So, I'm pumping up my wife's bike tires with the portable air compressor that vibrates like all get out. I had just done my daughter's and leaned her bike up against the lawn mower parked next to my MINI in the garage. The air compressor is vibrating so much that it causes my daughter's bike to topple over onto my MINI.


I reset the bike and check out the damage and, yup, there is a small ding about gas cap high and about centered between the gas cap and edge of the driver's door.


This is a small one, but it messes up the clean line when you sight down the panel. I always park in the extremities of parking lots, uphill from shopping cart cages, etc. I am so annoyed with myself for letting this happen and I need to set it right so that I don't have to look at it every time I get in it to drive.


I went to one local auto parts chain to look for a small suction cup to see if I could work it out myself. They only had a 6 inch cup, which I thought was too big but bought anyway. I went to the next place and asked the sales guy and he recommended the "pops a dent". I am leery of "as seen on tv" stuff, so I was still pondering it when the sales guy walked away and another came by to ask if I had any questions. I expressed my reservations and asked if he would take a quick look at my car and give me his opinion on whether the device would work or not.


He looked at and thought it wouldn't because there is a crease in the metal, or so he said. I don't see the crease, I only see the wave in the metal and there doesn't seem to me to be any crimping of the metal. I've attached a picture, but it was really hard to see when using the camera phone.


I thought about pulling the interior rear side panel to get at it and push it out from behind, but it looked like I was going to have to pull off almost all of the interior to get that panel off. I thought about pulling out the wheel lining to see if that would expose the space behind the panel to get some kind of tool in there to push it out, but I have no idea if that is even possible.


I also thought about taking the large suction cup and seeing if I could work it out from the sides of the ding. I generally have a light hand and like to creep up on things, so if this approach is possible, I feel I could do it. I just worry that this would not be a good method.


The final option is to try to find a professional to take care of it. I don't think it would be a huge job and I have no idea what the cost of it would be. I imagine I'll be in this situation again in the future and would really like to know how to deal with it myself.


What is the community wisdom on this?


(you can see the distortion in the reflection of the parking lot line that is towards the top of the panel)

 

Call someone like Dent Wizard or Fix-A-Dent and get a quote. They are usually at a dealership working on their stock. I had one done worse than that and I think I paid less than $70. The guy used a long rod to go inside the panel. There was a small part he could not get at so he drilled a small hole for access and then put an OEM plug in it and no one ever noticed the dent or the plug. Your dent looks very minor and should be easily repaired.

 

concur


generically what you are looking for is PDR, Paintless Dent Removal. Most body shops and dealerships will have a guy they work with but you may also find an independent (which may be the same guy) working out of his trunk and willing to do this in your driveway and avoid the markup the body shop or dealer applies.


Try googling it . . a lot of detailers either do this or know a guy ...


There is skill associated with this process so you might want to ask around ... and sometimes because of the location of the ding, they just can't get to it. I have a dent in a door right now that should be PDR friendly but sits on a reinforcement plate so 'no go'. I had a similar ding to yours on my 02S and a PDR guy made it totally go away.

 

Ok... I guess I should probably leave this to the seasoned professionals. I want all traces of it removed because it will bug me from here on out.

So, how do you determine if there is a support structure under the ding? I tapped around the ding area and it definitely sounded more hollow than other areas on the panel.

Thanks for the advise.

 

like I said, I had a problem in your same area and it came out.


My current ding is on the door right up near the opening for the glass and there is a reinforcement that gets in the way


IME I can't tell when it is doable or not .... the PDR guy I used for the current problem tried and when he could not work his magic there was no charge. Option is to go a full body shop route which I can do myself ... but I don't want to mess with the paint on a brand new car ... decided the ding is less painful then the angst of repainting the door. It is a 'tri stage paint': color then pearl then clear .... I got dive bombed by a stork at 70 mph ... wiped the mirror off the side which bounced off the door on the way to heaven...

 

I'm amazed what the PDR guys can do, but occasionally it's just not in an area that can be "worked"... If that's the case here, you can also try some heat with liquid CO2... I did this for a dent on my jeep, and was SHOCKED when it worked!!!

 

sorry for the video, it was just the first one I grabbed

 

I did a bit of asking around and was led back to the local MINI dealership (which is part of a larger dealership network in town) that has a guy come in to do this three days a week. He is supposed to be one of the best PDR guys in town.


I also took it by a local shop that has a fancy shop front done up to resemble a 50's gas station. They both said the same things, that it might be accessible through the wheel well, but they were more sure that they could get it by drilling an access hole through the door pillar. They can't get to it through the tail light because of the gas cap being in the path.


The MINI dealership wanted $99 for it and the fancy gas station wanted $150. I'm inclined to go with the guy at the dealership, but I'd prefer to have the hole in the wheel well since I wouldn't notice it every time I got in the car.


Again, the ding is about the same height as the gas cap mid way between the gas cap and the driver's door jamb. Anyone know the best way to access this?

 

Before having someone drill holes for PDR access, try pulling off the interior trim panel in the back seat and seeing whether you can get to the back of the dent that way. I had one in a similar spot on the other side sorted that way a few years ago i think.

 

Jeff,


I pulled out the Bentley manual over the weekend to get an idea of how to do that. When I tried to do it on my car, it seemed to me that I would have to pull out the almost all of the interior trim on the left rear half of the car, including the rear seats. It seemed to me that the panel that was needing to be removed was overlapped by one panel, which was overlapped by another, etc all the way back to the tailgate;


I felt a bit intimidated by that, but if there is a better method or a way to only have to take out the side panel, I'd rather do that than having a hole. Are there any walk throughs on doing this?

 

I think you're on the right track - it has been quite a while but I do think I had to pull the rear seats and at least one other trim panel to get the interior quarter off. It wasn't that hard, just took a while. That may be why some of the PDR guys would rather just drill a hole. I figured it was worth my trouble to give the guy the best possible access to the back side of the sheet metal so he could do the best possible job (and telling him that up front may have kept the price down slightly, I don't really know).

 

I had a ding removed from the same spot on my Clubman a couple weeks ago. Same height as the gas cap between the drivers door and gas cap, though it was a couple inches closer to the cap than the door. The ding was round, maybe 1/2" across, very shallow, and I am sure it was caused by another car opening their door into my quarter panel.

The detail shop I used normally charges $125 per panel, but they had scratched the glass on one of my windows when tinting it so they charged me cost, $65. It was a third party pointless dent removal guy that showed up. He's removed dings in 2 other cars I've owned.

After he was done I could NOT see where the ding was. It was perfect. It only took him 15 minutes and he did it all from outside the car. From where I was sitting I could not see him do the repair because he was on the far side of my car but i could see him crouching down a lot. Afterwards I could see two suction cup marks on the long side window.

Hope that helps. Definitely do PDR and leave it to the professionals. Preferably someone with experience. My guy has been doing it for over 10 years.

 

PDR will look like it was all done from the outside as they typically ARE outside looking at the dent while using rods to reach INSIDE to massage the dent out


The suction cup marks are usually from mirrors used to allow the worker to watch the progress from different sides.


Google PAINTLESS DENT REMOVAL TOOLS and you'll get the idea.


The holes they drill IME are small and in places like door jams or wheel wells and they cover with rubber plugs that make the hole look like it is factory (you may want to remove the plug & go over with rust prevent' paint if you are really an*l)


I may date myself by saying this, but in the days of "Zebart" rust proofing, they'd drill dozen of these holes and we paid extra to have it done!