The complete guide to Paintless Dent Removal (PDR) - Part 1
Can my dent be repaired by PDR?
If you’ve been unlucky enough to pick up a dent in your car or van, there’s a high probability that our nationwide network of expert technicians can help ease the pain. If the paint is still intact, we can often repair the damage without any mess or fuss at your home or workplace, usually in under an hour. Mobile Paintless Dent Repair can reduce cost, save time, reduce stress and keep your cars originality.
The biggest benefit of Paintless dent repair (PDR) is that the original factory paint finish is retained, this is by far the best surface coating for your vehicle, even the best body shops can only emulate the factory finish but not exactly replicate it. It’s only original once!
(PDR) or paintless dent removal uses a number of techniques and specialist tools to restore the panel to its original shape without the need for sanding off the original paint finish, applying body filler and repainting.
PDR can be quite laborious and requires skill and patience but, in most cases, a standard door ding type dent can be completed in under an hour and as we don’t need to buy materials or paint a repair can often cost far less than a typical body shop repair.
Many of you will still have questions about PDR, so we’ve put together a comprehensive guide to help you. If you want to learn more about our repair procedures and if PDR can help you please continue to read on.
What can be fixed using Paintless Dent Removal?
As the name suggests PDR is a paintless repair method, so the first thing to say is that if the paintwork is scratched or grazed it’s probably not a good candidate for a PDR type repair. With that said we often repair damage where there is a small amount of pant damage that the customer would rather have ‘touched in’ after our dent repair than resorting to a full panel respray. Our local technicians can often help source a reputable local provider to help with paint repairs.
Dent Types….
There are many categories of dents and not all of them are repairable by PDR
To generalise PDR is great for repairing accidental damage but not so good for accident damage.
If you’ve crashed your car into another car, a tree, a building or any heavy solid object at more than 1mph it’s probably not going to be suitable for a PDR repair, alternatively if someone has opened a car door onto your car, if an object has fallen from a shelf in the garage or you’ve had your elbows on the roof rail whilst fitting a top box of roof rack we can often be the best solution.
Are there other limitations?
Sharp and deep dents can be difficult to repair using PDR, we often see dents that are small in diameter but deep, imagine an air pistol being fired at close range to a modern car body panel, this has the effect of stretching the metal and it can be very difficult to restore this type of damage to its former shape.
Contrary to popular belief we can repair dents and creases of all sizes even if the are on or cross a swage line on your vehicle. What’s a swage line? These are the body lines that are pressed into the individual panels that give your car it’s shape and style, almost all cars have multiple body lines running down the sides from the front wing into the rear quarter panel and on the bonnet and tailgate or boot, the severity of the damage being the only determining factor.
Horizontal creases.
These can be a challenge, they’re often caused by another vehicle rubbing along the side and often cross the panel edges, again the severity of the damage will be the defining factor here.
Dent sizes.
The size of a dent (the diameter) isn’t something that on its own determines if a dent is repairable or not, we often repair car roofs and bonnets that have been jumped on by vandals and are quite severely damaged from front to back and covering the complete width, sometimes the smallest dent can be more of a problem as in the air rifle example.
Dent complexity.
It's very difficult to explain what will and won’t repair here as they all present different challenges, broadly speaking soft, shallow dents are a simpler proposition than sharp and deep dents, creases are more complex than rounder dents particularly if they’re horizontal (yes there’s a difference in repairing a vertical crease to a horizontal one). If you’re not sure it only takes a minute to upload a couple of pictures to our online estimate page www.dentntdevils.co.uk.
For more information on Paintless Dent Removal, watch out for upcoming articles.
To find out more about how much Paintless Dent Repair costs visit our dent repair price guide page or should you need a Dent Repair Specialist near you, get a quote today.