You’re an excellent driver and have always boasted that you can never get so much as a dot of a scratch on your vehicle no matter the terrain you’re driving in or how busy with people the area is. Finally, you got that scratch and it’s quite more than a dot and it’s quite saddening.
It’s normal in driving to have one or two scratches here and there from time to time. No driver can ever be too sure or too careful not to get dented. There are shopping carts here and there on the streets. There are motorbikes and bicycle riders also. Any one of them could do the damage.
Rather than drive off to the nearest body shop or roadside mechanic for a fix, you can try to examine how deep or how bad the dent is and get it done all by yourself. It may not be something worth taking all the way to the professionals just yet. Most car dent fixes are interestingly easier to fix than you may know. Besides, you could just save yourself those extra dollars.
Before going ahead with a self fix, it’s good to know that the easy fix methods explained below may depend on your automobile and what the body panel, bumper, or hood is made of; whether they’re made of aluminum, carbon fiber, plastic, fiberglass, or steel. Aluminum, for instance, has little memory properties and it’s not so easy removing dents on it using the paintless methods.
Use A Specialty Tool
You could use a Pops-a-Dent, or a suction cup dent remover tool, or a plunger.
If you do think to go ahead with the plunger, then just splash some water on both the plunger and the dent and start pushing and pulling until it reshapes. Be sure you used a cup plunger commonly used for sinks and the flange one.
Use Boiling Water
If the dent is on a plastic bumper, then you’ll be fine with this. You can reverse the dent on the car and return the car to its initial state by using boiling water. Immediately, you pour the water, reach behind the bumper, and try to pop the dent back in. Due to the heat of the water, the plastic should be a bit more flexible by now, making it easier to adjust it back to its original place. The heat won't last long, so you have to work fast. You may not get it after the very first pour, but you have to keep dumping the boiling water on it until the whole shape is straightened out.
Use A Hair Dryer & Compressed Air
Apart from the boiling water, you can get out those car dents from a plastic material just using a hair dryer and compressed air.
You will use the hairdryer at its peak temperature to heat up the area of the car dent. This will expand the plastic of the car. Once that is done, take the can of compressed air. Turn it upside down, and begin spraying the same area of the car dent you just heated. The cold air will cause the plastic to contract, bringing out the dent.
Use Dry Ice
Dry ice is a cooling agent that can also be used to remove small dents from your car. Wear protective gloves and hold down a piece of dry ice over the dent. Keep rubbing it around until the dent pops back into place. A first attempt may not be enough. In that case, apply the dry ice as many times as you need to until the dent pops out.
You can try to heat up the dent first with a hairdryer before applying the dry ice to it.
Use A Self-Made Suction Tool
A good way you can also get out a dent is the suction method. Finding a dent puller with the right amount of power could be an issue, but a bucket or a pot and a vacuum cleaner with some tape can do the trick.
Make a small hole beneath the pot and tape the pot around the dent. Next thing is to place the vacuum cleaner hose over the hole on top and turn it on. The dent should pop out.
Use Hot Glue And A Few Screws
In trying to take out the dents, you could further damage your car; either by worsening the dent or by chipping off some paint. To be safer, use wooden dowels, screws, and a hot glue gun.
Simply place two nails into each side of the dowel and put the hot glue on the bottom. Then place the dowels with the glued side facing down around the dent. Make as many of such until the whole dent area is covered. Allow them to dry. Afterwards, you pull each one of the dowels until the dent is gone. You would need enough glue. This method would also require a bit of patience. You can apply rubbing alcohol or heat to detach the glue from the car at the end.
Use A Long Metal Rod & Knockdown
When a dent happens on a car, you will notice that the metal goes inward and the surrounding edges of the dent go upward. This makes the removal of the dent simply by hitting from the inside alone may not work. In this case, you will need to use a long metal rod and a knockdown assuming it’s on the bumper or hood of course.
If you're about to get that dent out right away but don’t have all the tools at hand, you can get a dent removal kit. It’s not also a bad idea to go to a paintless dent removal professional as suggested above. It is still cheaper than going to a body shop or visiting the mechanic.
