Hello
Some nice person has punched the back door of my new mercedes evito van whilst it was parked up .
Its on the side nearest the pavement , no damage to paint and its quite shallow and over reasonable large area . Single large soft dent no point impacts
Reports of a “drunk” cyclist riding straight into the back of it are there from an extremely unreliable and inconsistent witness but its about head height and could conceivably have been cause by someone’s head or shoulder .
I’m tempted to have a go at popping it out myself . I can get the interior wood panel off the back door and push the dent out or get a suction cup and an slide hammer. There are a lot of tutorials on youtube but the pros say just pulling the dent isn’t enough as you’ll get “crowning” around the dent that needs to be tapped out to relieve the tension in the metal cause by the dent .
Should I give it a go or get a pro in ( I really don’t want to spend £200-500 if its something I can feasibly fix myself .
All opinions gratefully received
My recommendation based on experience is to find someone skilled in "Paintless Dent Repair"
I have had some tricky dents removed from a variety of cars and after 20 minutes work you can no longer see where the dent was. (None of these dents caused by me I might add!)
Not had any repairs done for about 3 years but my last bill was around £70 and the work was done on my drive.
Not all PDR operators are as good as others, so get a recommendation first if possible.
Good luck!
Echo the advice given above.
You'll need a PDR guy (or girl); and expect to pay no more than £100 (assuming it is as you've described).
Where are you? I can recommend one Guildford/Petersfield way.
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Originally Posted by jamiej
Looks like the OP is Ayrshire Scotland.
Indeed.
Had a look , took the interior plywood panel off and there is an inner panel in between so can’t access the dent from inside .
I guess a suction cup and slide hammer is still feasible.
There is also a very small impact dent I noticed higher up . I suspect I’ll get the pros in .
Thanks for the advice
Don’t people just suck!
I'd defo get the pros in.
If you attempt it yourself you may push the dent out too far and create a bigger problem than you started with!
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I’d ask around at a couple new car franchises, we always used the best guys who weren’t always the dearest.
If the dent is shallow with no creases, I saw a video of a guy using hot glue gun sticks.
He tied a few together with elastic bands and then melted the end of it before sticking it to the dent and pulling when cool.
Then hearing the end again to soften the glue to remove.
It may be width a try for a couple of quids worth of blue stick.
Possibly ... Or you may rip the paint off the car ... I'd tread carefully with this method
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100% get a PDR specialist in to do the job. Finding one that works for your dealers in your location would be a good place to start.
You can get a full PDR kit from eBay for £70/80 but you can’t beat the experience of a professional.
There are lots of tutorials on how to do this in various ways . The most common involves a syluction cup and slide hammer which to fair is what most pros will use to pull the dent out initially .
However you get “crowning” around the edge of the dent where the metal is most bent .
This creates a raised ridge in the metal because of the tension the dent has created , it normally needs to be tapped back in to release the tension.
I spoke to a pro : £360 he reckons and it will need respraying as the paint has gone “high” in a specific area. Which I assume means its delaminated from the metal underneath to a degree .
Just great . I can sort of understand the motivation for some people in keying or vandalising a sports car plaything as a symbol of conspicuous wealth but this is a panel van , its obviously for work.
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