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Unpopular opinion: I used a heat gun and a toilet plunger to pop a dent on a 2008 Civic's quarter panel last Tuesday.
The customer was about to junk the car, so I figured I had nothing to lose, and it came out smoother than my last attempt with a slide hammer.
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blake69112d ago
My buddy's body shop in Dayton always says that kind of hack fix weakens the metal. It might look okay for a month, but it'll come back worse.
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paige864d ago
Yeah, I used to think that was just how it was done too, until I saw a car come back with the filler cracking along the whole door seam. What @lane.cameron is asking about, the real fix, is all about the metal work first. A good shop will get the panel straight with special tools before any filler even comes out. That filler should only be a super thin layer to make it perfect for paint, not a blob hiding a dent. If they're slapping on a quarter inch of it, they're just hiding the problem.
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lane.cameron12d ago
So what's the actual fix then, if pulling out a dent and filling it ruins the metal? Are they saying you have to replace the whole panel for every little ding, or is there a proper way to do it that doesn't mess up the structure? I've seen a lot of shops do the fill and sand method, so if that's all wrong, what should we be looking for in a good body shop?
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