I have two little, gentle dings in the side of my car. Both about the size of an old 10p and neither with paint damage. The professional Dent Doctors seem to be about £100 to fix them so I had a quick google to see how it was done. A lot of it seems to involve hot gluing a round thing to the middle of the dent and pulling it.

There are a selection of ways it can be pulled varying from a bit of wire to a slide hammer to the thing in the picture below.

That looks fairly simple to make as it is just two pads at each end that rest against the body to support it and then a threaded bolt that does the pulling. So far, so easy. I can knock up something like that from some scrap wood and stuff in my garage but I am a bit puzzled by the hot glue. I guess you just wipe the paint clean with alcohol/panel wipe and stick a blob of hot glue on but is that really strong enough?

Id it a special super strong type?

Any ideas?

I will practice on one of my shit cars before doing on my new Porsche but anyone bored enough for it to be worth me videoing it?

I would have thought there are lots of videos already of this… but go ahead anyway, especially if it involves you being glued to the car.

I saw them use it on Wheeler Dealers. Seemed to work. No idea what the glue is but it’s about a fiver on ebay 🙂

Something to try at the weekend then. Need to get on Amazon for PDR glue sticks I guess. How hard can it be?

Don’t forget you need a flamethrower to warm the panel first

How hard can it be?

A few days ago I saw a social media advert for dent pulling… followed by people saying it’s really easy to buy a kit and do it yourself. It’s something I should do on our Mini. It’s got a bit I hail damage that should be repaired but I don’t really want to pay for it.

You just need something appropiate to pull the dent out with

https://twitter.com/ladbible/status/1569991678064300032

Have you ever used a proper hot-glue gun?

If not, be very careful, getting fresh glue on your skin is not unlike very hot jam – a blob about the size of your thumbnail will leave a blister about the size of your thumbnail, and you don’t realise you’ve done it to start with.

I’ve got an industrial hot-glue gun, identical to one I used to use for assembling large corrugated cardboard boxes and other similar structures, it was very easy to get the stuff on your hands while folding the edges of the boxes together, I’ve never had so many burns, blisters and cuts on my hands and arms in my life. It needs to be treated with caution and respect.

Presumably you glue it down cold, and gently warm the glue and the area (with a flamethrower) when you want to remove it to avoid damaging the paint?

You could aid adhesion by drilling a few holes in the panel first 👍

I am all for DIY and will take on pretty much any job but I’d happily pay £100 for somebody who knows what they are doing to do this. It has the potential to go very wrong and end up costing a lot more to fix.

I put a little crease in the tank of my motorbike through carelessness in the garage. I was absolutely gutted as it’s a lovely old thing, had from new and cherished etc.

I got a bloke out who knew what he was doing and he fettled and farted for about 20 mins and the dent is completely gone. It wasn’t just glue gun/yank/repeat, he tipped and tapped and messed about until it was completely gone.

That’s what you pay for. An old bucket? DIY no probs. Something nice? Get a pro in.

glue sticks in lidl at the moment.

Ive seen it done, melt the end with a lighter, stick it on the panel, wait for it to cool, then yank on the stick itself to pull the dent.

If that doesnt pop it back though, i would get someone else to do it. the pro guys can be really impressive, the scale of dents they can fix, and how factory perfect they can get them. Not worth faffing about with.

hooli
Full Member
I am all for DIY and will take on pretty much any job but I’d happily pay £100 for somebody who knows what they are doing to do this. It has the potential to go very wrong and end up costing a lot more to fix.

+1 but then this is WCA so please crack on (pun definitely intended) and post the carnage pics

reeksy

A few days ago I saw a social media advert for dent pulling… followed by people saying it’s really easy to buy a kit and do it yourself. It’s something I should do on our Mini. It’s got a bit I hail damage that should be repaired but I don’t really want to pay for it.

It’s certainly not easy to get a perfect result. A dent is a pushed in bit, with a high bit around it. You need to pull out the low bit and then tap down the high bit or it will still show.

You can get kits on amazon/ebay that include everything you need to have a go for 30 quid or so. Suggest OP looks on youtube for guides first and prints out a card with lines on it (you will see what I mean on the youtube guides) so you can use the reflection to see the dent.

You can get kits on amazon/ebay that include everything you need to have a go for 30 quid

This is one of those jobs where it is 1% tools, 99% knack.

This is one of those jobs where it is 1% tools, 99% knack

Just repeating that for extra emphasis.

You’re paying for skills.

The wheeler dealers episode some time ago showed it done, I m sure it was with edd.  Must be on yt somewhere, or there s a wheeler dealers fb group, must be someone on there knows how to do it.  I understand u do as much as u can with access from behind, tapping away, without breaking paint.

I can’t help but think, this is one of those situations where trying to save £100 will cost about £500 to put right.

Fair play for having a bash, and on an old snotter I’d agree it would be worth a try.
But on a decent car. Nah.

Bloke that did mine had a little white umbrella over the working area, presumably to flatten the light or something. It was a perfect repair, 60 notes it cost my careless neighbour😄 total bargain though.

That hundred quid isn’t paying for the time to do the job, rather the time to learn how to do the job. As much as I’d love to see you gluing yourself to the car and everything else in reach followed by you pulling the paint off the panel I’d suggest you get an expert in.

This is the very definition of false economy. It’s up there with home tattooing kits.

I agree.  You can get touch up paint kits for paint blemishes too, and there are loads of YT vids on it. However, getting a really good result is difficult, especially on metallic paint.

I had a go on my OH’s MX5 with ebay suction dent pullers.  The dent was close to a crease in the wing so I couldn’t manage any improvement.  Found a chap in Carlisle who works mainly for car dealers – he met me in Asda car park and sorted it for £50.  Bargain.

aren’t you meant to hit it with a wooden seahorse?

and as much as I agree that in this case it is way cheaper to get an expert in, where is the fun in that?  Usually with this sort of thing the trick is not go for the cheapest kit you can find on ebay but something a couple of levels up.  It still won’t make up for lack of experience but you won’t hate yourself so much either afterwards.  in the good old days I think you were meant to use a copy of the yellow pages from the inside and wack it hard

I won’t start on the Porsche, I will practise first by banging some dents into one of my other cars. I am not that stupid.

I know a pro will do it quicker and better but it will be a fun thing to learn that might prove useful over time.

that might prove useful over time

it never does, and that’s not the point 🙂

I will practice on one of my shit cars before doing on my new Porsche

how to drop “I’ve got a Porsche” into a thread 🤣

Just to give the worriers something to mock, I can show you the last dent I have ago at.

Please bear in mind that this was a car I didn’t care about, was only done for fun on a Sunday afternoon and the final phot has the paint before it was polished up but I won’t deny the patinated texture of the panel remains. I plan to use this bit of the car to practice the new approach.

You can get glitter glue stick. I think those would ideal.

Why didn’t you mask the wheel before spraying it?

The ceramic tile industry uses hot melt glue on display settings and sample boards. Probably many other industries do too. There’s no way I’d put this stuff anywhere near vehicle paintwork, especially if it’s precious.

You and Molgrips need to start a Youtube channel together

Why didn’t you mask the wheel before spraying it?

Because it was a Sunday, I was bored and didn’t expect it to work anyway so as the car is a piece of crap, it really didn’t matter. The paint has come off the tyre over the past year so it doesn’t show now.

I’m more concerned by the pointing on the brickwork…

… anyway, ignore the naysayers WCA. Remember these are the kind of people that said invermectin wouldn’t work for Covid.

I won’t start on the Porsche, I will practise first by banging some dents into one of my other cars. I am not that stupid.

I’ve pulled dents out of panels on modern vans with suction pullers, the steel is thin and flexy.
Tried it on my 951, forget it. The steel is far too thick/rigid in construction.
Not sure about hot glue or the age of your Porsche unless it’s a large flat panel, it might be a struggle.

I put a dent in the bonnet of my Macan after three weeks. Drove up to the garage door and the handle was proud and put a dent right on the lip. Paid a fabulously skilled man to pull, tap, knock and generally magically remove the dent without paint. This on an aluminium panel. He said steel is much easier. Was worth every penny of the £160 I paid. He had a striped panel to reflect lines onto the dent to cross check curvature amongst other interesting tools. I was very impressed. And it was very noisy when he pulled the stuck on pegs and tapping. Bonnets provide a lot of resonant sounds.

Looks easy enough, interesting to watch how it’s done, but you’ve got to have the right dent.

Sticker? Perhaps one of those My Other Car is a Porsche ones?

I was thinking of “My Other Car is a Porsche, as well”