dodge man
Super Star Member
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.
Paintless dent repair
- Thread starter buck12
- Start date
- Views: 7038
MossRoad
Super Moderator
- Joined
- Aug 31, 2001
- Messages
- 58,182
- Location
- South Bend, Indiana (near)
- Tractor
- Power Trac PT425 2001 Model Year
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.
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
Super Member
- Joined
- Feb 1, 2006
- Messages
- 6,537
- Location
- central Iowa
- Tractor
- John Deere 2720 John Deere 3039R John Deere Z545R
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.
I couldn't remember his name, so I hollered "hail" to him and he answered back. Hail became his nickname after that.
MossRoad
Super Moderator
- Joined
- Aug 31, 2001
- Messages
- 58,182
- Location
- South Bend, Indiana (near)
- Tractor
- Power Trac PT425 2001 Model Year
Nice!
My wife and one of our kids was with me in our hail storm. We came out of a PetSmart in the east end of a strip mall, and heard this weird noise coming from the west. It sounded like pinging. PING PA-PING PING PA-PING PING PA-PING PING PA-PING PING
I looked over and saw a sheet of white coming right at us and saw all the hailstones bouncing off the cars and pavement! YIKES! It was sunny out! I yelled at my wife and kid to get into the car. As soon as we did, it hit us. We have a sunroof, so I told my kid to NOT sit under it or the back window and curl up against the sidewall of the car. Wife and I just ducked as best we could.
It was a whiteout! Couldn't see anything. Sounded like we were inside of a dryer full of walnuts! SO LOUD! What little we could see was all the leaves getting striped off the trees, branches on cars. Broken car windows. Car alarms. People running around like nuts. I bet that hurt! 5 minutes and it was over. The car was facing north, so the east facing side was spared the destruction. None of the windows cracked. That surprised me.
As we drove back to my sister in-law's house where everyone was for father's day, we saw car after car pulled over with blasted out windows. Plus the street drains were all plugged with hailstones so the roads were flooded. All of the trees in the median were stripped bare. The damage was a good mile wide and a couple miles long.
Sister in-law's house had the roof shredded. The west facing side of her house looked like someone took a giant shotgun to it. Couple hundred holes. They had Rubbermaid deck boxes by their pool. Toast! A covered gazebo. Toast! Every house in the neighborhood had damage to the west and south sides and the west facing roofs were all damaged.
Quite amazing, really.
Fuddyduddy1952
Elite Member
- Joined
- Aug 10, 2022
- Messages
- 3,078
- Tractor
- john deere
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
Elite Member
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.
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.
