Fender Dent

[Yellow Rose]

Small dent, oval shape, 1" x 3", about 3/32" deep. It is right on the "shoulder" of the RF fender, a few inches fore of the door seam, where the surface transitions from horizontal to vertical. My understanding with paintless dent repair, is that they insert a tool behind the panel and massage the dent out. But to do this, the tool needs to fulcrum against a hard pivot point. Behind the plastic fender liner, is there such a pivot point? Please, no sympathy comments. In my book those are reserved for death or illness of a loved one, not a car's fender, thanks.

 

[NCC-1701D]

maybe take it to your local "dentless" removal shops in town..they are pros and know what they are doing..must be worth the money without the pain and headache...

 

[Yellow Rose]

That is what I have planned to do all along; however, I first polled the audience to see if some else has had a dent repaired io this part of the car. So when I do go to one of the paintless dent repair shops, I will be a pre-informed customer with the knowledge of what can be done.

 

[Soichiro]

Andy I'm not sure they need a fulcrum point. I thought some of these dents can be pushed out directly. The trick is to push gently all over the surface area - if you push hard in the middle thinking it will pop out you will be disappointed. Ask me how I know this!

Good point about sympathy for a vehicle. Good luck, let us know what your experience is with the PDR folks.

 

[ANYTIME]

Andy,
I'll give you some tips on what to look for since I'm so far away from you. What you need to look for in your search for a PDR tech is experience, experience, experience(did I say experience?). Dealerships typically won't give up who they are using and the best place to start is your phone book under Dent as the first part of the name. Even big dent removal companies have newbies, so ask a ton of questions, because the end result varies from person to person. Remember, dents don't just pop out and if you chose the wrong person, you may end up with a pizza looking area that might send you straight to the body shop(Believe me, I see this all the time). You'll want to ask how long the tech has been doing this and if he/they can offer a 100% guarantee. You'll want to hear stuff like this; Sure, I'll be able to fix that dent and you won't be able to see it, ever. I myself work on customers cars, just like they were my own. Absolutely, no problem in fixing that dent, no worries. If you hear excuses from the begining like this; Yeah, I can make that look much better or most people won't see it. Then I suggest you run away, very fast. Accept nothing but perfection! Just look hard enough and you'll find it.
Take care and good luck,
John

PS, Most of the time, the criteria for fixing a dent using the PDR(paintless dent removal) method goes something like this: Dents the size of a baseball and smaller, as long as they are not thru a body line or close to an edge fall under the fixable range using PDR. Typically, these dents are caused by a ball, door or shopping cart hitting your car versus you hitting something or someone hitting you.

 

[ZR-1 NSX]

My black 98 NSX had a dent in the door that looked like a golf ball had been fired into the side of the car. I had 3 different paintless dent removal companies look at it and all were afraid to mess with it. I finally found a Dent Wizard guy who worked on the car for over 2.5 hrs and he completely eliminated any trace of the dent. It was scary watching him pry on the car, but the dent is undetectable and he only charged me $125 to do it. Best $125 I have ever spent. He was very confident he could do it, but did not realize that it would require so much time, but nonetheless he charged me what he originally said. I does take a fair amount of pressure to remove the dent, but it's just a matter of how big the dent is and how stiff the surrounding material around the dent is. I believe he actually enjoyed working on a exotic instead of the daily cookie cutter cars that make up 99% of his normal day.

 

[KGP]

I believe he actually enjoyed working on a exotic instead of the daily cookie cutter cars that make up 99% of his normal day.

I'll bet he did. If I were he I would have taken before after pic's to show prospects. People see that he has worked on an exotic and thier confidence goes up. Sounds like it was $125 well spent.

Good luck with the dent Andy.

 

[docjohn]

Andy,My local Dent Wizard has worked on dings within 5 inches of the door seam and has been sucessful atop the front fender.I found my guy from my local dealer.

 

[LJSB]

I've dealt with four different PDR techs. The first three were from National franchises and were poor enough that I never used them again. They stunk and left a bigger mess than they started with. Watch these guys because some like to drill holes to gain access to have a fulcrum point and leave behind little plugs where they cut in. Little pizza like damage is a very good description of bad PDR not to mention the damage to the INSIDE of the panel that can be done by a poor tech.
I found one tech that is a independent and has much more ability and uses a variety of techniques and tools to get perfect results with no panel butchery. He is very upfront when he come across a problem he feels he can't repair perfectly. The others were more than happy to say they could fix dents "perfectly" and then screw them up royally, and these were dings this fellow I now use would have got out in minutes. This fellow has patiently staightened out some very tricky damage well beyond the typical door ding. What I'm saying is that the talent and ability of PDR techs. vary. Do what Dr. John did and get a solid referral from a dealer who has used them often.