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2,157 technicians on file · 150 cities · 36 states
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.
When the paint is unbroken and the technician can reach the back of the panel. Door dings, shopping cart nudges, hail dimples and long soft creases are the usual candidates. Sharp dents with a crack at the bottom, torn metal, or damage on a panel edge go to a body shop. A good technician will look at it and tell you which it is in a minute.
Not when it is done properly, and that is the whole point of the method. The risk is a technician pushing too hard and leaving a high spot, or cracking the clear coat on a dent that was always too sharp for this approach. Glue tabs come off with alcohol and leave nothing behind. Trim panels are removed and refitted, so ask who pays if a clip breaks.
Often yes, because hail is usually a comprehensive claim and in many states it does not count against you the way an at-fault collision does. Get the car looked at in the shade, on a light board, not in the driveway at noon; hail dimples hide in bright sun. Ask what happens to your deductible and whether the insurer accepts this method over replacing panels.
Yes, and it is worth asking before you book. Aluminum does not spring back the way steel does, so it wants heat, more time and a different touch, and it can tear where steel would stretch. Plenty of technicians work it well and some will not touch it. Hoods, doors and tailgates on newer trucks and premium cars are often aluminum even when the rest is not.
They arrive the week after, work out of a hotel lot or a rented tent, ask for cash or the insurance check up front, and hand you a phone number instead of an address. Some are excellent technicians. None of them are here in spring when a repair needs a second look. Ask where the shop will be in six months and how the warranty is honored.
