removing dents with a hair dryer

ya my wife did her thing again (hitt'n %^&) with the car, so I was looking for info on autobody repair and ran across this one. I was very excited to know I could take out minor dents with a hair dryer, but it seems this dude is not the dude to teach it to me.

I am posting cuz I thought it was fun...anyway enjoy. The results of the 5 minute long vid is what makes me laugh. If this is you, sorry

http://www.monkeysee.com/play/11979-dent-repair-with-a-hair-dryer

In reply to vazbmw:

It may work in some situations.

http://www.metacafe.com/watch/501379/remove_car_dent_with_airduster/

I did find some that would seem to work. the funny thing about th original vid is the guy posting a nonsuccessful attempt, then to go on about how much damage a blow dryer can cause.. Don't try this at home because you will need a new hood. No one will want to repair a hood that has been blow dried. But they are ok with a hood that has been hit with a baseball, hammer, another car etc?

I saw the duster/blow dryer one. I am going to try it.

JoeyM wrote: In reply to vazbmw: It may work in some situations. http://www.metacafe.com/watch/501379/remove_car_dent_with_airduster/

One thing i have been wondering about is how places like carmax remove door dings. They only sell used cars and seemingly none of the cars on their lot have any door dings. A lot of the cars have over 30k on the clock and they should have picked up something along the way.

Anyone have any idea?

most dealers use a paintless dent removal guy. A good one can get out almost anything anywhere on the car.

yup paintless dent removal guys... read something a few years back on them... basically outside of a crease or something they can do amazing work for a lot less money then a normal shop

I tried the Hair Dryer + Dry Ice trick on the E30. It didn't work at all, so I made dry ice bombs and went to the body shop the next week.

I just tried this on my civic after watching this- I totally removed one 3" radius dent, almost removed one a bit smaller and improved a 1" ding considerably . total fail on 3 others but I'll take it. When it worked it was shallow deformations with no spike of impact damage. Something an elbow might do. When it didn't work it was on or near a crease, or there was more serious local impact damge at the center of the dent.- damage a shopping cart might do. As you know civic sheet mental is thin and soft, my guess is that helps. the paint came out unscathed.

My understanding is that they use the paintless remove guys too. I wonder if this would be a good side business. Do you guys know of anyone who does this/trained to do the painting dent removal?

Wally wrote: most dealers use a paintless dent removal guy. A good one can get out almost anything anywhere on the car.

I've got a friend who does PDR. He was service manager for the local Dodge dealer for several years, but quit to do PDR on his own & seems to get by fine. I've actually never had him do any work for me though, but what I've seen was usually impossible to tell there had been any damage.

I've got a small set of paintless dent removal tools. I bought them a long time ago, possibly pre-internet, right when I first heard about PDR.

I've had some pretty good success with them. As long as you can get decent access to the dent, it's not too tough if you take your time. Near the edge of the doors is tough, as things get tight near the seams. I've even had some success removing dents with small creases, but not all of them. Worst case, a bad dent looks 50% better.

I thought about doing the franchise and training thing early on, but it was expensive. By now, most new car dealers have a guy and I expect it's a pretty cut throat with guys coming in and low balling your customers. I think there might be a decent market with used car lots and private owners.

I had a paintless dent removal guy come do several of my cars one day. He did an amazing job! I thought the charges were reasonable. Some of the cars had 30+ year old original lacquer paint and it's been 10 years since then and you still can't tell where the dents were in any of the cars. The dents were door ding type dents in the sides.

I visited a local PDR guy to see about the 2 door dings in the door of my 7 that I acquired less than a week after I bought it (boy oh boy there was some real cussin' going on that day!). IIRC he wanted $150 for 2 dings in the same door, which seemed kinda high to me - I had read on the internet (yeah, yeah) that $50 per panel was about right and not only was the price a bit high but he was charging by the dent. The reason I didn't go through with it was he foolishly noted that he wasn't sure if there was a reinforcement by one of the dents as he had never worked on a 7 before. I guess I'll find out who the local dealer uses.

Datsun1500 wrote: In reply to vazbmw: Tough business to get into as most dealer already have someone they use, and another 4 knocking on the door. Here in the Baltimore area I personally know 12 of them, most hurting for work. The training costs about $10G with tools

i bet that with proper instructions and some time "fixing" pannels at your local pull a part yard you could get pretty good for a lot less than 10gs

10gs WOW and I am sure there are lots of post/decided not finish highschool dudes looking at that as an opportunity

Sounds like the dough is in the franchise and the training

reminds me of the vaccum cleaner salesmen of old

Datsun1500 wrote: In reply to vazbmw: Tough business to get into as most dealer already have someone they use, and another 4 knocking on the door. Here in the Baltimore area I personally know 12 of them, most hurting for work. The training costs about $10G with tools

Tommy Suddard wrote: I tried the Hair Dryer + Dry Ice trick on the E30. It didn't work at all, so I made dry ice bombs and went to the body shop the next week.

yup, same thing here.... really u cant loose buying the dry ice...

And as competitive as the market is, there are still guys going out of business because they don't get the "show up on time and do a decent job" idea.