Yo do what you can, but...

[05PhillyStang]

Well, this Sunday I thought I'd give my pony an Easter bath. I gave her more than that...my car now has its first door ding

I'm always the furthest car from the store. I rarely park next to other cars, I take meticulous car (lke we all do on MOL), but this time I was just plain careless.

I used one of those janitor buckets on wheels to wash the car. It's kind of sqaured off with two metal handles. I was pulling the hose to the rear of the vehicle from the driver's side and failed to notice that the bucket was in bewtween the hose and the car. Well, when I pulled on the hose, it hit the bucket, sending it into the side of the car.

The dent doesn't seem creased, although I'm not 100% sure. What are my options to get this taken care of. Paint was removed, that much I can tell. How reputable are those dent wizard guys? If I go to a body shop, I feel like they'll want to repaint the entire door.

See the damage I caused:

[Andy M.]

Hey 05PhillyStang,
Sorry to hear about your mishap. A freind of mine has an 04 Envoy that got some dings from a vandal and he used those paintless dent removal guys to get them out. They did a good job and were pretty reasonable. If I talk to him I'll get their name.

Andy
101impala

[Pete-FWA]

That's a true shame on the door ding

As far as paintless dent repair, each tech is an individual. Ask around...there are many very good techs doing this work.

Many body shops employ staff or sub-contract such work...they know it's better to do minor repair than repainting entire panels in many cases.

From what I've heard from some local shop owners, insurance is requesting such work more frequently because the cost and downtime is far less than traditional body shop methods.

Your ding does appear to have a bit of a crease in some of the pictures you posted, but that's tough to be totally certain without being there in person.

Try this: cover the area around the ding with a piece of notebook or tablet paper. Gently run your hand over the paper, without looking or guessing where the spot is hidden underneath. If you feel your finger or the paper press inward...there is your unfortunate answer. If the paper wrinkles at all...same conclusion.

[05PhillyStang]

Thanks for the replies. The white spot in the ding is where there was paint removal. If you look on the 3rd and final picture, you'll notice a "halo" around the white scratch. That is the area of the dent. In total, the ding is less than 1/2 inch, and not too deep, so it's hard to tell, even with my finger, if it is creased.

The good news is that is is near the bottom of the car, where the door panel starts to round inwards, so it isn't highly visible.

I'll check around with some friends in the body shop business and I'll also check wth the dent removal shops.

I'll keep you posted and let you know how it turns out.