[phobos512]

So two weekends ago I got my truck washed and while taking pictures I noticed this ding on my front fender. It starts about 2.5" up from the top of the fenderwell and goes up another 2.5". It's not very sharp and there's no paint damage. Some inconsiderate jerk swinging their car door open too hard, of course.

I figured I could use this as an excuse (not that I necessarily need one) to pick up some fender flares, but when I got around to pricing things out I know painted they'll run me at least $500. Over this weekend I started doing some looking into paintless dent repair and found an example of exactly the ding I have on a Honda Odyssey (see here: Door Ding on the Left Fender of a Honda Odyssey Before and After Paintless Dent Repair - Dent Biz - Paintless Dent & Hail Repair) being perfectly repaired. So after some checking around I found a place in town here that claims to be PDR experts. They are closed over the weekend so today I went in and got an estimate and lo-and-behold they weren't willing to try PDR and offered an estimate of $472. Which is nuts, in my opinion. But it's a small town 100 mi from Bakersfield and 150 mi north of LA so, captive audience.

Do you guys think this is something that is doable via PDR and if so, do you have any suggestions on shops in the greater LA/Bakersfield/Victorville area? I shot a message off to a company in Huntington Beach that has outstanding Yelp reviews but haven't heard anything yet. Going to try through the week with the three other shops here in town and see what they say, but none of them claim in their ads to do PDR.

Thanks for reading.

 

[eharri3]

Alot of those places normally don't like to do PDR if the ding or dent is along a natural body line or crease because they won't be able to get that crease re-shaped correctly. I don't know what they were able to do with the Odyssey in that pic but I know I have taken my Tundra in for repairs to a larger dent in almost exactly the same spot. More than one shop told me because it was on a body line they couldn't PDR it but for about 580 bucks they would weld spikes to it, heat it, pull the sheetmetal back into the proper shape, and then re-finish it. I am guessing that is what they quoted you for. Check a couple more places. If they say the same thing you know what's up.

 

[50224]

I had a dent in the exact same place, except mine was longer and alil deeper. I have a buddy who does this stuff for a living. He got it out to where you couldn't tell it a bit. He charged me 50.00. Happiest 50.00 I ever spent.