Body Dings

My van is used as a work truck and it was inevitable that I would get a few dents and dings. I have a few "pimples" on the outside of the van where i had a bungee cord snap twice which left 2 dings and one on my rear door, not sure where that one came from. Anyways is there an easy way to fix these? What type of tools would i need and what would the procedure be?

Dolly and Gas to shrink the metal back problem is you'll have to repaint the section you put the gas on so do it from the inside, forget attempting to do it with a dolly the metal has stretched it's impossible to shrink it back cold. you also need two men a truck and a whole lot of gear to do it.
Richard

Go to a paintless dent removal guy in your area. Ask the major car dealers who they use. A good "dent guy" can eliminate 90% of all minor dents without repaint and at a low cost. Experience is key! I had a car rental company and have used this service 100's of times and had to repaint when the "dent guy" was less experienced.

March knows what he's talking about. My van had dozens of little dimples where the paint was not broken but in the right light was very unsightly. Before I insulated the interior I hired the local paintless dent removal guy to see what he could do. He removed all the dents and I swear that I cannot tell where they were! I watched him work and can tell you that experience plays an important part in doing a good job. I would not recommend that you buy the tools and then practice on your van

Just google "paintless dent removal" plus your state or area and see what comes up. Don't be afraid to ask for references. When you schedule an appointment have all the interior and such out of the way so he can get right to it. My guy did it right in my driveway! He spent over two hours doing it and charged me $150. I consider it money well spent.

Tim

march said:

Go to a paintless dent removal guy in your area. Ask the major car dealers who they use. A good "dent guy" can eliminate 90% of all minor dents without repaint and at a low cost.

Click to expand...

Also works great for hail damage! Don't ask me how I know...

Thanks so much guys, ill def. look into it

The only problem with the paintless dent removal is if the dings are in the middle of the body panels in the cargo area. There is no way for the tools to see the dent and control the tools with enough leverage to work the dent out. The only other alternative is to drill holes in the wheel wells to allow gain direct access but I would not recommend this unless the dents are really bad.

Just back from the Paintless guy in the Oakland area and he took out the damage from me taking another cars mirror off in the snow this winter, cost more for the other guy to get his mirror replaced than to take out the damage to my fender, the guy took out the dent in the hood, from my slipping trying to reach the top of the windshield when the van was new to me, at the same time, all for $350.

RV looks great again. Thanks for the recommendation, the body shop guys were going to be quite a bit more. Would have cost that much just to match the paint. And they didn't recommend paintless...

-Randy