paintless dent removal
 

so a shopping cart decided to charge my passenger door while i was shopping (actually walking back to the car, i saw it happen from a distance). it made a nice little ding. has anyone had experience with paintless dent removal? good or bad? can anyone recommend a place in florida? thanks.

Works great on small dents, not so much near a crease (they're tougher to smooth out from behind) and the paint has to be intact otherwise the PDR tech won't do it.

The only downside is if the dent is in a hard to access spot the tech may be forced to drill a small hole to get his tools in behind the dent.

I've had PDR do work a few times over the years and it has been flawless.

awesome thanks!

I had PDF done on the BRZ, and you can't tell where the door ding was. The guy that did it trains a lot of places around the country he may be able to suggest some one he trained in Florida.

Most dealers have a PDR guy who visits on a schedule to do their used cars. My Ford dealer told me when their man was coming in next and I took my Mustang in that morning. They just put it in the mix that needed doing. He took out two sizable door dents and I couldn't even find any evidence of where they were. And 3 years later, my doors still look perfect.

Since it was done with all the others on a fixed contract basis with the dealer it didn't cost me anything either. Worth checking with your dealer to see if they will help you out too. Sometimes they will bend over backwards to keep good customers happy, especially if it doesn't cost them any extra money.

I had a friend do it (who works with a dealership). I had 3 door dings pulled, one had a slight crease the shape of a door, and one was creased right above the left rear wheel where the body line starts to bend (like an inch up from the bottom of the fender). That one was the hardest to do - had to remove the tail light, but it was completely fixed. Only thing is that when the door creased it, it messed up the paint, but you can only see it if you know where to look. Other than that, cant tell people opened doors into the side ofnthe car haha.

The first time I did PDR, I was shopping for cheapest price and the guy I chose did a sloppy job (it ended up wavy). I'd gone through like 4 PDR guys til I settled on one (in San Diego when I lived there). He employs the concepts in the video below. Eventually gave me his personal number and now does mine under the table (off the books, not through his company) for $20 a pop or cuts me a good deal if I have multiple dents. The following vid shows how PDR *should* work and why it is so awesome. Make sure you find a PDR guy who does this:

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=undb6jVC3-Q"]Paintless Dent Repair on a Porsche 911 -- /DRIVE CLEAN - YouTube[/ame]

Paintless Dent Repair is the way to go, no question, on any dent that is a good candidate for it. As mentioned by others:

1) The dent must be fairly small
2) The paint must be completely intact, no cracks

I've had PDR done on my Civic after hail damage, which involved close to 100 dents total. In the end the car looked like new and there's no crappy filler or aftermarket paint jobs to contend with down the line.

The only issue I ran into is that they ended up messing up my moon roof so it wouldn't open or close automatically. They do have to get at it from the back, usually, which means taking apart the interior in many cases, though there are methods that fix it from the outside which they can employ for some dents (see the pull-tab method).