Hi guys! This past New Year's Eve, some kind soul found it in his/her heart to put a dent in my mini's bonnet. It's in the middle of the bulge that runs down the middle of the hood, near the front grill. No paint chipping or anything - it almost seems like some rather strong/heavy person leaned on it. Has anyone attempted to pop a dent out from the bulge on their own? I looked under the hood, but there is some sort of mat on the underside of the hood that I would have to remove first, and I'm not sure if I can do that without damaging something.....Is paintless dent repair an option?

Any advice would be greatly appreciated!

 

Call Dent Wizard www.dentwizard.com or any other local paintless dent repair shop in your area. These guys can repair dings and dents in 30 minutes while you wait, at fraction of the cost of a body shop and no paint or other intrusive techniques involved!

Well worth the money. But a qualified PDR technician needs to see the damage before he can determine whether the repair can be done (or not) using PDR methods.

 

NEVER attempt to repair dents or dings on your own. PDR is a very skillful technique and takes years of training and experience to master. Attempting to fix a metal dent on your own can only make it worse. It is simply asking for trouble!

 

I hit a duck last year, just to the left of the hood scoop...... cost about $600 to get it fixed. (actually only $100... thats my deductible) They had to re-paint it

Nik

 

Ouch! Thanks for the posts guys. I'll have to check out one of the dent wizard sites in my area. Any idea on how much PDR costs? Money is a little tight for me at the moment. It's not a large dent, maybe 2" from edge to edge. That's why I'm thinking PDR would be the way to go...

 

A typical PDR dent repair can set you back anywhere from $100 to $200+ depending on how big the dent is and how difficult is to gain access to it from the back of the panel. Dentwizard prices their dent repairs according to length in inches. But this is something that can only be determined by having the PDR technician go over the dent, location, etc to come up with a price, but most importantly, whether it can be done or not using PDR methods. If you don't have any sort of paint damage, PDR is, in my honest opinion, the way to go in getting this blemish taken care of. If you take the car to a body shop, they are going to bondo (fill) the damaged area, sand down, primer and repaint. At least 4-5 days down time and a repair bill of $600 possibly more. When you have a dent or a ding in your car, always approach the problem from the perspective of the less intrusive way to repair it and then take it from there. A photo of the dent would be helpful in visualizing the extent of the damage. I do know that there are some folks here in NAM with some PDR experience that can give you a better idea as to what to expect.

 

I had my hood repainted a few years ago after a guy backed into me. I also had a dent that I got fixed in the process.

$80 to fix the dent
$500 to repaint the hood

I had to pay to fix the dent since it wasn't caused by the other guy, but they were going to blend my hood if I didn't and they said they would do a full respray, on the other guys insurance, if I fixed it.

 

I have used dent wizard on many cars when I lived in florida, One was a classic mini that got bashed in the boot on the boat ride over from UK, The guys are amazing (obviously each person will be different) I had a ding in a classic mustang bonnet where a screwdriver had fallen on it from the roof! of a shop it was stored at. I basically said there is no way in hell the guy could get it out, was not a shallow depression but a deep almost gouge type shape, He said to come back in half and hour and if I can find the dent I don't pay, he got it out.

The badly dented boot was about 99% perfect which was tons better than expected.

They usually charge 100 bucks a panel no matter how many dings. I.E. fender, Door panel etc. But that was over 5 years ago. Discounts were for dings on more than one panel.

 

post a pic?

 

Little late to report it to your insurance company now, they would be suspicious of why you waited so long... might call it a collision claim thinking you bumped into something.

But if you have a relatively low deductible on your comp coverage, you should have reported it because it would be considered vandalism or hit and run and your comp coverage would have applied.

Onto your question: Yep, if the paint is not damaged in any way, have it PDR'd. ClubmanS has made a good post regarding the benefits.

 

A few thoughts.... Being in the bodyshop business for 25 years and owning two bodyshops now, I can tell you these guys are steering you in the right direction. Paintless dentless removal is the way to go if you can do it.

ClubmanS hit it on the head with price and time. Do yourself a favor though. FIND A GOOD PDR guy.

I only use one guy. It's much like painters. Anyone can pull a trigger and put paint on a car but only a few I would call painters.

Anyway, get word of mouth referalls and find a good PDR guy.

Good luck, where are you located?

Mark

 

I had 2 little dents on my hood. PDR cost me $75 to fix. The hood should be pretty easy because its easy to get to the inside of the dent.

Before. I dent on the edge of the stripe, the other a few inches to the left.


after. I touched up the stripe with a sharpie

 

Wow! You guys are a great resource! Thanks! I'll post a pic tomorrow, when it's sunny, so everyone can take a look at the damage.

It's funny, for some reason, I didn't even think about using my insurance to cover something like that. I just assumed that PDR would be the cheaper way to go, because I think my deductible is either $500 or $1000. Oh well.

It's weird, though, because the way the dent is situated, it almost would have to have been caused by something from above, but gentle enough to not even scratch the paint. I'm still perplexed as to how that could happen...but I guess crazier things happen in cities all the time.

Oh, and I'm located in the northeastern Philly suburbs. When I used the store locater on the Dent Wizard site, the closest match that came up was at the Landrover/Jag dealership right around the corner - but they only do it for Landrovers and Jaguars The next closest ones were at local Fred Beans dealerships in Doylestown - not a mini dealer, but it didn't say that they restricted their work to cars from their dealership. Anyone ever take a mini for dent repair to them?

 

Oh, and asodestrom, your car looks great! I hope mine turns out that well, and is as inexpensive to fix as yours was!

 

Okay, some education....

When you see a Dent Wizard at any dealership, that means DW negotiated a contract with them to be at their dealership. Typically (I said typically) DW puts good guys at the high end dealerships. (jags, lexus, etc)

One of my bodyshops does a lot of work for a Lexus dealership and all the work for Acura.

Point is, one of the dealerships uses DW, the other has a PDR guy on site. He is not part of DW.

HE SUCKS. Your dent may be easy so any decent dent guy could do it but I'm **** as heII wouldn't personally take that chance.

Point of this lesson, if you are going to use DW, make sure you find one at a high end dealer (ferrari, porsche, etc) not your local ford or chevy dealership and not at a DW location. (the newbies train in house and then start working at the location before they go out mobile or to a dealership)

HTH's,

Mark

 

Orangecrush - I'm not sure I understand what you aree saying completely. I can find a DW guy at a high-end car dealership - but the only ones listed on the DW site say that they only work on the cars that are sold by that dealership. The Doylestown PDR guys that came up on the DW site search AND that don't restrict themselves to models sold by that dealership are a Nissan dealer and a Ford(or Chevy? I can't remember). But you recommend AGAINST going to one of those? It seems like I'm out of luck then

Anyway, I'm having some trouble posting pictures of the dent - I can't attach them for some reason. And now that I just got back from the car wash, I noticed that it only really stands out when the bonnet is dirty, or at night when reflected light bends around it. I may just let it lie for a little while longer, but I sincerely appreciate all the help everyone has given me!

If I manage to figure out how to attach the pics, I'll still post them for everyone to see.

 

Upload the pics to your personal gallery and then link them in your post:

*[img]www.yourphoto.com[/img]*

Asterisks are used so you can see the command line syntax.

 

I'm sorry... I wasn't trying to be confusing. I'm not saying that the guys at Nissan/Ford/Chevy dealerships aren't any good. I'm simply saying that DW as you can understand would send their better techs to a dealership that sells 100K plus dollar cars as opposed to a dealership that sells 30K dollar cars.

Simply said, find someone relying on word of mouth.

Being in the bodyshop business as long as I have, I have seen my share of paintless dent repair that looks like crap and then needed paint to fix correctly.

Hope that cleared things up.

Mark

 

Ahh, ok, now I understand about the dealership/ level of PDR espertise thing. Thanks for explaining it again!

Ok, here are the pics. It's really hard to see in daylight, when the car is clean, but it shows up a lot more at night, with the way lights reflect off of it. It's really not as bad as I thought it was, though (I kinda stopped looking at it for a while, because it made me depressed). Anyway, I'll try and get a night shot of it too tonight, weather permitting.

 

That is very odd because when I got my pw cooper the day after delivery I had a dent that looked exactly like yours! Cost me $60 through the dealer to get it fixed, I have NO idea how it happened.

 

Looks like a good candidate for PDR !

 

I agree... definitelty a PDR job.... and not to belittle the damage but it looks pretty minor.

That's great if you have to have a dent, that would be the one to have.

Good luck getting it fixed.

mark