Is at home dent repair worth it?

Question

I have a dent in the drivers side door, and I've been wondering if I should use one of these dent repair at home companies. Obviously they are going to tell me it'll look brand new when they finish, but I am worried they will make it look worse, and with no Save and Load option in real life its a bit of a risk..

The dent is about the size of a palm all in, and maybe 1cm deep, but is actually fairly subtle, and annoyingly it shows after washing more then when dirty. It doesn't look scarred or scratched to any great degree, and I have really thought about taking the sink plunger to it, but got scared.

Has anyone any experience of using these services? To put it into context the Dealer wanted 2.5k to repair this, that involved a new door and respray of the whole side to blend! p***ks

cheers.

Answer 1

Many of these do a good job. I can't comment on the particular one you are looking at, but the ones I have used can first get the dent back to smooth, and then using something similar to t-cut they sort out the small scratches/paint blemishes that have occurred.

It will not be as good as the dealer's solution (as for that money you want exact colour matching etc) but my experience is that I couldn't see the difference.

Remember, your mileage may vary - but your fallback plan is still the dealer if it turns out they are cowboys.

Answer 2

Ask if they have any before and after photos from previous jobs.Then put things in perspective.Is this dent the only blemish on a otherwise perfect car?Is what they are charging something you are willing to spend and just have it look better but not perfect?It won't be worse than it is now and it may not look worse than the other doors.