paintless dent repair (1 Viewer)

[ikiru]

This past week's weather was unkind to me yesterday and I skidded across an icy bridge and bumped into another weather victim's car. Now I am left with a small dent just above my wheel well. It is a small dent, but my car is less than 2 years old and I am still in the stage where I still care about the smallest dents (scratches still bug the crap out of me).

I have heard about dentless paint repair. My dent is about 1 inch wide and pretty close to the edge of the car. I know it shouldnt be hard to get to. My deductable is $200 and from what I have read, a dent as small as mine usually wont go that high so I dont think Ill get the insurance company involved.

My question is, what are your experiences with PDR? How much did it cost? How long did it take?

Thanks in advance!

-ikiru

 

[Jeff_A]

PDR is much cheaper than a body shop. However, there are limitations. The dents must be rather small, if I remember correctly.

I had it done on my pick-up which had suffered some hail damage - 5 dents. It looked great and didn't compromise the paint at all.

Cost? PDR ($175.00) Body shop estimate ($675.00). I hope this helped.

 

[Andrew W]

I had an ugly door ding taken out and it was the best $40 I've ever spent on my car. Absolutely like it was never there. Heck, it would have taken at least $1000 in therapy to get over it!

 

[Andrej Dolenc]

I've had very luck with paintless dent removal, 2 times on 2 different cars. First one was on a Nissan Sentra where a neighbor backed into it pulling out of their driveway. The dent was pretty shallow, but mebbe 2 1/2 or 3" across. Fixed up with no major problems or big evidence of where the impact was.

Other was on the front of my BMW M3. As best as I can guess it, somebody with a trailer hitch backed into the front of my car and indented a small piece underneath the grille. Guy that came to the car races I organized works at a paintless dent removal place popped it out in a matter of minutes. There's still a few rub marks I gotta try and polish out, but considering how it was, and the fact he did it for free, it's pretty damn amazing.

Go for it!

Andrej

 

[BrianW]

In order to be able to take advantage of PDR, the following conditions must be true:

The paint must not be scratched, cracked, or chipped. Rub marks can be polished, sometimes to like-new condition, but chipping paint must be reapplied by a body shop.

The metal must not be creased. Severe dents where the metal is crinkled and creased can’t be removed with PDR. Also, deformation of the car’s frame will require more work than PDR repair will accomplish.

The dent must be accessible from the rear. For instance, if the dent is in the door, then the interior door panel must be removed in order for the repair technician to remove the dent. They will drill a hole (even a small hole is often enough for the tools they use) in the sheet metal if they have to (to reach the underside of the top layer of the hood, or trunk lid, for instance), but not where it would compromise the car’s structural integrity. For instance, they shouldn’t be drilling into the A-pillar to fix a dent since doing so would compromise the car’s safety during a rollover.

From what you’ve said, it sounds like you’re a good candidate for PDR.

 

[Henry Carmona]

So you still have to goto a body shop for this kind of repair?
You say that the metal cant be krinked, i have a tiny dent where someone opened their friggin car door on my door. Its just a very shallow verticle line, about 1 1/2 inches long. You think PDR will work?

 

[Steve Schaffer]

I work in the service department of a Toyota dealer that also has it's own body shop. We have the pdr guys out all the time to fix dings in the used cars, and they can do some really amazing things. You don't want to go to a body shop to get this, the pdr guys come to you in a van.
The ones we use all drive those early 90s GM shovel nose vans, the ones with the Saturn-style plastic dingproof bodies, so they never need pdr.