Paintless dent repair cost: what sets the price

With paintless dent removal, almost the whole bill is skilled time. There is no sanding, no body filler, no primer and no paint to buy, mix or cure. The technician reads the dent under a light board, finds a way to the back of the panel, and moves the metal back to its original shape in many small, controlled pushes.

That is why two dents that look alike can be priced differently. The real question is how long it will take to move that metal back without cracking the paint or leaving high spots, and that depends on the factors below.

A dent in the open middle of a door, where a rod slides in through an opening and reaches it cleanly, is the easy case. These spots usually take more work:

• Body lines and edges. A dent that crosses a styled body line, or sits near the edge of a door or hood, has to be rebuilt to a crisp shape, not just pushed flat.
• Braced areas. Hoods, roofs and trunk lids have inner braces that block a straight path to the back of the dent.
• Aluminum panels. Many newer trucks and some cars use aluminum hoods, doors or fenders. Aluminum behaves differently from steel and takes more care to reshape.

When nothing can reach behind a dent, glue pulling is often the answer: a tab is glued to the outside of the dent, pulled with a special tool, and the glue is released. It is slow, careful work, and that shows in the time.

Paintless dent repair only works when the paint is intact. If the paint is cracked, chipped or flaking at the dent, pushing the metal out will not fix the paint, and the area needs refinishing. The same goes for a dent over old body filler or metal stretched too far.

Many of those dents can still be repaired, but the job changes. The dent is pulled and smoothed, the area is prepared and primed, and the paint is matched to your car's factory color code. More steps mean a higher car dent repair cost than paintless work, and the estimate shows what the extra work involves. Our paint work carries a one-year warranty on paint. If a scratch or a chip came with the dent, our scratch and chip repair page covers that side of the job.

Plastic bumpers are their own case. A pushed-in bumper cover with unbroken paint can often be reshaped without repainting; see paintless bumper repair. A cracked, torn or loose bumper is a bumper repair job, and a cover that cannot be saved can be replaced.

Suction cups and glue-pull kits sold online can lift a soft, shallow dent on a flat panel. They are much harder to control on creases, body lines and deep dents. Common results are a dent pulled too far into a high spot, a ring of small bumps around the dent, or paint lifted off a panel that was repainted at some point.

Heat guns and the boiling-water trick for plastic bumpers carry their own risk, since too much heat can blister paint or warp the cover. Overworked metal or plastic takes longer to fix properly, and that adds to the price. If the dent matters to you, get a photo estimate before you reach for a kit.

We are a mobile, family owned and operated business, so the dent is looked at and repaired where the car already sits: a driveway in Long Beach, an office lot in Irvine, a parking structure in Pasadena or a curb in Santa Ana. We serve every city in Los Angeles County and Orange County, and most jobs are done the same day.

Tight spaces at shopping centers in Anaheim and Torrance, carts on hot lots and doors swung wide in crowded structures cause many of these dents. When you ask for an estimate, tell us where the car will be parked so we can plan the visit.