How to Repair a Dented Car?
2 Answers
If the dent is minor and the material area remains unchanged, you can gradually correct it using a dolly and an appropriate body hammer. For deeper dents where the material has been stretched and the area is larger than before deformation, first roughly flatten it with a body hammer and dolly, then use filler for repair.
Last time, my car door got dented by a shopping cart with a palm-sized dent. I tried using a heat gun and a toilet plunger to pull it out myself, but it didn’t work well, and there were still small bumps left on the edges. Later, I took it to a car repair shop where they used professional paintless dent repair (PDR). The technician used various hooks to push and press the paint surface from the inside, and it was restored to like-new condition in half an hour. The key point is that as long as the paint surface is intact, PDR can be done without needing to use filler, which preserves the original factory paint. If you’re trying to fix it yourself, it’s best to avoid the door frame near the triangular window—the steel structure there is complex and easy to damage. Dents on the rear quarter panel with an anti-collision beam are even more critical to leave to professional equipment; messing with it yourself might compromise the car’s structural rigidity. Spending a few hundred bucks to preserve the original paint is much more cost-effective than repainting, especially for cars less than three years old—their paint is particularly valuable.
