Rep Power: 287

so we have stacked parking in my apt parking garage, and my roommate was parked behind me and the spots next to me were open. So i decided to drive forward a bit and back out by backing out through the open spots. upon straightening my civic, i heard a bang and i realized i clipped my front end of the car on a concrete pillar . so here is a picture of the damage. no bare metal is visible, but bumper is scratched up. so im wondering, is there a way to pop the dent out? im thinking about taking off the fender and cleaning off the white paint from the pillar then pound out the dent with a rubber mallet. becuase of the dent, its pushing on the headlight and right now the left headlight is aiming up a little. suggestions anyone on how to fix all of this as a diy?

 
Rep Power: 334

hmmm if ur headlight is pushing out u could have bent the brackets on the light. my suggestion is to just take the bumper and fender off. and look at the brackets and see if they are bent at all. and yes u most likely could pop that out. but the paint could crack upon doing this. id ask some of the guys on here who are alot better with body work than me.

 
Rep Power: 287

cool thanks, yea im pretty sure the brackets are slightly bent. the headlight is not really pushing out tho, but tilted up from the fender bending in.

 
Rep Power: 334

no problem glad i could help

 
Rep Power: 333

Looks like the bumper gonna need some touch up paint at the very least. The fender has a nice bend to it i'm not sure you can take that out w/o messing up the paint.......good luck w/ that

 
Rep Power: 287

im not planning to fix the bumper, i might just get a replacement bumper in the future since i have other damages on it when a hubcap flew off an oldsmobile 3 months ago and broke some of the fins on the bumper and shattered my foglight housing.

 
Rep Power: 318

damn that fender will cost u like 200 bucks at a body shop...its easy to fix ur self and get painted at a nominal fee...bumpers ur better off fixing or replacing

 
Rep Power: 334

ywah im sure u can get a fender off ebay and get it painted for cheap then just ride around with that instead of shelling out big bucks at a body shop

 
Rep Power: 287

thanks everyone. im not planning to go to the body shop for this since im not planning to sell my car. but yea, i might search around ebay for replacements if i cant pound out the dent or if i screw it up. i park at parking garages a lot, apt and work, so its bound to get dinged.

 
Rep Power: 582

thats really not as bad as it looks. its pretty easy to pop out actually. and then if you have some body hammers/dollys its not too hard to knock it out so its fairly smooth.

the paint is already damaged, but if you wrap the dollys/hammers in some leather or something that would cushion the impact a little, you shouldnt do any more damage to the paint.

i dont know how much a shop will charge you to fix it though.