Overview: Paintless Dent Repair & Removal
Paintless dent repair is metalwork with no paint involved. The technician gets a rod behind the panel, or glues a tab to the outside and pulls, and walks the metal back a little at a time while reading the reflection of a striped light board. Nothing is sanded. Nothing is sprayed. The finish your car left the factory with is the finish it keeps. That only holds while the paint is unbroken. Run a fingernail through the low spot: if you catch bare metal, a crack, or a smear of the other car's paint, you are looking at a body shop job now, with filler and a spray gun. A dent with the paint still whole, even a deep one, usually stays in this category and costs a fraction of the other route. Access decides the rest. A door skin with a trim panel that comes off is straightforward. A dent on a brace, a double skin, or right on a panel edge is slow or impossible, and a technician who turns it down is being honest rather than lazy. Most of these technicians travel, so the drive matters less here than in the rest of body work. Listings show what each shop states on its own website about hail work, mobile service and warranties. Use the state and city lists below to see who travels to your area.
Data verified September 30, 2026
