Paintless dent repair (PDR)?

[d.p]

Anyone done it on original paint?  I got a couple dents I would like pulled/pushed (no hot glue) and wondering if I should even entertain it.  

[Skib]

It really depends on dents and location.

PDR is one of those things you can get away with some times but its not a standard by any means.
It can also be easy to mess up, theres dudes that make good money at it who are very good, mainly where lots of hail damage is a thing.

[sebpv]

i bought the ebay kit and the fucking plastic scrapper put scratches on my paint. But I also heard a good buffing is mandatory after PDR.

EDIT: it only minimized the size of the dents. Didnt erase them. But that could just be the detail work i didnt get around to. Im just a beginner...

[Skib]

Ebay kits are going to be substandard at best.

 

 

I think weve broken out the PDR kit in the shop like twice lol
Its always going to be hit and miss and vary on the type and location of the dent.

Its not magic and 99.9% isnt going to be a replacement for actual repairs.

 

Its like those suction cup dent pullers, they only work once in a million dents lol has to be the perfect dent for those to really work.

[d.p]

Yeah I am not trying to do it myself and have a guy that does a great job on newer paint,  Just not sure how it will be with 46 year old paint.  I guess I could live with the dents but would be pissed if the paint was cracked on top of still being dented.  

[Skib]

Yeah I am not trying to do it myself and have a guy that does a great job on newer paint,  Just not sure how it will be with 46 year old paint.  I guess I could live with the dents but would be pissed if the paint was cracked on top of still being dented.  

 

 

depends on whats under the paint, hard to know some times.

 

Its a hit or miss thing.

[Xnke]

PDR can do a LOT, but it doesn't replace traditional body repair. Most average PDR techs can resolve any dent that you can cover with a business card and have access to the back side of it. When I do it (I own a business doing PDR) I always hand the customer a business card for pricing future dent repairs. If you can cover it with a card, and the edge of the dent is less than the length of the business card from the edge of the panel, it's 60$ bucks. PDR augments the custom auto parts business decently.

 

When working with old paint, if the paint polishes up nice, PDR is possible. The older the paint, the more likely you will have delaminations or splits. Old datsun paint is not conducive to PDR...it's normally too oxidized or brittle to really work.

 

And yeah, the PDR tools I use are upwards of 2700$ per toolkit, and that's not even all the tools I use daily. Ebay jobbies won't cut it if you want to do any kind of real work. I am bending and reshaping tools every day on the jobsites too, so it's not like they last forever...PDR can be expensive for a reason!