It has been about a year since I got my car and when I bought it it had a substantial amount of door dings and some hail dents. I know of the dry ice technique but I heard that with old dents the metal will just sag back down to its orgional place. So how can I go about removing them without taking it to a pro or removing alot of paint? It will be quite some time until I get a paint job.

 

Any ideas?

 

Have hail recently?--If you did, talk to your Ins.Co. &
tell them you found some damage.I never had it, so that's
all I can offer.
Some ppl are good at " massaging " door dings.
Door panel most likely has to come off to tap them out,
unless you get something like the " as seen on TV dent puller "
It has suction cups & a handle-- put the cup on the dent, turn
the handle, & like magic, it's gone! LOL!!
I never used one of them either. Maybe an auto parts store may
have them, or something like WalMart??
Good luck!!

 

in 1998,my car was in a nasty hailstorm-got some dings
windsheild broke,some"bruises"on my SMC hood...
(the 'ol third was pretty tough-some cars parked next
to mine came out far worse)
Anyhow 9yrs later got around to fixing the roof dings
(i had the headliner out for a recover) hammer and
dolly work took care of most of the dings,a section of
an old jeans leg filled with BBs came in handy too.
There was one nasty dent that was stretched and was
"oilcanning",so i heated the spot from underneath and
pushed an ice cube against while red hot to shrink it
back-did this twice then perfect!

 

What did you use to heat up the dents? I could probably do that for the ones on the hood because someone removed that material from inside the hood already but I'm not quite comfortable with pulling car apart unless I'm sure I can put it back together. UNless anyone knows how to pull of the panel? Do this dent pop out things actually work because if they do it would be well worth the money to go get one. If they do that would be nice because I got a pretty decent sized one on my quarter and some more small ones on the rest of the car. Also when the insurance company checked the roof after the hail storm ( said it wasnt enough damage to fix) the guy asked about my car and I showed him the dents and he just shrugged it off and walked away. I guess thats how some people say no. But then again.

 

A propane torch was used

 

Nice! I have one of those laying around somewhere.

 

My wifes car got hailed on this summer and I bought a paintless dent hammer to try to get some of the dents out. I got some of them completely out so it may be something to look into depending on how bad your car is. If you get one be sure to buy extra pull tabs as they seemed work best before multiple reuses.

The worse dents are a lot better but you can still see them; however, it doesn't look like it was parked on a driving range anymore and is tolerable. The hail was bad enough to crack the paint on some of the dents (which I left alone) and also broke the windshield and sunroof so it was dented up pretty bad. I did have some trouble when trying to tap the dents back down and popping the dent back in.

It certainly isn't perfect but for the ~$140 I spent I am happy.

edit: I just saw you were from NE. The hammer may not be a bad option since it will probably get hailed on next spring anyway.

 

So again do one of these things actually work?
http://www.autozone.com/autozone/acc...ier=540148_0_0_

 

Has anyone tried the above product or anything similar because I dont want to spend alot because I dont have alot.

 

That Autozone thing is quite a bit different. I did use one of those to get a drunk bicyclist's head imprint out of the back of my disco years ago though.

What I am talking about is more like what an autobody shop uses where they drill holes hammer them out and fill the holes. This looks like the updated version of what I got

http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/PAINT...5fPartsQ5fGear

If you were closer I would just let you borrow it (I am in western NE).

Again, I didn't get the majority of the dents out completely but it did make significant difference. So I guess it depends on how bad your dents are, what you want to accomplish, and how much time you want to spend messing with it. They also make various slides that you put through your panels to pop the dents. Search paintless dent removal tools on ebay and you will see them. Look on youtube as well, but don't believe everything you see there. If you try the dry ice method you can use a heat gun to get it hot, just don't ruin your paint by getting it too hot. The ice should squeal when you apply it. FWIW I didn't have good luck with this but I was also afraid to get the paint too hot.

I guess it is really a gamble if you don't have too much to spend, but I certainly understand where you are coming from.

 

So did that autozone thing work for you well if so how good did it work (remove the dent, leave little dimples still, or what)?

 

Do not use the autozone dent puller or any of the "As Seen on TV" gadgets. They do not work. They are designed to be used like a bridge. The problem is that while they are pulling up in the center, they are pushing down on the other 2 feet causing new dents. Save your money and pay a paintless dent removal guy to do the work.

Dry Ice doesn't work either. By heating the dent, then cooling, you are temporarily shrinking the dent, but you are also causing the paint adhesion to loosen. Also, with the Autozone tool, what do you do when you lift the dent too high and you now have an outward dent? Metalwork is a skill and an art. Not just anybody can pick up a hammer and bang out the dents. I can guarantee you that I will be able to see everywhere a dent was if you hammer it out yourself or use one of these dent tools without proper training and proper tools.

If you plan on keeping the car, do it right the first time and find a reputable dent person in your area. Don't just find the cheapest guy, because he could be the guy that removed a single dent from a car and thought it was easy enough to make money at.

 

So even if I buy one of those fancy dent removers it wouldnt be as good as if I were to pay someone to do it? Ok since I should get a professional how much do they normally charge for a pro to do it. Like are there certain businesses that do a good job and if so where? Also do you want to trade IROCs? Ours are both the same year and engine, yours might be a little (ok alot) nicer than mine but they are essentially the same.

 

The dent puller you buy is similar to what the pros use just like the commercial used to advertise. The difference is that my puller cost $350, I know how much to pull and use a different glue. That cheap tool glue will hold too long and overpull the dent or releases too soon and leaves you with a smaller dent. There really is a technique to doing this and can't be learned with an instruction sheet from a box.

Getting this fixed correctly will definately cost more than the $39 or whatever the cheap tool costs. You get what you pay for in most instances. A dent guy will charge you based on the size of the dents, the quantity of dents and the location. A good dent guy will raise the damaged area of the dent to be flush with the rest of the panel. Also, metal is like water. It displaces. When you get a dent, the metal "waves" like water and for every low, there is a high somewhere. The "good" dent guy will fix this by lifting the lows and tapping down the highs. The cheap tool doesn't do that for you.

Where to find that dent guy is a good question. Look in the yellow pages for Dent Removal or ask around. I get a lot of business and I'm not in the phone book, so not all dent guys are in "the book". I'd recommend looking for the independent guy. Every dollar he makes goes in his pocket and his reputation is aligned to the work. The big chains, Dent Wizard, etc, pay the tech a percentage and you may not get the desired results. Best bet is to ask around the high end dealerships or at car shows.

 

So you're saying that I shouldnt take it to somewhere like Macco but instead find someone to do it or a smaller business to do it? My neighbor has a couple of friends in the body work business so I am pretty sure he could give me a name of some guy that could do it and probably get me a good deal. I'm thinking I will ask the guy that is going to do the majority of restoring his El Camino as soon as I figure out who that is.

 

To my surprise, my son actually used one of these and it worked amazingly well. Worth $20 to try it.

 

I've used the Ding King version with success . The thing about using them is to pull from the outside and work your way in and if you do it right you can get good results . If I had the money I would of paid a pro to do it as it is very teadious work going over a good size dent over and over until you get it out . By the way I left out a bunch of overs in the previous sentence as you can get the picture if you have a big dent you will be playing with it for a while and may need to buy more glue .

 

With my car though I dont have big dents in it. I would have to say that the biggest dent is about an inch in diameter and the rest are 3/4 to 1/4 inch in diameter. So dont have a big giant dent but instead a bunch of small annoying ones.

 

The Ding King or the other may have a head small enough for those but if not you couldn't use it to get them out .

 

I wasn't trying to imply that you would get professional results with trying it yourself. Like I said my wife's car isn't perfect but I made it tolerable for myself bearing in mind I am not going to put money into a hailed out car with 240K. Most autobody shops should do dentless removal (they do here anyway). Here in western NE there are tons of fly-by-night operations around after this summer but I would go somewhere local.

When I mentioned I got a dent out with that dent king I think I just got lucky. It was a larger fresh dent and it popped back out. This was also on aluminum so that may have made a difference. Generally speaking, it is waste of money IMO.

 

Its a waste of money having a pro do it or to buy the tools yourself and do it?

 

Does anyone have an estimate from what it would cost a shop to do and any links to tools that worked good for you?

 

Nobody can give you an estimate of hat it will cost site unseen. Again, every dent is different and their location is also. You need to have someone look at it to give you a real estimate.

 

I was referring to the ding king.

 

Couldn't agree more with scottmoyer.....both of us are dent guys and we have both probably tryed some of the "non quality" pdr tools, we know what works and what doesn't.

As far as cost's to get your dents repaired (hail damage) we go by a chart....it determines the size, what panel, and how many. If there are enough dents and are larger.....you might have over $200 in one panel. If there isn't very many, and they are small....it might only be around $75.

 

It seems I wont be able to afford dent removal and all the tools that are supposed to work apparently dont work. So I may have asked this before but has anyone removed there dents without going to a pro and without buying the cheap tools that dont work? Even if it didnt work perfectly go ahead and tell me anyway because I am running out of ideas!

 

If it doesn't work perfectly, then what's the point? You might as well just go start bangin' them out. My opinion is to do it right the first time or don't do it all. If you can't afford to do it, then save for it or find a way to earn some extra cash.

 

I guess I better call back Valentinos and Don and Millies along with the local bag and save and see if they will give me a job!