Paintless Dent Removal (PDR)

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The Critic

The Critic

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The passenger front fender on my Prius has had this dent for a long time and I am finally going to get this fixed.

I was given the contact info to a great PDR guy and he quoted me $150 to remove the dent. While three-figures sounds high, it is a lot cheaper than any body shop visit.

Does anyone here have any experience with PDR services? I am curious how well this one will turn out since it is near the body line.

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I've seen it done many times at car dealerships I worked at. The repair comes out very well as long as the metal is not creased. The price varies from about $50/ding to $80/ding. It beats body fill and repainting the area by a long shot. My buddies Ram PU was damaged by acorns falling in his girl friend's driveway a couple of years back, they did $3,000 worth of PDR to it according to him. The work was flawless.
 
I don't know how fussy you are but you can buy a kit on ebay. You take a glue hot glue gun and some plastic tabs and glue the tab to the dent. Then you use a dent puller and gradually keep pulling it out until it is not visible. I have done this myself and the results are pretty good. I bought my kit from Amazon and have taken quite a few little dings out through the years. The professionals really do a good job and are highly skilled at it to the point where they can make them invisible. There are tons of videos on u-tube showing how to remove the ding or dent yourself.
 
If your PDR guy is good it will be perfect. You'll never see it. I've had a couple of dings removed by my PDR guy in Winston-Salem NC and it's like watching some magician use a magic wand. $150 might be a tad high, but for California maybe not. A PDR repair is definitely better and less expensive than a body shop.
 
I've had it done before with great results. If it's a competent person, it will be well worth it.
 
When my 2007 Fusion was about three years old it was caught in a bad hail storm. After PDR was performed, I could not tell where any damage was
 
150 is reasonable.

I had a PDR guy do stuff on the truck, Trans Am and Caprice with outstanding results. The Caprice was a bad one and while I could have sourced a fender and payed my detectable, I was able to got that dent removed, a small door ding and detail for 500 dollars. Car looked awesome.
 
A bunch of years ago some knucklehead backed into my Suburban and caved in the driver's door. The next day, when the sun hit it, The largest part of the dent popped back out. I then used one of those suction cups you pump up to carry glass and got it even better.
I was so psyched about how this was going that I bought a few PDR tools and worked on it myself. I got it surprisingly good but one part would not come out. I removed the inner door panel and saw a reinforcement rib welded to it also bent. I took the truck to my friend's body shop and he said no PDR guy could get that out but he was surprised how good I got the door looking after I showed him a picture of the original damage.

My wife's Sorento had a dent exactly like the OP's Prius. I got it out and I am not a pro PDR guy.
 
Years ago I had a 1995 F350 srw that got caught up in a hailstorm and the roof and hood looked like a golf ball. Took it to the Insurance company PDR guy and on 2 days I got it back good as new. Got a new roof on the house also.
 
My friend had a crease in the body line on an 04 Accord. Afterwards it came out perfect. I'll see if I can dig up some pics.
 
My wife's perfect 2006 TSX was rear-ended. We took it to a highly recommended small place in Campbell, CA (Silicon Valley). He replaced the rear bumper and re-did the front bumper that had many chips. His partner is known as the top paintless repair guy. He fixed about 4 door nasty dings. You cannot tell they were ever there. I was blown away at the work of both. With a decent guy, you won't be sorry. Good luck.
 
Thanks folks. The guy is working on it now. I decided to have him remove all of dents on the car.

Access to the quarter panels is a bit difficult. For the driver side, I removed the trim for him for better access. Drilling was required for the passenger rear quarter.

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These PDR guys are amazing.

He removed the large dent show in the original post plus 12 small dings on various aresa of the car. He charged me $350 and I gave him a tip on top of that. I highly recommend PDR if you can find a great technician.
 
Originally Posted by The Critic
He charged me $350 and I gave him a tip on top of that. I highly recommend PDR if you can find a great technician.


A fraction of what a body shop would charge. So a true bargain when you compare it to that.
 
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