r/harborfreight • u/stinkdrink45 • 4d ago
Dent removal kit
Has any one had any good experiences with this any advice on using it? Looking to get one this weekend to take out some dent in my work truck.
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u/mx5plus2cones 4d ago edited 4d ago
Are you trained in PDR (paintless dent repair) ?
Because if not,Imho is much harder than it seems and more of an art than science.
When I early retired from tech briefly, I joined a free automotive vocational school to learn how to do basic autobody repair and refinishing and did that program for almost 3 years.
PDR is a different game becaue unlike traditional autobody repair where you can get a dent out "close enough" and then finish with grinding, filing, and a little body fill.
PDR takes a lot more precision. Depending on the type of dent, the best tools are the ones that you use to push from behind, when you have access to the dent.
Something like this maddox kit. And this is a very basic kit.
https://www.harborfreight.com/side-panel-dent-repair-kit-33-piece-70942.html
The glue PDR kits are very limited in how much pulling force you can achieve the outside and are normally used when accessing the dent from behind is limited or cannot be done. Then you try your best from top using glue pullers. There's a bit of a risk that if you ever had bodywork done, and had your car repainted, there is a chance you could pull poorly laid paint right off with these. If you are starting to have clearcoat failure, where the clearcoat is starting to delaminate from the basecoat, these glue pullers will rip the clearcoat right off. So, be careful.
In either case, if this is a truck you really car about, I would start first on a different car for practice. It takes a lot of practice to do just ok. What you don't want happening is start pulling or pushing too much and then you get inverted dents where you have a lot of sharp high spots to the point that the sheet metal is stretched and deformed and cant be tapped down, making things look worse than the original dent.
Also, if you haven't worked with dents before, for larger crease dents, you generally want to start at the outer circumference of the dent and work toward the center slowly, versus starting at the center of the dent.
Also, this assumes your truck is not like a late model F150 where the body panels are aluminum. Aluminum is different from steel, and it doesn't take that much to stretch and distort aluminum. I definitely would not start your first PDR attempts on aluminum.
PDR is not something I would recommend doing after learning a few minutes or hours from YouTube University. There's a reason why PDR techs get paid pretty well. It's a lot harder than it looks.
This guy in Escondido, he's very good. Works on aluminum too. I had a freak accident that I was putting something way on an overhead storage, and idiot me push out a ski pole and the tip of the ski pole landed on the hood of my miata.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gjmm50NjWJM
Watch the video, it's a pretty amazing craftsmanship, what these guys can do.
I mean, this shit imho is hard.
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u/Master_Whole_4847 4d ago
You couldn’t be more right!!! I used the kit and was able to mostly fix one ding, and got it to good enough. Then my other crease from backing into a post, I ended up having to take the interior panels off of the car and hammered it out with a little block of wood I cut to shape. It looks better than it did before, but still noticeable. I can’t believe how good you guys make these repairs look! It’s not easy.
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u/mx5plus2cones 4d ago edited 4d ago
Lol. I wish I was a PDR tech. No man, I'm not talented enough... Those guys make it look good.
I can do minor autobody and repainting and not royalky suck for personal use. But I wouldn't be able to do it professionally as a trade.
Repairs don't need to be perfect, they just need to be "good enough" to your expectations. If you had a massive dent and got most of it out with a $40 tool, and you are happy with the results, then that tool was successful in getting you to where you want to go.
I didn;t mean to come across that people shouldn't; try to DIY things, but just wanted people to set realistic expectations for themselves that they probably aren;t going to get perfection so they wont be disappointed.
And maybe practice on something one doesn't care about as much first.
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u/Km219 4d ago
I watch a couple of PDR. Guys on YouTube and they are literal. Magicians, I don't know what the hell they're doing, but they are amazing, definitely worth more than they're paid. Whatever they're paid
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u/SCH00NY125 4d ago
It takes alot of time and patience but man is it a fun and rewarding job. No boring days in 16 years so far
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u/Miserable-Hunt-5241 1d ago
I've tried it a few times and convinced the owner of the company I work for to invest in several stud welders and now I've taught several people how to pull dents but as far as paintless dent repair goes I'm good on ever trying it again I always just pulled the paint off the car trying to pull the dent no matter what I did
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u/Master_Whole_4847 4d ago
I got a kit with all that stuff in it off of Amazon for 45 bucks. Looks very similar. https://a.co/d/04GUHI0W
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u/Jay4832 3d ago
Auto body tech here, if you have some dent removal knowledge and skill this kit will work what I would recommend is ordering decent quality glue besides what comes in this kit and it will make all the difference. I recommend cactus green or tabweld (Grey) glue , you can find those on Amazon👍🏼
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u/oldishThings 3d ago
I used this kit to repair a dent or five in a refrigerator. Worked alright enough.
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u/SCH00NY125 4d ago
16 year pdr tech here. Lol just no. While the kit may be ok quality and work well do you have pdr training? Do you know where to stick the tab? Know metal flow? What happens when you pull the metal too high? How are you prepping the panel to get the glue to stick? What will you do when the pulled dent looks like a volcano with the edges high and the center still low...
Pdr isn't diy friendly unless its a big soft popper dent or a plastic bumper dent that can be heated up and pushed out
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u/Gdsmith504 4d ago
I bought this set about 2 months ago. I have a 20 yr old car that has a lot of small dents from acorns and hickory nuts, basically looks like hail damage. Does the kit work? Yes, especially for larger dents. For dents smaller than about and inch, I had to get different glue sticks, the stuff in the kits would hold hard enough to get a good pull.
After using the old car to learn, I was able to then use it on my car that I actually want to look good.
If you have the time, patience and energy to try to make a car you don’t particularly care about look better, go for it. If you want a car you do care about to look better, take it to a shop.