Evaluation of your hail damaged vehicle? The first step to performing a dent repair without using paint involves assessing the dent itself and determining if a paintless dent repair is even possible. According to most experts, 80 to 90 percent of dents can be repaired using PDR techniques. However, there are a certain percentage of dents that are impossible to repair without following it up with a paint job. The following types of dents usually fall into this “non-PDR” category: Very deep dents – Even very large dents can be repaired using PDR if the dent is fairly shallow. However, if a dent of any size is pushed in too far, the metal can’t be bent back into place without damaging the paint and requiring repainting.

So, we’ve explained what the procedure looks like — assuming it was done properly. And as you could probably guess there are a lot of ways an amateur or first-timer can get it wrong. It’s different than most other car repairs because it’s not about mechanical prowess; it’s more about control and the ability to maintain a steady hand and a gentle pace. You can’t rush it. The problem is, once a sheet metal repair starts to go awry, you’re usually much, much worse off than if you’d just left it alone. Metal holds its shape, but only to a certain point. Let’s say you get a dent in the hood — nothing too drastic, just a shallow, even dent with no sharp creases in an area that’s pretty easy to reach. You think it’ll be easy to pop it out on your own, so you begin to massage the underside while holding your shaping tool in place. You’ve made good progress so far, and a casual observer wouldn’t even notice the flawed area. But it’s not exactly perfect, and since it’s been fairly easy to this point, you decide to keep massaging the area to make it flawless. After a few more minutes of massaging, you realize that you’ve pushed it just a little too far. And now you’ve got this flabby area on the hood where you stretched out the metal. And there’s no easy way to shrink it back down. Keep going and it’ll stretch even more. Lesson learned.

1st let’s start with some car paint care recommendations: Clean the Car. One of the most important things you can do to maintain the exteriors of your car is to wash and shampoo the vehicle regularly. Commercial power washes are also beneficial if you use them every few months. Make sure you keep a good distance between the surface of the car and the pressure jet, so you don’t damage the paint. If you’re unsure you could get it done professionally.

We recommend going to a professional repair service to avoid a lot of extra costs. Meet EvidentPDR in Colorado. Ben Lincoln has been working on cars since childhood and found a passion for Dent Repair at an early age of 15. Not many find their calling in life so quickly, let alone in the dent repair industry. After identifying his passion, he harnessed his talents and became the 256th person to become VALE Master Craftsman certified in the world (there are only ~600 as of July 2018). During the last 12 years he has assembled a veteran team to share his vision: To deliver the best workmanship, relentlessly focusing on customer service, and going above and beyond expectations to make sure every customer is proud to do business with Evident PDR! Discover extra info on Auto dent repair Colorado Springs.

For dents that are fairly small and not deep, a dent repair kit may be an inexpensive and simple solution. These kits are available at any auto parts store and tend to be very user friendly — instructions are always included. The best part is that they usually cost under $40. Most include several stems for various sized dents, a glue gun and a knockdown tool. You may be surprised at how well the kit works and how professional the result looks. We don’t recommend this kit for large, deep dents — you might cause even more damage trying to fix those with a kit.

If you can not expose your car to the sunlight, you can use a hair dryer instead. Just aim the hair dryer to the areas you want to fix, and wait until the dents even out. The ideal distance between the hair dryer and the car should be 2-4 inches. While using a hair dryer, there should be an interval of 2 minutes. If the car’s paint starts discoloring, you should stop applying heat right away. Use a rubbing compound or wax to revise the paint color.

Instead, save yourself some of that hard-earned money and do it yourself. There are plenty of ways to get a small dent or ding out of a vehicle at home without ruining your paint, and you don’t need to be a gearhead to do it. However, not all of these tricks will work on your particular automobile; your mileage may vary depending on where the dent is and what your body panel, hood, or bumper is made of (aluminum, carbon fiber, plastic, fiberglass, steel, etc.). For instance, aluminum has little memory properties, so paintless dent removal is much more difficult.

I don’t care if you wash your car yourself (more on that strategy later in this page) or you take it to a quality car wash. (Yes, not all car washes are created equal) This is not an option as dirt is your #1 enemy when it comes to the finish on your new car paint. And this doesn’t mean once every 6 months whether it needs it or not. This means regularly and consistently. (A minimum of once a month…minimum!)