Vehicle wraps & decals ? 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.
First, you have to pick a proper tool kit. And that’s not easy for a user who has little clue what’s going on. Some of them are cheap — low prices should raise red flags. Others are so expensive (three-figures or more) that they’re probably right up there with the cost of a decent professional repair (although, to be fair, if you buy the kit you can perform multiple repairs). Many of the high-end, expensive tools are intended to be used along the inside of the panel, much like a pro would do. (Gaining access to the inside of body panels can be a chore, though, and often involves careful removal of multiple interior trim pieces.) Alternatives (which tend to be the less expensive kits) flaunt the conventional wisdom that small dents should be massaged back out from behind the painted surface. These options instruct the user to glue a tool to the dented surface and then twist or pull on the tool to pop it out. True, you can go buy the same tools as a pro, but it takes a lot of skill and experience to use them properly.
Only three things in life are certain: death, taxes, and getting a dent in your car or truck. Even if you’re as careful as possible, you can’t always account for runaway shopping carts, wrongly thrown footballs, out-of-nowhere light posts, and other real-life annoyances. However you got your dent or ding, the next thing on your mind is, undoubtedly, how to get it out. Sure, you can take it to a body shop or friendly neighborhood mechanic for repair, but their price quotes can be unbelievable, especially if they want to remove the paint first or use body filler. $200 for that tiny dent?! I don’t think so.
Applying dry ice to the dent is an effective way for fixing hail damage. The huge change in temperature can force the dents to pop out. Everything for you to do is just moving the dry ice around the damaged area to cool the area rapidly. But be careful as dry ice will damage your skin if you don’t wear gloves when handling it. Fixing hail damage by dry ice can be a cool solution, but sometimes it can not remove all of the dents. So in this case, you will need to do additional repairs.
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.
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! See more details on Paintless dent repair.