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 Post subject: Paintless Dent Removal?
PostPosted: Tue May 24, 2011 9:03 am 
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Joined: Fri May 13, 2011 5:01 pm
Posts: 186
So, unfortunately, someone managed to put a decent sized dent (think baseball) in the right rear fender of my s2000. No creases or scratches in the paint or anything. Does anyone have any experience popping something like this out yourself? I tried the "hot/cold" trick, but it didn't seem to work (maybe because it's not a metal body panel). I have a vacuum pump, so I'm thinking about trying to create some kind of seal around the dent and pop it out with that. Alternatively, i could just take it to a professional.

What do you all think? Should I keep messing with it or just give up and take it to a professional (and which one)?

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 Post subject: Re: Paintless Dent Removal?
PostPosted: Tue May 24, 2011 9:13 am 
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take it to a professional, b/c if you screw it up, you're stuck with either replacing the panel or bondo/repaint.

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 Post subject: Re: Paintless Dent Removal?
PostPosted: Tue May 24, 2011 9:22 am 
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Location: Seattle, WA
Hopefully Karl will see this. He's a big advocate of PDR so he might know someone to send you to.

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 Post subject: Re: Paintless Dent Removal?
PostPosted: Tue May 24, 2011 9:30 am 
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I used this guy to take the dent out of my Mazda. http://www.dentdominator.com/. He did an excellent job.

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 Post subject: Re: Paintless Dent Removal?
PostPosted: Tue May 24, 2011 11:38 am 
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The club has worked with John Lofaro at Dent Eliminators for "Dent Days" several times. www.dentelim.com I would definitely recommend going with a pro rather than trying it yourself, they are actually fairly reasonable price was and have the right tools/experience to get the job done right.

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 Post subject: Re: Paintless Dent Removal?
PostPosted: Tue May 24, 2011 12:26 pm 
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Thanks for the tips guys, i'll update to let everyone know who I used and how it turned out.

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 Post subject: Re: Paintless Dent Removal?
PostPosted: Thu May 26, 2011 2:29 pm 
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Alot of the S2KCA guys use the DentWizard folk.


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 Post subject: Re: Paintless Dent Removal?
PostPosted: Thu May 26, 2011 8:56 pm 
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Location: purveyor of the ridiculous
dent removal. there is someone across the street from westgate chrysler on 70.
dent buster's is run by a russian guy named nick. hes pretty good, he does paintless dent removal. i tried it myself for a while, but was no good at it .

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 Post subject: Re: Paintless Dent Removal?
PostPosted: Tue Jun 07, 2011 5:18 pm 
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Les Davis wrote:
The club has worked with John Lofaro at Dent Eliminators for "Dent Days" several times. http://www.dentelim.com I would definitely recommend going with a pro rather than trying it yourself, they are actually fairly reasonable price was and have the right tools/experience to get the job done right.


This. He (not John himself, but one of his guys) fixed up a dent on the left rear corner of my S2000 that I figured was a goner. It was right on a crease in the bodywork. I've got a really, really good eye for stuff like this, and I have a hard time spotting any evidence to suggest that a dent was ever there. I think it cost me $100. I was thrilled to pay that. He went in through the back by removing the taillight.

PDR is not something you should do yourself, at least, not on a car you care enough about to consider PDR for. It is possible, or even likely, to make the car look "differently bad," rather than better. Metal can stretch and deform if worked too hard. I'm not convinced that PDR is witchcraft, like its purveyors want you to believe, but it's certainly not easy. The learning curve is steep.

By the way - in your original post, you mentioned the panel not being metal. If it is indeed the fender, and not the bumper, it is definitely steel.

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