The High School Parking Lot. Ah, the Horror. The Horror. Since dents and dings are inevitable in this crucible of parking trial-and-error, it’s best not to get worked up over dents and dings until graduation. There are some hints that will help get you through.
Take for example this trifecta: scrape, dent and cracked paint. The most serious aspect is actually the cracked paint. If left untreated, the fender will rust making for a much more expensive repair later on. The easiest to fix is the scrape since it’s on the surface. Just use the Claybar with some Speed-shine and elbow grease.
Dent removal is the area of experimentation for this post. We wanted to see how far we could get with just a heat-gun and compressed air. The result was actually pretty good, especially considering that complex curves are especially challenging for any paintless dent-repair technique. We removed the plastic fender liner, and then used a 1000 watt heat gun alternately with a can of compressed air held upside-down. Heat the area slowly and quickly quench with the cold liquid spray. We did this combo about five times, reducing the size of the dent by about two-thirds. Once we were satisfied (ran out of beer) we decided to flake off the cracked paint, sand the gash a bit, then hit it with some primer and touch-up paint. It’s good at 20 feet and I’m sure not the last time we’ll be doing this.