Dents in the sheet metal of your car, no matter how small, can diminish the look of the car, and lower the value substantially. For many years,repairing a dent meant repainting the car after the repair. That is not always the case now, and paintless dent repair is becoming a popular option for many people with hail damage or parking lot door dings.
Understanding Paintless Dent Repair
Paintless dent repair, PDR as it is often referred to, is a method of removing dents from your vehicle, without having to repaint that vehicle after the repair is made.In the past, an autobody technician would strip the paint off the panel, work the dent out, and skin over it with body filler. That method would require the shop to repaint the area where the damage was.Today, a technicians uses some special rods and picks to push out the dent from the backside of the panel, which allows the technician to restore the sheet metal without the need for body filler and avoiding the dreaded repaint.
Can My Vehicle Be Restored With Paintless Dent Repair
How do you know if your car is a good candidate for paintless dent repair? The best way to find out is to take the vehicle to a shop that specializes in paintless dent repair. The tech will look the damage over, and tell you if the car is a good candidate or not.
The car needs to have steel or aluminum body panel for the technique to work and some flexibility in the paint. Dents that are extremely deep, have a sharp crease and chipped paint, or dents on a sharp body line may not be ideal candidates for the PDR process.
Hail Damage & Paintless Dent Repair
Hail damage is perhaps the most common damage that technicians repair with paintless dent repair. The damage is frequently on the roof, hood, and trunk lid of the car. Since those panels are somewhat flat, they are easier to work with and remove the dent using paintless dent repair.
The technician will remove the headliner inside the car to access the underside of the panel, but once that is out of the way, he can work each dent until he is happy with the progress, then move to the next one.Sometimes the dent is too deep to remove with PDR if the car was hit by a large hailstone, but even large dents can benefit from the technique. Pushing out the dents from under the panel can reduce the amount of body filler needed to make the final repair.
Hailstones large enough to produce damage of that magnitude often damage glass and other parts of the vehicle, so repainting is likely going to happen anyway, but saving some sanding and grinding can reduce the cost and repair time.
Superior Dent Solutions specializes in paintless dent repair. We can take a look at the damage on your car and give you a quote for the work right away. Come and see us today for a free estimate and we can answer any question you have.
