Paintless Dent Repair - Vehicle Hail Damage

[Boblobla]

We got pumped by the hail on July 2nd while we were out of town on vacation. Just got back from getting an estimate from the company our insurance company set us up with and they want to do painless dent repair on the damaged hood/quarter panels.

I do not have any direct experience with this process but I have heard some anecdotal stories on it not being great. Anyone have any experience with this type of repair and how it holds up over time? Our vehicles are a 2018/2019 so I don't want something that is not going to hold up.

Anyone ever had any luck getting an insurance company to give a second opinion?

[Erick Estrada]

I assume the vehicle is late model and worth too much to write off. You would be surprised what a good PDR tech can do to a pretty badly damaged vehicle but in your case it's hard to say not knowing how bad the damage is. If it's only moderate damage then I'm pretty sure they could restore it back to new condition.

[burn_this_city]

PDR is better than sand, fill, and paint imo, you would never know it was repaired in most cases. It will be as good as new with the original paint, vs someone's best efforts to match the original paint with 2-3 years of use and sun fading.

[Calgary14]

I had my vehicle repaired through insurance from hail damage in 2012. They used PDR. The vehicle looked like before and no damage was visible at all. When done right it can look exactly like before

[81MC]

Good PDR is better than standard repair for most small dents. I’m ticketed in repair and refinish, and I would take PDR wherever appropriate FWIW.

Be critical, use your eyes, but don’t find things that aren’t there. I’ve had customers complain about a ‘missed dent’ that was actually just factory stamping. Good PDR guys are gems.