Paintless dent repair/removal : review

Ronin · 06-06-2002

During this past winter, several icicles fell from my roof right onto the hood of my car during the spring thaw back in March. Wasn't a big drop, but since the sheetmetal on our cars is so soft, the ice made about 15 little dents about the size of a nickel all over the hood. Man, I thought I was screwed for a $300 - $500 dent repair and paint job. And I couldn't ignore these dents ... they were impossible to miss, especially in sunlight ... and cleaning and waxing my car just made them show up even more [IMG]i/expressions/face-icon-small-mad.gif[/IMG]

Good thing was, the paint was not broken and not scratched by these dents. So a friend suggested I try something new they heard of called "paintless dent repair". And after searching for 5 days, I finally found these guys who provided this service here in Ottawa.

I called them yesterday, and today they (2 guys) came right to my place of work and fixed all my dents in around 1 hour during my lunch break. I couldn't believe it... it was like the dents were never there. Looks like new again. They used these special tools to reach under the hood and push out the dents. I was so satisfied, I even gave them a $10 tip.

They generally charge $100 per panel of your car, and since all the dents were on 1 big panel (my hood), they charged me only $100. It was worth it, considering that I probably saved $200 - $400, not to mention that I would've been without my car for several days if it was in a paint shop.

If you can find this service where you live, I highly recommended it. They do warn you though, that they can only restore the damaged surface to its original condition if your dents are reasonably small, and have not formed a crease line, and have not broken your paint's surface.

Anyways, hope this recommendation will save some fellow members a bit of cash (and heartache!) later on.

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lemoncivic · 06-07-2002

This is true. Great way to go. I see the NISSAN dealership by my work every day had one of those guys come in to work on the lease returns. These guys have all kinds of weird double ended plungers and special tools. Pretty funny to watch them but, the results are good. Although, anything like a dent on a creased area of the panel or dents that have a line in them they can't fix. It's basically good for the mild door dings and hail/acorn damage. FU¢KING A¢ORNS!!! Definetly worth the cash and you don't have to worry about BODY SHOPS screwing up.

I would say if you're gonna have a door ding fixed you may want to wait becuase in all likelihood you will get more door dings and if it's all on the same door panel...it's still one price.

2001CIVICLX · 06-07-2002

Yep, this is the way to go...I had some paintless done on my rear quarter panel because some idiot leaned against my car just in the wrong spot and created a nice dent...came out perfect....Looks great now...

02CivicEX · 06-07-2002

I had this done 3 days after i bought my car (2 dents). Looks like new!! highly recomend this if your paint isnt broken
dealer paid for mine

I told them they missed a few dents when they looked over the car

VNlilMAN · 06-08-2002

i've heard they charge per panel because of how hard it is to get into but what if you only have one dent on your hood. i mean all you do is open it and you could reach it, how much would that cost? and anyone know that could fix it in the LA area?

Ronin · 06-08-2002

I'm not sure if this "per panel charge" is the way all of them charge for this type of service. But they did mention that quite a bit of the work involved is simply accessing the location behind the dent... so it kinda makes sense for them to charge by the panel. I'm sure if you only have 1 or 2 dents, you can work out some kinda deal with them.

As for searching for this service, try looking for the keywords "paintless dent repair or removal" on the internet, or check your yellow pages. Or try calling dealerships around your area (any dealership), since they tend to use this service a lot for their new cars which come in damaged, or on their used cars before they re-sell it.

The guys I found had no advertising at all. They do all their work through word of mouth, and they are still busy as hell. I finally found them after calling several dealerships myself, and asking if they used this service.

Or, you could even try calling regular body repair shops, since a lot of them are now training their staff to provide this new service. Just ask if they do paintless dent repair.