Paint and body questions

[IndyGunner]

I woke up this morning to 2 fat dents in my hood (on my 05 impala its the metallic blue color if that affects anything) and literally every day I find a new door ding or scratch. God loves dumb idiot careless college kids who think no ones personal property matters...

Anyway my question is this... is it hard/expensive to fix door dings and scratches? How much effort is involved? Just fill the scratch and buff then clear or what?

If I were to take it to a body shop and have them fix say 10 small scratches and those 2 dents how much do you think it would be?

Im a perfectionist and every time I look at my car I just get ****ed off.


This is it btw, i imagine the paint would be more expensive than just a regular blue

[IndyGunner]

bump

[chris216]

I would say maybe around the 3-4 hundred mark to fix the dents, paint the hood n do a detail buff on the car

[Londob5]

I had a couple dents in the hood of my car a few years ago, so I bought some touch-up paint from the stealership. the problem was that when I applied the paint, it was darker than the color of my car because I didn't have an airbrush or a paint sprayer.

If you plan to fix a scratch, I would recommend buying one of those colored waxes first. Colored wax worked really well for our last car, which we leased. they didn't even notice the covered-over scratch when we turned it in....the only time you could see it was after a washing...and all we did was reapply the wax.

I'm sure there are some autobody dudes on here who would probably object to what I'm saying, but a $20 can of wax is cheaper than paying a $100-$200 to have a door repainted. Just my opinion.

[STULER]

The dents they have to pull out unless they are big.. then they gotta fill em with bondo and repray the whole area of the car eg. the hood.. the scratches are gonna have to the buffed or waxed out. if that dont work sand and repaint.. maybe 400 dollar total fix

[loudnlow7484]

How bad are these scratches? Are they down to metal? I've had good luck filling the scratch with touch-up paint, wet sanding, followed by rubbing compound, polishing compound, then a coat of wax. I know it isn't the right way to do it, but it works reasonably well.

For dents, it depends on the dent. If they are simple dents, not on a body-line, you might be able to use one of those little dent-remover setups they sell at Wally World. If it's on a body line, or if it's a crease, etc, then it will probably have to be filled and shaped.

[IndyGunner]

thanks for the input


The dents are very minor. No paint damage just noticeable because of the reflection and refraction of light and certain angles.

The scratches are down to a white color. Im guessing thats primer. I imagine they could put some paint in and buff it and youd be good to go, but I was just wondering what im looking at IF I wanted to fix it.

Like I said im a perfectionist so even the most minor scratch will bother me lol

[BradsKat]

thanks for the input
The dents are very minor. No paint damage just noticeable because of the reflection and refraction of light and certain angles.

OK so I've put on my flame proof pants and debated whether or not even posting this but WTF. For medium sized dents that aren't constricted by edges/bends/lines there is something you can try. This may not work on the very small, tight radius dents - it may but I really don't know. I don't even suggest you try this but - I've done it more for the curiosity factor than anything - but you can cause more harm than good - I had a beater with a big dent (8" across) in a door panel.

So you heat up the smallish dent - but I mean really heat it up; I've got a propane paint stripping gun that I used - I put tinfoil over the dent first to make sure no flame actually made it to the paint but a 1500w hairdryer will also do the trick without such a huge potential downside. Heating it for apx 1 minute should do it - heat all around the dent; not just over the dent itself.

Now, immediately take a can of compressed air (CO2, whatever - keyboard cleaner, etc etc - the kind that when you spray it upside down, liquid comes out) and turning it upside down spray first around the edge of and then in towards the middle of the dent (so liquid is coating the area) - spray it for about 10 full seconds. Then wait. Mine popped about 5 seconds later. Didn't damage the paint; looked remarkably as though nothing had ever happened.

YMMV

[yngveny]

He he, sounds like any number of things could go wrong with that approach, but I like it

Reminds me of the dry-ice method, anyone tried this??

[fastflats]

The dents could probably be removed by paintless dent removal. They charge by the dent, depending on location & size. I would guess around $75.00 to $100.00 from your description, as hood dents are usually easy for them to get to. No damage to paint, & no paint matching issues with that method. Londob5 is right. Tough to match paint by any other method other than spraying. There are guys that make their living repairing small scratches & imperfections for auto dealers. They use small air compressors & airbrushes to apply paint. Maybe you could search around & find one willing to work for cash a bit cheaper????

[chris216]

OK so I've put on my flame proof pants and debated whether or not even posting this but WTF. For medium sized dents that aren't constricted by edges/bends/lines there is something you can try. This may not work on the very small, tight radius dents - it may but I really don't know. I don't even suggest you try this but - I've done it more for the curiosity factor than anything - but you can cause more harm than good - I had a beater with a big dent (8" across) in a door panel.

So you heat up the smallish dent - but I mean really heat it up; I've got a propane paint stripping gun that I used - I put tinfoil over the dent first to make sure no flame actually made it to the paint but a 1500w hairdryer will also do the trick without such a huge potential downside. Heating it for apx 1 minute should do it - heat all around the dent; not just over the dent itself.

Now, immediately take a can of compressed air (CO2, whatever - keyboard cleaner, etc etc - the kind that when you spray it upside down, liquid comes out) and turning it upside down spray first around the edge of and then in towards the middle of the dent (so liquid is coating the area) - spray it for about 10 full seconds. Then wait. Mine popped about 5 seconds later. Didn't damage the paint; looked remarkably as though nothing had ever happened.

YMMV

Sounds a tad bit risky to attempt for my blood unless i was painting it anyways n didn't want bondo. I have heard of this method though

[kevin2502000]

How bad are these scratches? Are they down to metal? I've had good luck filling the scratch with touch-up paint, wet sanding, followed by rubbing compound, polishing compound, then a coat of wax. I know it isn't the right way to do it, but it works reasonably well.

For dents, it depends on the dent. If they are simple dents, not on a body-line, you might be able to use one of those little dent-remover setups they sell at Wally World. If it's on a body line, or if it's a crease, etc, then it will probably have to be filled and shaped.

That is exactly the easiest way to fix scratches. Buy the acrylic enamel touch up, apply it in several step after a few days drying to where it is higher than surrounding paint. After a month of curing, wet sand it down to level and buff and polish and you won't even be able to find it.

[BradsKat]

Sounds a tad bit risky to attempt for my blood unless i was painting it anyways n didn't want bondo. I have heard of this method though

Yeah but c'mon, you know you're dying to try it!

[BigFish]

OK so I've put on my flame proof pants and debated whether or not even posting this but WTF. For medium sized dents that aren't constricted by edges/bends/lines there is something you can try. This may not work on the very small, tight radius dents - it may but I really don't know. I don't even suggest you try this but - I've done it more for the curiosity factor than anything - but you can cause more harm than good - I had a beater with a big dent (8" across) in a door panel.

So you heat up the smallish dent - but I mean really heat it up; I've got a propane paint stripping gun that I used - I put tinfoil over the dent first to make sure no flame actually made it to the paint but a 1500w hairdryer will also do the trick without such a huge potential downside. Heating it for apx 1 minute should do it - heat all around the dent; not just over the dent itself.

Now, immediately take a can of compressed air (CO2, whatever - keyboard cleaner, etc etc - the kind that when you spray it upside down, liquid comes out) and turning it upside down spray first around the edge of and then in towards the middle of the dent (so liquid is coating the area) - spray it for about 10 full seconds. Then wait. Mine popped about 5 seconds later. Didn't damage the paint; looked remarkably as though nothing had ever happened.

YMMV

I wish I had known about that before I fixed my tank with fiberglass. Write that up and sticky it IMO. To be safe the tank would of course have to have all gas fumes eliminated from it before doing this...unlike the hood of the car.

[chris216]

Yeah but c'mon, you know you're dying to try it!

I'm going to try on this car i'm workin on right now. If I mess up it's getting a respray anyways