piece is the best and least expensive way to solve this. Thanks guys for the advice.

 

I am thinking of trying to pound some of it out first though 'cause I hate looking at that dent every time I walk by it. She was pristine for the whole time she has been mine. A whole new quarter panel is about $700 or so. Then the cutting of the factory welds. If it was a bolt on it would have been something I could easily have done with little trouble. Oh well another challenge faces me.