Dent repair advice

Our car suffered a bit of a dent thanks to clipping a handrail at a supermarket car park (the sort which enclose the trolley bays), and I would appreciate some advice about how to go about getting it fixed.

Pictures of the damage can be found here:

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I approached someone who does mobile paint repairs and paintless dent repair (PDR) and he didn't think it would be suitable for normal PDR techniques due to proximity to headlamp (apparently they need something strong to level off), suggesting that welding studs on would be necessary - which presumably requires taking back to bare metal. He can arrange this work if I want to go ahead with it.

Does this sound realistic, and if so, what's the best place to get this sort of work done, and the sorts of prices associated with this? The normal mobile paint repair sounds great if metal is not exposed, but if it is, are they still really suitable - or are other paint methods better? I don't want it rusting through in the future for example.

Many thanks

David

Reply to
David Hearn
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David Hearn wrote on 27/10/2009 :

The paint is badly damaged so the PDR cannot be used. PDR only works where there is just a dent, which can be pushed back out.

Reply to
Harry Bloomfield

Bollocks. More like that its a proper repair and he knows mobile PDR bods are nothing but bodge and wag over merchants.

Take it to a proper bodyshop. Its not an expensive repair. I'd be surprised if there weren't change out of £150.

Reply to
Conor

Double bollocks. I got a PDR bloke to repair little dents all over a Renault Espace last year and watched the bloke do it. He got every single dent out without using filler, paint or any other 'bodge', the bloke was supremely good at it, and it worked out over £700 less than the cheapest quote I'd had to get the dents out from a 'proper' bodyshop (the car had pearlescent paint) it was worth a go. He did it in one morning and the only tell-tale that he'd been near the car was a little rubber grommet in the D post / rear 1/4 where he had to drill a hole to get his dent removal gubbin in to an area that was otherwise inaccessible.

The only thing the bloke did that could almost be called a bodge was to give the car a full polish with colour magic once he'd finished.

Reply to
Pete M

It happens that Pete M formulated :

Fine for dents, but this is a dent and paint scraped off.

Reply to
Harry Bloomfield

As alawys it's horses for courses. However you shrink that out/fill it =

you're going to have to paint it afterwards though.

Reply to
Duncan Wood

Harry Bloomfield gurgled happily, sounding much like they were saying:

Which does kinda suggest that PDR is not the right route. Remind me what PDR stands for?

The reason the PDR techniques don't work where the paint's broken is nothing to do with whether they can/will paint or not - but everything to do with how the metal's bent. A bend that cracks or removes paint has stretched or creased or both the metal. The PDR techniques can't address that.

Reply to
Adrian

He didn't even paint it? OMG.

Give it a few years and it'll be a nice blister.

Reply to
Conor

hi...I think you should take it to a proper bodyshop. Its not an expensive repair. I'd be surprised if there weren't change out of £150.

Reply to
Floydford

Um, I'm not sure your post was aimed at me, but I suspect it may have been. Hard to tell.

Anyway, the car I'm talking about (the one I had completely sorted for £120) had dents on pretty much every panel which the paintless dent bloke sorted. I'm in the motor trade and quotes from the bodyshops I normally use weren't cheap as the car in question has pearlescent paint. In the region of £400 just to sort the dents on two of the doors and repaint them, as that would have left another five or six panels to sort it was going to get scarily expensive.

However, if you know a bodyshop that'll repair and completely repaint a pearly painted Renault Espace to 'as new' standard for under £150

*PLEASE* give me their number, I have two Rovers an Audi and an Escort that could do with some paintwork and I'll be more than happy to pay £150 each to get them painted ;-)

As it is, I think I did rather well.

Reply to
Pete M

Hi,

We are a taxi company Hummingbird Cars in London. We provide Airport Transfer service from all london airports. We are in need of having our cars Maintained and serviced regularly . Can anyone please advice us where we can buy best and Cheap Car servicing garage .

'London Airport Taxi Cab Transfer Service : Your Official London Airport Minicab Car Transfer Service: Airport Cab | Airport Taxi - Heathrow, Gatwick, BAA Stansted, London City, Luton'

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Thank you

tom

Reply to
tom240

Yes, and that wasn't a cunning peice of spam...4/10

Reply to
Paul

you can repair very small dents with just a soft hammer.if you aim for the center of the dent, it will reduce the chance of protrusions sticking outward from the hammer.

Reply to
finalecrom

finalecrom wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@autobanter.co.uk:

Ah yes. I remember that episode of Father Ted...

David.

Reply to
David Linley

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