You might be asking yourself what does diagnostic scanning and dent repair have to do with each other? Isn’t that something a mechanic does?
Diagnostic scanning is nothing new to the collision industry, but it has in the recent years been brought to the attention of many shop owners as a way of checking components and confirming components are working correctly after repairs are made. The days of a shop simply turning on and off components to check if they work correctly is simply not the case any more. A simple task such as removing a tail light or headlight for even a light bulb replacement, then reinstalling the light and making sure it functions by turning the light on and off, are just not the way things are done anymore.
New Technology Advancements
Now with the advancements in the computer systems on vehicles, something like even a dead battery can also trigger and store diagnostic trouble codes, these codes will not always illuminate a check engine light in your dash. Once the system is hooked up to a computer diagnostic scan tool, the system can be scanned for hidden or stored codes and then the proper procedures can be taken to make sure that these systems are all in working order. These diagnostic scans are often REQUIRED to be performed by the vehicles manufacture as a way to make sure everything on your vehicle works properly and safely. We offer these services on top of doing dent repairs to insure the best repairs possible for our customers, keeping you yourself safe, your family, others on the roadways as well as your vehicle.
Scanning is just the first step in this system, next is recalibrating the auto driving systems in a vehicle, learn more about that here.
What does your vehicle manufacture say about diagnostic scanning?
Click your manufacture’s link below to see their statement on scanning.
Today we will be doing a PDR Tool Review featuring Edgy Tools. If you are involved in the paintless dent repair (PDR) industry at all, you have heard of Edgy Tools one way or another. From there awesome advertising featuring the Edgy Gator, that theme runs through the entire company and I absolutely love it. Down to the fantastic and game changing tools they develop and KEEP developing, if you are a tech why would you not want to work smarter, not harder!
There are two different tools we are highlighting in this review.
The No-Roll Knockdown
The Knockers Blending Hammer tip
Both of these tools bring new elements of surprises to the paintless dent repair industry. One is a smaller more efficient hammer tip, to basically what I would refer to as the swiss army knife of knock downs.
That’s what Bruce, the owner of this 2013 Ford Mustang had some damage in his recently purchased car. He took it to a local body shop to have them look at the damage. The body shop told him this damage could not be fixed using paintless dent repair. The body shop could fix this damage, they would have to have repaint the left fender, left door and left quarter panel.
Bruce comes from a body shop and painting background and was familiar with the paint process. Knowing the ins and outs of painting he knows about the many downfalls of having a repainted vehicle, from color mismatch, to peeling paint and diminishing value. He knew he did not want to have his vehicle repainted.
He contacted us about the repairs in the drivers door. Once we looked over the vehicle, we took note of the damage on his quarter panel. We asked him what were his plans with it. He mentioned he was going to take it to the body shop shortly and have them repaint it. Bruce was happy when we told him we could fix this damage. No repainting would need to be done on his vehicle. He was ecstatic and happy to go this route. He brought the car to us to have us perform paintless dent repair on it.
Can Dents in Body Lines be Repaired using Paintless Dent Repair?
We get these types of questions all of the time. The short answer is Yes. Many factors come into play when determining if a dent can be repaired or not. These same factors all apply to body line damage. For instance if there is severe paint damage to the dent, sometimes paintless dent repair is not the best option. But that is not always true, some customers are ok with minor paint damage and they are happy to touch the panel up after the metal is repaired. We did another post about this recently talking about paint damage and dent repair, you can see that article here.
This repair had no type of paint damage and would be considered a medium sized depth for a dent. The access to this dent with paintless dent repair tools was pretty straight forward. Access through the upper window channel was all we needed in order to repair this damage. No removal of any parts on this vehicle was necessary in this repair making it easier for us to repair and a quicker repair.
Have you ever wondered how we repair damage if we cannot get to the back side of the panel to push the damage out?
Well today we are going to answer that question for you.
For damage we cannot push out we have to resort to the glue pulling method of paintless dent removal. With this method we use a specialized glue in a glue gun, this glue gun is specifically made for paintless dent removal. We then apply this glue to a paintless dent removal glue tab, then glue this tab to the vehicle. We then use either a slider hammer or a mini lifter to pull the damage out. After a pull is made we then apply a release agent to remove the glue from the vehicle. From here we then repeat this process many times in order to pull the damage out. In is a very repetitive process but it is necessary to remove dents with no access.
You can see this entire process in this video we made a while back:
Today we are repairing this damage in a 2013 Cadillac ATS left side quarter panel. This damage impacted so deep it actually pushed the exterior sheet metal into the inner wheel house structure. This severe impact caused the exterior metal to to actually bend outwards and crack the paint on the edge of the panel.
Now with there being paint damage a person has two options: – Repaint the entire panel – Use touch up paint to touch the area up
This is a choice ultimately only the customer can make.
To give you a little more detail about these choices first off lets start off by choosing repaint the panel.
Repainting the Panel:
The entire panel requires repainting. Everything installed on the panel like tail lights and a bumper, would need to be removed. Other panels may require more items. Items such as door handles, trim, mirrors, glass, moldings and lights.
If this paint damage is near any other panels typically anything under 18 inches, the body shop will have to fade or blend, this is the industry term, the color into the other panel.
What if the paint is a specialized color like a pearl coat or tri coat, like this vehicle was?
That distance spreads much further for blending the paint. For this vehicle the left rear door, left quater panel and rear bumper would all need to be repainted. A minor scratch in one panel, say a door for example, could mean the ENTIRE side of the vehicle being repainted to get a correct color match!
Touch up the damage:
Now for touch up, it is exactly that. We or the customer are “touching up” the specific area with paint damage. How we explain touch up paint to a customer is like this:
Imagine a black shirt with a black button on it. Now the button blends in pretty well but it is still visible. This explains how a paint touch up might look when completed. Solid colors such as a straight black is the best candidate for touch up repairs. Other colors like pearl coats, quad coats and other unique colors like this, are sometimes not the best choice for touch up. At a minimum a small coat of a clear coat should always be applied over a small crack or chip to at least seal it from the outside elements.
This customer was actually referred to us from another body shop in Tea, South Dakota. The customer was a friend of theirs and the Body Shop knew that this repair would get extremely costly for the customer because of the pearl white tri coat stage paint finish. The customer did the paint touch up themselves and live with any possible color mismatch, they just wanted the dents to be repaired and we were happy to provide this service for them!
