Dents in your car bodywork are incredibly annoying and can leave your motor looking less than its usual tip-top condition but do you always have to take it to a professional garage or can you fix some dents yourself?
There are dent repair kits out there so it might feel tempting just to try to fix a dent yourself rather than go through the rigmarole of using a professional car body shop – but there are a number of things to take into consideration when deciding how best to deal with a dent.
These DIY dent repair kits have been created to help you pop the dent out – but the trouble is they don’t always produce the results you are looking for. It might well be that with patience and skill you can pop out a very small dent on your own – however, it’s not as easy as it looks.
Which is why professional car body shops exist in the first place.
Sometimes using the dent kits at home can cause the dent to pop out the other way, which is then much harder to fix than the original dent and will cause more problems for your car. Professional car body shop staff, on the other hand, know just what to look for and what to do.
While it might seem cheaper to do it on your own rather than pay for a garage, if you end up causing more damage to the car than the dent caused, it will end up costing you a lot more money to put it right than it would have to use a professional service in the first place.
Here are some common misconceptions about dent repair:
I will be without my car for a long time
That depends on the size of the dent but with modern techniques most minor dents can be fixed within a few hours, particularly if the car doesn’t require any paint work.
The body shop will respray my car, adding to the cost
If the dent hasn’t damaged the paintwork there are paint-free dent repair techniques available which are quick and easy to do.
I can do it myself, it’s easy
While you might be able to assess the surface dent you are not a professional car expert and won’t be able to see if there has been any further underlying damage to your car’s body work. A professional will be able to spot any problems straight away.
I don’t need to get it fixed, it’s just a small dent
What you can’t see is any impact that dent might have had on the car’s structure – it could create a weak area and if you were to have a crash that could cause serious problems. It’s always worth getting dents professionally checked out.
If you have a dent in your car body work then you should always seek professional advice, certainly initially to make sure there is no underlying damage which will need more repairs than just the dent, particularly if it was caused in a crash.