Car Looking A Little Worse For The Wear? Flatten Those Dings With Paintless Dent Removal

If your car has one or two little dents in the panels, you might be putting off having them repaired because you don't want to spend a lot of money fixing aesthetic problems. Even if you don't have a problem spending the money, perhaps you're too busy to lose your car for several days while it sits in the shop getting fixed. If you're faced with these concerns, you might be overlooking a quick and inexpensive option to fix your car's minor damage: paintless dent removal.

When Is Paintless Dent Removal A Good Choice?

Typically, the shallower a dent or ding is, the easier it is to remove without delving into an extended repair process. This is due to the malleability of the panel metal of your car. Deep dents, even if they aren't very wide across, stretch the metal so much that it sometimes can't be simply pushed or pulled back into shape. On the other hand, dents only one or two inches deep can usually be paintlessly repaired even if they are several inches wide.

The majority of everyday panel damage is small enough to be remedied with paintless dent removal, or PDR. Dents and dings caused by hail storms and doors bumping into each other in parking lots are no problem for a skilled mechanic. Small damage caused by sports balls, like basketballs hitting your car in the driveway or a stray golf ball bouncing off of your hood are also usually not a problem.

Unfortunately, if your paint is chipped or cracked, having the dent pushed out will not fix your paint job. However, it can provide an inexpensive repair option if you aren't bothered by small damage to your car's paint.

How Does PDR Work?

For a mechanic trained in PDR skills, some dents can be totally removed in a matter of minutes. However, the key to any successful PDR process is to be as thorough as possible.

First, using a bright LED light or a fluorescent bulb, the mechanic will identify the full shape of the dent or ding. This is done to locate the bottom point, and to get a feeling for the direction of force required to push the ding back out. 

Depending on the location of the damage, the technician will either remove any inside parts of the panel and push the ding out from the inside or pull it out from the outside with a specialized glue tool. Either way, the key to smoothly flattening the dent is to apply slow, even pressure to the lowest point.

Once the majority of the dent is fixed, your mechanic will tap any remaining bumps or uneven areas back into shape. In nearly all cases, the process takes less than two hours and results in a panel that appears to have never been damaged at all.

What Are The Benefits Of Choosing PDR?

PDR is significantly less expensive than traditional repair procedures both in material costs and in service fees. Because your car does not have to be repainted, you won't need to pay for any additional paint. Plus, avoiding the hassle of sanding down damaged panels, applying new paint, and waiting for it to dry can drastically cut the number of service hours for which you're liable to the mechanic.

You can also have your car repaired much more quickly by choosing PDR instead of a full paint removal and new paint job. Full body work can take as long as 3 days in some cases, while a paintless fix rarely ever takes more than two hours.

Paintless repairs also help to preserve the resale value of your car by allowing you to stick with the factory paint job. If you want your car to be authentic, you can't afford to skip PDR whenever possible.

Best of all, you can still get a warranty on paintless jobs just like on full repair services. That way, if anything goes wrong, you don't have to deal with a headache in the future.

Don't let your car go around town looking beaten up. You can get body damage undone quickly and inexpensively if you choose professional mechanics experienced in paintless dent removal techniques like The Dent Guy. Once your car looks as good as new, you might feel a little more confident when you go for your next cruise.


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