Paintless dent removal

[JKIDD]

Got myself a free hot melt glue dent removal kit & thought I'd play with it. 1 of the kids Elantras had a decent door ding. Not knowing what I was doing, I had at it. With some trial and error It actually worked pretty good.

 

[Dr.Jeff]

I bought some PDR tools to play with. They are the type that work on the dent from behind and push it back out (not the one that pulls it out from the outside like yours). I find it rather difficult to do....perhaps I should say to do it well. My difficulty is likely due to a lack of training and experience, but I'm also too impatient to sit there and VERY GRADUALLY work the dent out (using those tools is a extremely slow process). I'm more of a dolly and hammer guy. Plus it requires a very keen eye to precisely see the progress - kind of a art more than a science - and I'm not artistic.

 

[JKIDD]

I dropped my Harley (only 800 miles on it) & the bars hit the tank putting a dent right on the top radius on the right side. Dent Dr. wanted me to bring it to their office as a tank would be more difficult than thinner car body panels & the guy in the office was a Sr. tech. $99 bucks & if he couldn't get it out I didn't have to pay. I trailered it down since I removed the gauge on the tank to save money. He left it on the trailer & allowed me to watch him work. Scariest part is watching them use a pointy nylon stick & hammer to tap on the painted surface... About an hour later the dent was gone. If you really look at the right angle & you know it's there, you can see a slight flat spot. Nobody has ever seen it without me pointing it out. I couldn't have been happier with the result. I hear it take years to perfect the skill.

 

[Dr.Jeff]

I hear it take years to perfect the skill.

I agree. It looks easy enough but it really isn't.

I once had a PDR guy come to fix a couple of small dings on one of my vehicles. He was recommended to me by a friend that had used him and felt the results were amazing. Same as you, no charge if I wasn't happy. To be completely honest I did not care for the outcome; one ding was almost gone but still visible, another only partly gone, and a third may have actually looked a little worse afterword to me. Furthermore he did not have a plug to cover the hole he had to make to gain access for one dent....he told me to find something myself. I was tempted to tell him I wasn't going to pay anything but he only asked $60 for all three, so I paid it. I think this guy was new at it and used my vehicle as practice (so much for a friend's recommendations). But watching him work motivated me to buy the tools and have a go myself. However I'm as bad at it as he was.

 

[KBabcock]

About a year after I bought my WRX it got caught in a freak hail storm over a hundred dents on the car. Used a PDR I had used in the past. Took a week to get them all out $5000 insurance bill. The hood was aluminum and aluminum does not have metal memory like steell does so they have to massage out, very time consuming so they just replaced that piece. When this guy was done you couldn't see a single dent, guy did a fantastic job. Look brand new.

 

[carl]

I had some dents removed this way. Found the guy in the yellow pages (shows how long ago this was done!). A nice Asian man showed up with his English speaking daughter and got the dents out. It's actually a fascinating task to watch. It seems to be more art than anything else.

 

[KBabcock]

I had some dents removed this way. Found the guy in the yellow pages (shows how long ago this was done!). A nice Asian man showed up with his English speaking daughter and got the dents out. It's actually a fascinating task to watch. It seems to be more art than anything else.

You defiantly want a guy with years of experiences, with this type of work it makes a big difference.