Hey guys, i'm looking at this car to buy but it has one dent that bugs me. It looks to be in a bad spot because of the curve of the car. Anyone who knows about body work, how hard would it be to get this dent fixed? Would it require bondo? What would be involved to fix it and how costly?

thanks

 

just get it pulled, n/p

 

Yeah unless you use one of those dent wizard guys that pushes it out from inside the panel or something it is probably gonna require bondo. The only problem with the dent wizards is that they sumtimes can't fix them and even if they do you can still tell by looking really close that there was a dent there.

But dent wizard cost about 70 bucks. Fixing it (which would require pulling it, and filling the few holes with bondo and then blending into the paint) might look better but would also put you out I'd say twice as much.

 

Just take it to a shop. They should be able to fix that without any having to paint.

 

Thanks guys, I mean, the paint on this car is already good so I don't want to paint the car for awhile. When I do finally paint the car, I will get it taken care of, just don't like to use bondo.

John

 

Your gonna have to get that area painted because when you pull a dent out, they're gonna have to drill holes to attach the puller to the car, then pull the dent, smooth it out then prime and paint.

So no matter what you do your gonna have to paint part of the fender. So... my recommendation is pull the fender off then have it done. That would be the easiest thing to do.

 

1/4 panels like that don't come off, remove the interior pieces to get to that area and use a dolly and just knock it out from the inside. no re-painting, no bondo.

 

You're right about the location of the dent - anytime you dent a crease, or bend - you're almost certainly going to have to Bondo it. Even if you were to try and work it out from the backside, the paint is probably going to split when the crease is pushed back out.

Another concern, if it's the original paint - matching the paint is impossible without repainting the whole car, or doing some blending -which is a professional level technique and it still won't be perfect.

You're best bet is to take it to a body shop - but be prepared for it to be a lot more than you think. I had a small dent on my hood and I got two quotes. One for $900 and Maaco, of all places, quoted me $600.

Not trying to scare you - but those damn things are the type of things that drive you crazy, but then are too damn expensive to fix...

 

Bingo. Done it before, not hard to do. A padded piece of 2X4 and a light hammer might work as well.

 

I retract my previous statement... sorry I thought that was on the front fender... I didn't see the second pic.

In that case I would just bondo and paint it. Pounding out a dent is a pain in the ***, and it can be kinda hard to get exactly correct. Even if you do you have a MUCH greater chance of cracking the metal.

Regaurdless... the metal becomes weaker the more you bend it.

 

No holes need drilled to pop that dent out. The "Dent Wizard" folks I've seen work have a tool with a suction cup on it that believe it or not is strong enough to get a dent like that out with out a problem. They also told me that in some cases they will heat up the area to allow the paint to be more flexible so it won't crack.

I would just go to a "Dent Wizard" type shop and get a quote.

 

Actually, the metal becomes harder and stronger as you bend it, it's known as work hardening. It also becomes slightly more brittle.

 

I've seen those things in person, and they don't work all of the time. The suction cups pop off if the dent is to hard to pull back out.

 

Actually you need to heat the metal to do that.

You could do it with a heat gun, but it would take for ever.

 

Nope, if you heat it, you anneal the steel and it returns the material ductility. Unless you quickly cool it, which is a different type of hardening.

 

The Dent-X guys around here could get that out w/out painting, no problem.

 

it's really not all that difficult to knock that dent out.
It's really not a bad idea to try the suction cup deal.
just try to remember,,, it's thin metal.

 

Wow, thanks for the overwhelming responce. I have plenty of idea's now and am not too worried about getting it fixed.

 

but i thought the dent 'bugs' you,, has that changed now that it's been pointed out how easy it is.. ?? and how to go about it .. ?? you can do it, like i said. 'it's thin metal..

 

I was worried about it because of the location I thought it would be a bondo job. Now I see there are other options. I'm deffinatly not going to try and bang it out myself, I will probably show it to one of those paintless dent repair places and talk to a body shop before making my decision.