A fingernail catches on it
Then it is not a ding, it is a chip with a dent behind it, and it goes to somebody with a spray gun. This is a thirty second test you can do yourself before you call anybody.
Door ding repair in St. Petersburg
Somebody opened their door into yours. Most dings take about an hour, in the lot where you parked, and come out completely.
Is this you?
Sound like your car?
A round dent at waist height
Between a fingernail and a golf ball, usually on a door, usually with the paint fine.
You only see it in certain light
A shallow ding that shows up at an angle, or in low evening sun.
More than one on a side
Walk around with a flashlight. Quoting them together costs less than two visits.
Where it gets done
We come to the lot at work.
Leave the keys at the front desk and go to your meeting. The van parks beside the car, the tech does the work outside it, and the work order is on your phone before you’re back.
All we need is about twelve feet of room on the side with the ding.
How we do it
How a door ding comes out
Check the paint
A fingernail across the ding: if it catches on a chip, it’s not a paintless job, and we say so.
Open the way in
Usually the inside door panel comes off so the rod can reach the back of the ding.
Push it back
From the edges in, watching the reflection, until the panel is flat again.
Put the door back together
Panel, clips and seals refitted, and you check it in the light before we go.
On the day
What the visit needs
The van brings its own power, water and light. All it needs from you is the space below.
- Typical time on site
- 30 – 75 min
- Where it is done
- Driveway or office parking lot
- What the site needs
- 12 ft clear on the damaged side
When we’ll say no
The three times this isn’t a job for us
You hear these from your photos, before anyone drives anywhere.
It is on the very edge of the panel with a brace behind it
Some positions have no route to the back of the metal at all. We will say so from the photographs rather than turning up and discovering it in your parking lot with your door card off.
It is a door edge chip, not a dent
Missing paint on a folded edge is not something pushing fixes. That is touch-up or a small refinish and it is not our work, so it does not go on our estimate.
The details
For the people who want every step
The parking lot special
Somebody opens a door into yours. It leaves a round, shallow depression somewhere between a fingernail and a golf ball, usually about waist height on the door, usually with the paint perfectly intact because a door edge has a rubber lip on it. This is the single most repairable piece of damage on a car and it is what paintless repair was developed for.
Most of them take between half an hour and an hour and a quarter, and most of them end up genuinely invisible — not “much better”, but gone, with the factory finish still on the panel.
Where it sits decides the price, not how big it is
People are always surprised by this. A two inch ding in the open flat of a door is easier than a half inch one sitting on the swage line, the sharp crease pressed into the panel that runs the length of the car. Metal in a body line has already been stretched hard by the factory press, it is under tension, and it does not want to move. The rod has less room to work, the panel wants to oil-can, and what would be a forty minute job in the flat becomes ninety minutes on the line with a more modest result.
The same goes for a ding right on the edge of a panel, or one over a brace or a reinforcement where there is no way to get a tip behind the center of it. When you send photographs, the angle shot showing where it sits on the door tells us more about the price than a close-up ever will.
Why the second one is cheap
The expensive part of a small dent is access. Getting to the back of a rear door means the interior card off, the weather barrier peeled and re-sealed, the lighting set up, the line board positioned. That is most of the labor, and once it is done the second and third ding on the same panel cost a fraction of the first.
Which is why it is worth walking around the car with a flashlight before you send the photographs. People point us at the one that annoys them and we find four more, and had they all been quoted together the total would have been noticeably less than the two separate visits it turns into otherwise.
Old dings
A ding that has been in a panel for six years is harder than one from Tuesday. The metal takes a set: it has been sitting in that shape through hundreds of heat cycles in a Florida parking lot and it has become comfortable there. It still comes out, generally, but it takes longer and it occasionally leaves the faintest memory of itself visible in a raking light. If that is what we expect, that is what the estimate says before you agree to it.
Door edge damage
The chip on the edge of your own door, from the wall of the garage, is not a dent — it is missing paint on a folded edge, and no amount of pushing brings paint back. That is a touch-up or a small refinish, and it is not ours. We will tell you that instead of quietly including it in a total.
Questions
What people ask about door dings
How long does a door ding repair take?
Most take between half an hour and an hour and a quarter. A ding on the body line, or one that has been there for years, can take longer, and the price says so before you agree.
Does the size of the ding decide the price?
Less than where it sits. A two-inch ding in the flat of a door is easier than a half-inch one on the sharp line that runs down the side of the car.
Can you fix the chip on the edge of my door?
No. That’s missing paint on a folded edge, not a dent, so it needs touch-up or a small refinish. We’ll tell you that rather than add it to the price.
Send a photo. Get a straight answer.
Dispatch looks at your photos and comes back with a yes, a no, or a written price, usually within the hour. The van comes to wherever the car is parked.
Other work
The rest of what the van fixes
Paintless dent repairDents out, factory paint kept.Hail damagePriced by panel, worked in the shade.Bumper scuffsSanded, primed and refinished to flex.Curb rash wheel repairFixed on the car, checked first.Headlight restorationSanded, polished, re-coated.Trim and moldingsLifted trim, re-bonded properly.Fleet repairOne yard visit, one invoice.Every serviceAll eight, with time on site for each.