Rust and body damage

I am not sure if this is the right place to ask but it's as close as I could find.

I drive a 92 civic and a while back someone bumed the rear wheel well and bent the metal part (just above the bumper, folding in the corner of metal). I let it go for a while because moneys short. Now it's showing sings of rust where the paing came off.

I want to fix this before it gets bad.

I need some advice.

The car is in ok condition, the hood has some scratches where a tall pickup backed into it and the rear left fender has a dent from probably whoever did the damage to the wheel well. Also the trim is slightly banged up along both doors.

I am thinking of a paintjob and having the body redone, but I only paid $3000 for the car so I do'nt want to drop $1500 into work on it.

I was considering one of the cheapy macco jobs or something like that, but I don't know about their body work and repair, or even their paintjobs.

So I would like to know if you guys recommend doing it the cheap way, going all out (actually it's not really much of an option, but if the cheapo way is more trouble than it's worth I will have to work something out I Guess) or try to buy some coverup and sand and fix the rust problem myself.

I am not terribly worried about how it looks, but I would really rather not have a primer spot, and it would be kinda nice if the car was actually shiny and clean looking.

Thanks for your advice. I live in north Cali, bout 50 miles north of SF so if you have recommendations of palces to go please let me know!

prep the body yourself, get you some bondo,primer, and some sand paper, lots of it, from low grit to really high grit. sand the hell out of the rust spots as much as you can with low grit sandpaper, if your lucky its only surface rust. then bondo it up, and sand it down really really good with some fine grit sand paper, you may even need like a block sander. then put a couple of coats of primer, then sand, then primer and sand again just incase. then take it to macco.

How long do you think it would take to do the prepping? We are talking about a rust spot about 3 inches long, and a cluster of small dents in a circle about 4 inches around. Also the paint on the bumper has spiderwebbed and come off in someplaces leaving a hole with lots of weak paint around it. Should I sand the whole bumper or what?

i would use a whole day to do it. you gotta wait for the bondo to dry and for the primer to dry. fix all the damage spots, call macco and ask if they prep the body before painting.

I believe a friend of mine told me they don't do any prep, they just tape off the glass and trim and spray over whats there, but I will double check (dont see how they can do a $250 paint job with over 2 hours of prep labor).

I will give this a try, I think the rust just set in a month ago or so so it shouldn't be too deep. Thanks!

you would think that the paint would chip off... id prep it before i took it there