Paintless dent repair

[buck12]

The crack can occur during the repair.

I would carefully fill the crack with clear nail polish. This will help keep it from corroding inside.

Thanks for the tip. Would you apply the polish with the supplied brush?

 

[timswi]

The crack can occur during the repair.

I would carefully fill the crack with clear nail polish. This will help keep it from corroding inside.

Yup, even lightly razor blade the loose ends of the crack and apply some touch-up paint. If you don't that might haunt you later. Potential rust

Those guys do a nice job given the conditions they are presented.

I've done bodywork for decades and I watched the guy knock out some of my dings and I was amazed.

 

[ray66v]

Thanks for the tip. Would you apply the polish with the supplied brush?

Ideally, you would use a very fine tipped, quality brush.

However, you could use the cheap brush the nail polish comes with, take your finger and work it in to the crack, then take a clean rag with some acetone, or lacquer thinner on it, and in one, or two, gentle wipes, remove the excess.

A light polishing after the paint dries, will return any lost gloss.

 

[buck12]

Yup, even lightly razor blade the loose ends of the crack and apply some touch-up paint. If you don't that might haunt you later. Potential rust

Those guys do a nice job given the conditions they are presented.

I've done bodywork for decades and I watched the guy knock out some of my dings and I was amazed.

The edge is not loose. This guy did a great job.

 

[ray66v]

Your hood has galvanizing on it, so it is not going to rust anytime soon.

Being tri white, it gets pretty ugly if you remove any of the paint, and try to brush touch it.

 

[buck12]

Your hood has galvanizing on it, so it is not going to rust anytime soon.

Being tri white, it gets pretty ugly if you remove any of the paint, and try to brush touch it.

I think the hood is aluminum. Its an 09 F150.

 

[ray66v]

I think the hood is aluminum. Its an 09 F150.

Yes.

Sorry, I lost track of what vehicle you had.

That explains the crack. Aluminum has more give in it. You really have to apply a lot of pressure, to get it to bend the other way.

 

[timswi]

To do small touch-ups: A match out of the old school match books works better than any brush...Give it a try, you'll see what I mean.

Just put a moderate amount on the ripped end, the paper helps control excess paint. Used that method in car dealers for years.

 

[buck12]

To do small touch-ups: A match out of the old school match books works better than any brush...Give it a try, you'll see what I mean.

Just put a moderate amount on the ripped end, the paper helps control excess paint. Used that method in car dealers for years.

Thanks for the tip. I hate the brushes that come with touch up paint.

 

[dodge man]

I just had a paintless dent repair done on my new Challenger. It had sat on the lot since last October, and it picked up a door ding at some point. The dealer where I bought the car did it for free. It was just behind the passenger door, and he worked it out without getting behind it. Its not perfect, but its hard to find unless you know where to look.

 

[dodge man]

Kind of hard for me to describe but if the paint is intact and it’s more of a dent than a crease paintless dent repair is a better choice. In my experience it works better on dings, hail dents and such than larger dents.

 

[MossRoad]

We had a 2000 Impala that got caught in a hail storm. 3 hailstones lined up were 5.5", so 1.8" hailstones. Every piece of sheet metal on the car with the exception of the passenger side door skins had hail damage. I think there was something over 100 dings in the car! As I recall, the estimate to repair was about $4500 on a car that was worth $4800. The insurance company said we had to repair it.

They chose a paintless dent repair shop that they set up after the hailstorm (it was a large storm that damaged thousands of cars and hundreds of houses on a Father's Day).

Surprisingly, the car looked like new and you couldn't ever tell it was damaged.

They had to replace the fiberglass hood. Everything else was popped out. A few weeks after the procedure, the paint popped off the trunk lid, so they replaced that free of charge. That ended up throwing the cost well over the $4800 in damage, but hey, they paid for it.

We drove the car another 5-6 years with no visible indications that the procedure was anything but quality work. Never an issue. The only reason we sold the car was because it had 185,000 on it and the electronics started going wonky.

Hope that helps in your decision process.

Look for a quality shop that has good reviews.

 

[bigtiller]

A new-hire was late getting to work during a bad hail storm. Rather than wait it out, he tromped it, speeding past everyone on the road. When he got to work, his car looked like a giant golf ball, just as MossRoad described.

I couldn't remember his name, so I hollered "hail" to him and he answered back. Hail became his nickname after that.

 

[Fuddyduddy1952]

We were driving a new car to Ocean City, Md. a few years ago when leaving motel one morning a sea gull dropped an oyster shell on the roof leaving a bad dent. At home I saw dent repair on YouTube and tried it. I had a cloth in pail of cold water and heat gun. Heat area about 160°F then cool, heat, etc. Dent popped right out.

 

[Paystar]

My wife got hit from behind while stopped at a stop light in her new at the time Jetta.
While it was being repaired at body shop I asked them "can you fix the ding someone put in the door while it's here?" It was just a dent, with no crease.

To my surprise the body shop manager said "I'll call this guy that does paintless dent repairs. He can come right here and do it while we do our job. You don't want us to do it because any dent starts at $500 and this guy will charge you $80.

Number one I was shocked that a body shop didn't try to rip me off for the job!!!

Number two, it came out perfect. But like I said it was the kind of dent with no crease.