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Paintless dent repair drivers side rear panel question
So, someone decided to open up their car door and put a dent on the rear drivers side panel just above the rear tire. I've gotten paintless dent repair done on previous cars with great results. But, just curious can this be done on this part of the 370z? How are they going to gain access behind the panel? It's my understanding that the panel is welded on. I'll try attaching a picture of the dent later today.
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Had paintless dent repair done on my old G35 Coupe. The parts of the car they couldn't access with their magic rods, they used their sticky tape method to pull it out. The guy did a very good job.
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I have one in the same area.
Wonder how much it costs to get this done? I've never had it done before. |
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I use to have a 350Z and got a dent in the same panel and they said they couldn't access it. They ended up drilling a hole to be able to access the area behind the dent. They did good work but I really don't want to have a hole drilled and plugged again. There's got to be another way. |
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He could reach one with his special rods. The other one, he said he could attempt to drill inside the rear wheel well so the plug wont be seen, but wasn't sure he could reach it even if he did that and I'd have to remove the tire also. Option 2 was to use the glue method (I posted sticky tape in my earlier post but it was a glue). He places the glue in the ding, then places a tool (actually several different sizes, that I can't describe) on the glue and pulls it gently. He did this several times and just like magic, the dent was gone. The danger to this method is the paint may come off if the glue is too strong and he pulls too hard. However, the guy I had was very experienced, steady handed and not in any rush when pulling. I was very happy with the job. I did go to two shops to get quotes that did paintless dent repairs but wanted $125 per ding. Hope this helps. |
Had a small crease (either a manufacturing defect or shipping damage) I noticed right after delivery, in the same fender area. The dent guy declined to do it on such a new and beautiful car. Said it was too high risk to do those repairs in that area of the car. I appreciated his honesty. My small defect was hardly visible. Actually, I don't think even I could find it now. Glad I left well enough alone. Be cautious.
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Can't they just take the rear tire off and the wheel well lining and get to it?
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PDR is done using visual reflection of the metal to guide. some use light guides, some just use brickwall or anything with a line. |
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Man I really wish we had a PDR company in guam :(
Seems like a good business idea out here, |
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i spent about $3K on training and tools. took about a year of daily practice to get a real handle of things. i can fix most dings..but i dont do it for business as i know how to make a lot more money working at an office sipping on coffee, not having to sweat my balls off in the summer heat. :D |
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Maybe I can use it as a sideline for the extra cash |
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then from there been fixing dings on my own to fix my own cars when i do encounter it. :shakes head: ive fixed home appliance dings, dings in some decorative container cans, decorative trash cans, anything metal or plastic that needs finess. :icon17: my wife even gave me a pizza pan to fix when UPS bent it out of shape. lol it's handy to know how to read bends. |
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Here's some pics.
Also, what do you guys think about wheel repair where they don't take off the rim and just mask the area around it? I'm a little concerned about that, and would prefer that take the wheel off incase of over spray... |
I myself am a dent guy. During Hail seasons I travel around the world (Australia and Europe) and chase hail storms and do jobs mostly through insurance agencies and do local dealerships when its not in hail season. kenchan is right those tools aren't cheap! You can mostly get anywhere on a car except for rails or dog legs. Darli328 that isn't to bad of a ding. If it was me working on that dent the best thing to do is to take out the tail light and stick a long rod down there, and if its too tight of a space the I would probably use a special tool called a Whale Tail to get in that tight place.
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i would just use the rear tire as a pivot point and push it out from the rear arch.
i think it can be repaired to about 98-99%. difficult to do over decorative lines. |
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He also said I have another option. He could take tire/wheel off and wheel liner and try to access the area behind the dent that way. Does anyone know if there's a way to access that area without drilling? My dent guy said worse case he could take the wheel and wheel liner off and drill a hole behind the plastic liner to gain access to the area behind the dent. I really don't want to drill but that sounds like my only option, and at least the hole would be behind the wheel liner. Any thoughts? |
lol@ glue pull. find yourself another PDR tech.
i wouldn't even consider glue puller for that part of the car cause it wont do shitt. you need to access it from the wheel well. if there is no direct access, the tech will drill a hole on the inner panel of the well, push out the metal, and just plug it with a plastic plug. at least it's not on the passenger side where he'd have to worry about the gas filler piping. access from taillamp will require drilling too since there's really no access hole that i remember when i did the rear camera /fog lamp install that the tool can fit. |
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What's wrong with the glue pull? Is there a better way of pulling the dent out? Lastly the tech said he could try to make the dent bigger and my get lucky with being able to pull it out completely. He did say that is very risky and could crack the paint. |
glue pull will never get the amount of force needed to bend that part of decorative lines in the metal. if it did, the paint would crack off (seriously).
glue pull is good for non-aluminum hoods, roofs, trunk lids, some side panels where there is no access from behind. i use glue pullers as last resort as it is very time consuming unless i have to do hail damage. removing the rear bumper will not gain access to that area. you might be able to access if you took the trunk liner out, but the tech probably can't monitor the metal while he's pushing it out so it would only work to see where a tool can be fed behind the metal while the tech access it from the wheelwell. this is why im saying he needs to drill the wheel well to gain access if there is no direct access from inside the wheel arch. definitely dont make the dent bigger. that's a single impact dent, right? making it bigger will just make it that much harder to bend it back especially on decorative lines. also check your area (or your dealer) for mobile touchup places. the good ones can match your paint very well. spot bondo, sand, and paint. these folks fix used cars that can't be repaired efficiently by PDR. |
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then you'll see wat im talking about. you need to drill a small hole inside the wheel well to gain access. even if you remove the tail lamp you wont gain access, and even if you drilled the metal behind the tail lamp, you still wont gain access. :D |
btw, drilling an access hole is common practice in PDR.
since you told your tech not to drill, then yah, there is no way he can fix that ding. i wont be able to fix it either without drilling. :) if you can overcome that fear, he can probably fix it to about 98-99% if he's willing to take the time. he would then either use silicon glue or plug. it's no big deal really. get a cup of coffee if you can't stand watching. :icon17: |
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^^ np, GL! :tup:
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it's a pdr tool that looks like a whale tail at the end. i use it mostly for tight space or to remove glue/sealants behind the doors, etc.
http://dkpdrtools.com/ebay_images/WTL8TIP_6000.jpg |
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Two ideas I had that probably won't work but wanted to see if anyone had some thoughts. Can the silver door hook be removed or is it welded on? Looks like it has special screws to me but I'm pretty much a noob here. If so, would that be a viable option to gain access to the rear panel area.
Also, what about the rubber/plastic trim just above the door handle and in front of the pretty much useless rear side window? Obviously I don't know much about PDR or how big the tools are. But, looks to me those plastic clips in question can be removed but I'm not sure if you can get access anywhere from there. |
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Both of my front fenders, rear quarter panel, trunk lid, and door were PDR'd. I should get the car back this Monday. I dropped by to peek at it in the paint booth, and it looks very good. The tech was able to fix the nasty hail damage on the body line of the fender.
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download the entire service manual here:
http://www.the370z.com/nissan-370z-o...-download.html then look at the BRM p32. |
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the front fender should be pretty easy as there's only the plastic liner to peel back. the rear quarter has a layer of metal that blocks access to the arch area so a bit more tricky to gain access. that's why darli's PDR guy couldn't fix his because darli does not want the tech to drill an access hole. :) |
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Is there anywhere else to drill besides in the fender well? What about removing interior trim pieces? Someone mentioned behind the tail light might be an option...
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this is the company i work for, its just me and my boss. heres the link if you want to take a look at some of our work. Welcome to Dentmagix heres a pic of a ultra thin whale tail. uk/d21.htmlhttp://denttoolcompany.nl/contents/en-uk/d21.html its long so you can stick it right through the tail light hole with nothing in your way. make sure he tries with the tail light out. sometimes i get lazy myself and try and do it with the tail light in, takes twice as long and doesn't come out perfect. Sorry for the response! |
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