removal of minimal hail damage

September 24, 2006 12:29 AM

are there any methods to remove very minimal hail damage that work well?

i have a number of barely perceptible hail dings in my fairly sweet ride - im curious if anyone has had any luck with paintless dent removal? or if its a lost cause and an insurance claim? other suggestions? total dents probably in the 20 - 30 range on roof and hood.

posted by specialk420 to Travel & Transportation (5 answers total)

A long long time ago, from a... rustic acquaintance, I heard that one thing you can do is wait until a superhot day in summer, when your car has been baking in the direct sun all day, and throw a large bucket of super ice cold water across the affected area. The resulting quick contraction of the metal is supposed to make the dents pop out. It certainly has the sound of urban legend (or more properly hillbilly legend), but it couldn't hurt. If it didn't work, why, you could just segue into a nice carwash.

Also, I bought something off tv one time that was supposed to remove dents. It was a suction cup & crank gizmo. My dent was too wrinkled and mangled for it to work, but I'm wondering if it might work better on a nice, smooth, shallow, hemispherical dent that really wants to pop back out. It was called someting like Dent King or Dent Magic or Dent Wizard or Dentamaster. Something like that. Sounds like it would qualify as the paintless dent removal you cite.
posted by kookoobirdz at 8:18 AM on September 24, 2006

Similar to above: Just get some dry ice pellets and lay one in a ding(Use gloves), for similar effect without having to wait for the weather to oblige you too much - It won't work if the metal's been creased, of course, but it'd only cost you a few bucks to try.
posted by Orb2069 at 10:14 AM on September 24, 2006

No experience with hail damage, but I used a paintless dent guy to fix a door ding, and it worked pretty well. The dent itself was fixed, although there was one tiny spot of cracked paint that could not be repaired. (Hence the word paintless").

And car dealerships use the paintless dent guys for hail damage all the time.

I would call a paintless dent guy up and find out what he wants to charge. Typically, they're self employed, so you might have a little leeway to get a better price. A lot of them will give group discounts, so if you have friends and family with hail damage, you might be able to band together and get a better price.
posted by IvyMike at 11:45 AM on September 24, 2006

I've done it with a toilet plunger (a giant suction cup), but this was on an old beater.
posted by porpoise at 12:13 PM on September 24, 2006

Response by poster: thanks for the help - i might call one of these paintless guys... i just discovered the same little dings from the same storm in my girlfriends nice little scoot too.

damn hail - new hoods on bmws are not cheap.

grrr.
posted by specialk420 at 7:54 PM on September 24, 2006