Dealing With Dents In Your Car Or Truck

Dents and dings in the body panels of your car or truck can make a new vehicle look old and beat up. The dents can also cause the paint to flex and chip, allowing water to get under the paint and cause damage to the metal and the paint around the dent. Auto dent repair is the best way to head off further damage, and often minor dents can be removed inexpensively. 

Critical Dents

When you have a dent in your car or truck, take a close look at it and the paint around it. If the paint is cracked or chipped, it is essential to take your car to an auto body shop that can provide auto dent removal for you. 

Leaving the dent in the car will not make the dent worse, but the damage to the paint can allow moisture and dirt to get under it. The moisture will cause the sheet metal under the paint to rust, and the paint can start to bubble around the damaged area.  

Once the paint loses adhesion to the sheet metal, it will begin to chip off, and the damage can spread, making it more costly to repair because more of the original paint will need to be removed. If the damage is allowed to go unchecked, you may get to the point that the panel begins to rot, and you could be looking at significant body repair because of a small dent that you did not repair. 

Small Dent Repairs

A small dent is often simple to repair and may only take a day or two to fix it correctly. If the paint is not damaged, the shop may remove the dent without painting the area, but for a dent with chipped or damaged paint around it, the paint will need sanding off in the area. 

Once the dent is removed from the panel, the auto body tech working on the auto dent removal will seal the bare metal panel with several coats of primer and prepare the area for painting. The paint is critical, and it needs to match the existing color on the car, or it will be pronounced. 

An experienced body shop will color match the paint they are using to the paint on your car, accounting for fading and sun damage as they create the paint color. Often a computer system is used to ensure the match is perfect then the tech can spray the paint onto the area that received the auto dent repair. After it dries, it will be clear coated and buffed so that you will never know that there was a dent there. 

Contact a local auto shop to learn more about auto dent repair.


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