NYC-SE
05-17-2017, 04:27 AM
Spoiler alert: There are no pictures. I tried taking some but I just couldn't get it to show up on camera. I'm sure a better photographer could have but I was fighting reflection in every shot and I didn't want to waste time on photography that I needed to spend on body work.
About 6 months after I bought my shiny new car I noticed a door ding in the rear drivers side door. Some oblivious moron in a parking lot inflicted Hüsker's first battle scar. She's had a few more since then. Scratches and paint chips mostly but thankfully no more dings. That first one is always the worst though. Everyday for the past 2 1/2 years I would see that ding and loose a little bit of faith in humanity. Something had to be done.
It was about a nickel sized ding, no paint damage. A couple of times over the years I had thought about taking it to a body shop or a paintless dent repair place but I never did. If this was a Mercedes it would have been in the shop the next day but this is a cheap car and I am a cheap bastard. I figured there would just be another one eventually and I didn't want to start a never ending cycle. Still it bothered me.
About a year ago I tried the hair dryer / compressed air can trick to no effect. (Gee it looked so good on YouTube.)
Recently I returned to YouTube and spent way too much time watching paintless dent repair videos, about half of which came with dire "don't try this at home" warnings. Understandable, but today I found myself with a free day at home and decided to try it. So off came the door card and the plastic sheeting. Thankfully the dent was in an easily accessible area. First I tried pushing it out with my finger. There was some movement but not much. Then I tried using a rounded off pencil eraser. Just pushing gently at first then a little more forcefully. Again some improvement but still very much a door ding. I moved on to a screwdriver handle and a Sharpie marker end (surprisingly pretty effective) before I came to the pièce de résistance, a marble inside a 15mm socket. I was able to work that around inside the door and almost totally eliminated the ding. There is still a very slight maybe 1/8" crease visible but you really have to look for it whereas before the ding was pretty obvious even from a casual glance. I would say at least 95% of the area of the door ding was returned to the proper contour. I am very pleased with the result, especially considering I don't have any experience with body work and I don't have any auto body repair tools. And free is good too.
So this is something that is doable for an average DIYer. It took me about 2 hours working very cautiously and slowly. I can see how it would be possible to screw this up if you get too aggressive, so be like the turtle. Slow and steady wins the race.
Next up: I'm going to try the boiling water trick to try and repair my rear bumper. Last week I noticed the horizontal flat surface (like where the hatch opens) had a slight upward bulge. Seems that moron #2 hit and deformed my bumper fascia while parallel parking. Ah, the joys of driving, and especially parking, in NYC.
About 6 months after I bought my shiny new car I noticed a door ding in the rear drivers side door. Some oblivious moron in a parking lot inflicted Hüsker's first battle scar. She's had a few more since then. Scratches and paint chips mostly but thankfully no more dings. That first one is always the worst though. Everyday for the past 2 1/2 years I would see that ding and loose a little bit of faith in humanity. Something had to be done.
It was about a nickel sized ding, no paint damage. A couple of times over the years I had thought about taking it to a body shop or a paintless dent repair place but I never did. If this was a Mercedes it would have been in the shop the next day but this is a cheap car and I am a cheap bastard. I figured there would just be another one eventually and I didn't want to start a never ending cycle. Still it bothered me.
About a year ago I tried the hair dryer / compressed air can trick to no effect. (Gee it looked so good on YouTube.)
Recently I returned to YouTube and spent way too much time watching paintless dent repair videos, about half of which came with dire "don't try this at home" warnings. Understandable, but today I found myself with a free day at home and decided to try it. So off came the door card and the plastic sheeting. Thankfully the dent was in an easily accessible area. First I tried pushing it out with my finger. There was some movement but not much. Then I tried using a rounded off pencil eraser. Just pushing gently at first then a little more forcefully. Again some improvement but still very much a door ding. I moved on to a screwdriver handle and a Sharpie marker end (surprisingly pretty effective) before I came to the pièce de résistance, a marble inside a 15mm socket. I was able to work that around inside the door and almost totally eliminated the ding. There is still a very slight maybe 1/8" crease visible but you really have to look for it whereas before the ding was pretty obvious even from a casual glance. I would say at least 95% of the area of the door ding was returned to the proper contour. I am very pleased with the result, especially considering I don't have any experience with body work and I don't have any auto body repair tools. And free is good too.
So this is something that is doable for an average DIYer. It took me about 2 hours working very cautiously and slowly. I can see how it would be possible to screw this up if you get too aggressive, so be like the turtle. Slow and steady wins the race.
Next up: I'm going to try the boiling water trick to try and repair my rear bumper. Last week I noticed the horizontal flat surface (like where the hatch opens) had a slight upward bulge. Seems that moron #2 hit and deformed my bumper fascia while parallel parking. Ah, the joys of driving, and especially parking, in NYC.