This is the Crease Dent Repair killer setup from Keco Body Repair Products. This consists of their Robo Lifters, specialized feet for the Robo Lifter paired with their crease glue tabs. For the first time we were able to try out Cam Auto Glue for Paintless Dent Repair. This glue has a slightly slower dry time compared to our traditional glues but man does it pull some strong damage out, all of this setup combine together
Here we used their setup to pull on this practice hood. This hood was undamaged and completely flat when we started, after seeing a demonstration on the setup from Gene at Keco we had to try it out. He setup up the system right next to a spot he had just done prior. We did some pulling and we could not believe the results. You can see the high spots or as he jokes about in the video, body lines we actually put in these panels.
Their power is truly amazing.
You can purchase this system and much more of their fantastic tools from: https://www.kecotabs.com
What is the Jeep Cowl Dent and what causes it to be so common?
It’s common to see a Jeep Wrangler driving around with the doors off. We get it, it’s a freeing feeling in the hot summer weather and would be a blast to experience. The problem is when the doors go to be reinstalled. The door opening limiting strap would not get reconnected when people would reinstall the doors. This strap prevents the door from opening up too far.
The door would then be opened and swing TOO far open and door mirror would be pushed into the cowl panel. This caused the notorious Jeep dent in their cowl panels.
See a Jeep cowl dent we repaired here:
If you unfortunately forget the limiting strap and happen to have this type of dent give us a call to give you a free damage assessment!
Have you heard of pre and post diagnostic scanning?
Well today we walk you through the whole entire process around computer scanning and doing paintless dent repair.
Why Is This Necessary?
Diagnostic Scanning is often a required operation when working on today’s modern vehicles. This vehicle we are demonstrating with today is a 2018 Chevy Silverado. This customer purchased this vehicle brand new, it only had 7k miles on it when it came to us to have a dent removed. General Motors, the vehicles manufacture actually REQUIRES a diagnostic scan when disconnecting the battery. They also require it when disconnecting ANY electrical component on this vehicle. This is often a over looked process that many body shops, mechanics and paintless dent repair companies do not do when doing repairs on vehicles.
Here we walk you through the entire process of how this is done and specifically why it is done. We also show you how we go about gaining access to this dent in the left front door near the handle. We had to remove the door panel as well as the door handle assembly in order to make this repair. Once the dent is removed with paintless dent repair we are able to put the vehicle back together. From there we then run a Post diagnostic scan to ensure everything is in working order. We make sure to print off the scan documents and show them to the customer. When we showed this customer that his scans showed a fault code for the radio the said that the battery had gone dead previously. That was why the code was set in the first place.
The customer was happy that we did run a scan and bring this to his attention. A radio code is nothing serious but there are items like mentioned in the video, that can be a bigger issue if a fault code is set. Read more about scanning and other computer related information.
Here we are walking you through the entire process on how we repair these door dings in this 2018 Audi Q5. This vehicle has only 8k miles on it! The customer originally brought it to us for the dent in the rear door. We gave her an estimate and scheduled the repair a couple weeks later. Later on the vehicle was brought to us for us to do the repair it had actually received another dent in the front door! We were able to do both of these repairs in an afternoon. The customer dropped the vehicle off before work and picked it up dent free after work.
In order to do these repairs we need to gain access to the backside of the damaged areas. We do this by first rolling down the windows of the damaged doors. We then install a stainless steel window guard between the window and the outer sheet metal of the door. This guard protects the window from any type of damage. It also allows us access to the damaged areas of the door without having to remove the door trim panel. We then install an inflatable window wedge in the door channel opening. We then pump it full of air to slowly and safely expand the window opening. From there we install our tools through the top of the window channel and are able to slowly work this metal out and make this dent slowly disappear.
Once the dents are then removed, we then take some extra steps to buff the minor scuffs in the paint from the impact that caused the dents. We then follow that with some rubbing compound and buffing followed by polishing the areas and a final wipe down to clean the panels off. The damage is now completely gone and undetectable, it’s like the damage had never even happened.
These repairs were done quite a while back on a Subaru WRX STI. Both repairs featured here are crease dent removal video clips. We show a mix of techniques including glue pulling, using tools to push the damage out then “blending” the damage out with a specialized dent removal hammer. This customer recently purchased this car. It had multiple dents in it all over the place. He choose us to perform paintless dent repair to remove his damage because the rest of the vehicle and paint was in really great shape. We believe this was a 2004-2005 WRX STI. The car had low mileage and had been cared for very well but it had some minor dents and dings in it all over from normal driving.
Fender Crease Removal
The first dent removal is a crease located in the left side fender. This damage was towards the back of the fender near the door. In order to gain access to the backside of this damage we had to remove part of the plastic fender liner. Once apart of this is removed we are able to get a tool on the backside of this damage. From there we push it out using a soft style tipped tool. Once the damage is mostly out we switch over to a sharper tipped tool. This allows us to pinpoint spots to push up and finish the damage out smooth.
Door Crease Removal
This damage was located in the front section of the right rear door. It being in this location creates one obstacle. This area is heavily braced for strength and rigidity. We start this repair with the glue pull method. Once we pull the damage out with glue we then use a brace style tool to push the damage out. This brace tool is extra thin allowing us to fit it between the bracing structure and exterior door skin. From there we do some minor blending with our blending hammer to smooth it out. Then follow this up with some minor buffing with some rubbing compound to get rid of some minor scuffs from the damage. The damage is then finished and ready to return this now dent free car to a happy customer.
Do you have a crease similar to this in your vehicle? Give us a call to schedule an estimate and your repairs at:
Did you know that we also offer our paintless dent repair services to surrounding cities of Sioux Falls. This including Brookings, South Dakota.
Paintless dent repair takes a very specific set of skills to perform correctly. Many shops will say they do paintless dent repair. What this often really that means is they have a technician that does it from time to time. This means their technician might do these style of repairs as little as a time or two a month limiting their skill level. This often allows them to only repair minor damage. This also limits their skill set to smaller quarter sized door dings. Doing paintless dent repair is something that must be done very often. Multiply times a week this must be done in order to hone in the skill set and stay sharp. The other alternative is shops will hire outside companies to do these types of repairs, typically these outside companies do just dent repairs.
What’s the difference?
We here at Sioux Falls Dent Repair we do ONLY paintless dent repair. We don’t have our technicians doing glass repair, detailing, painting, body work and other common skill sets found in a general body shop. While all of these skills are great for a general body shop, having technicians stay sharp on ONE skill and one skill only allows them to do repairs that other “part time techs” cannot. These benefits can be seen in repairs we have done time and time again, you can even see what our customers think of us on their video reviews here.
So next time you are choosing a repair facility be sure to ask specific questions about who is doing your repairs. Be sure to talk with the specific technician doing your actual work and ask them about any questions you might have about your repair.
Ask questions like:
How will the damage be accessed in order to be repaired?
Are they drilling a hole?
What are they doing to prevent corrosion or rust on the backside of the panel after its repaired?
Do they use a cavity wax?
What will they be taking apart to do the repair?
If they are taking your vehicle apart to gain access, will the be performing a Pre and Post Diagnostic scan?
