A couple of weeks ago my car recieved about 80 hail dings on the hood, roof, doors, and trunk. My insurance company would like me to PDR(paintless dent repair) the whole car, but I'm skeptical. My thoughts are that the PDR will not be done perfectly, increase the metal fatigue, and in the end I will waste a ton of time trying only delaying replacing the parts. I want the car fixed right the first time what do you guys think?

I'll try to post pictures later tonight of the damage.

 

Great question. I need to get a few dings on my 325i fixed myself before turning it in at lease end. Been thinking about the PDR, but haven't yet researched it. I can't offer any advice, other than when body shops start replacing body panels, it can be very difficult to get everything lined up the way the factory had it. Please check back into the forum when you make your decision and help educate us on how you made your decision, and let us know how it all went.

 

I can offer some experience of having dings removed here in the UK by means of PDR. Without fail, these have been 100% successfully in the past on my cars with no visible signs left behind, and on a few occasions the dings were reasonably large.

The key thing is to find a company / individual who is vastly experienced at doing this and then full removal should be possible. The only thing that would concern me in your case is the number of dings requiring removal, but again, it should be easily possible for a pro to do this. I guess also the severity of the dings and the location of some of them may be another problem. A survey by a Pro should be able to give you an indication of whether it can be done 100% satisfactory prior to work beginning.

 

I used to fix my old cars myself and the big dings are much more easy to fix than the little dings.

 

From what I've been told by a few of the Pro's in the UK this depends, if the ding is a straght forward dish shape, then this may be the case. But in my case, I once had a 'large' nasty ding that was on a nautral crease in the panel, and also was kinked in a sort of swirl if that makes sense. This was removed 100% successfully but took ages for the guy to get right.

The other thing I didn't mention in my previous post is that to be able to successfully carry out PDR, the surface of the paint must not be damaged / cracked in any way.

 

I've a friend here in Northern Virginia that had three cars damaged by hail a couple of years back. Each car literally had over 100 dings each, some fairly large. He had each one fixed by a local PDR vendor (who by the way was VERY busy after that particular storm). He was very satisfied with the results. He could see no evidence of any damage on any of the cars. The job was done by removing headliners, door panels, trunk/hood liners etc. A REALLY fine repair.

That said, my only concern would be the hood of a 5er. That aluminum might be a bear. Regardless, if it happened to me, I'd give it a try.

Try it....you might like it.

 

NOT sure on this, have you taken it back to the dealer yet, and asked them their suggestions, i have one big stone dent in my bonnet near the bumber too.

 

if you take it back to the dealers most of them will say get a new repaint.
That is what HK dealer will do.

 

I have seen amazing results using PDR, I would be more concerned fixing the dents in the traditional manner ie filler then repainting. It is very difficult to get perfect color matches especially if all surfaces are not repainted.I often see cars with obvious repainted doors etc that are slightly diiferent than the adjoining panels.Do your research and ask to see the before and after gallery .Also ask for references.I'll bet you will be surprised with what they can do.
Good Luck

 

pdr is fine, even for the aluminum hood and front fenders