Miata Mailing List: August 1995, Message #20
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   From: scannon@smartdocs.com (Skip Cannon)
Subject: Re: Paintless dent remover shops in Mass
   Date: Tue, 1 Aug 1995 11:54:20 -0400

 Drew Lindberg wrote:

>Sorry, don't know about ding removers in Mass,
>but I would warn anyone that does it what they do:
>they drill a small hole in the center of the dent,
>put in some fancy contraption and pull out the
>dent.  Be careful if the dent is in your door,
>because the drilling process leaves flakes of
>un-galvanized steel inside your door which
>(for those of us who do not live in deserts)
>_will_ rust.  It'll take a few years to show,
>but who of us is planning on retiring our Miatas?

The paintless dent removal process certainly doesn't include drilling a
hole in the sheetmetal.  Would they then put a nice plastic plug (color
matched, of course) in the hole?

Paintless dent removers use special tools to get behind the dent and gently
force the metal back to it's original shape.  This process works well as
long as the metal has not been creased.

My sister has a new Millenia and some items stored in her garage fell on
the hood causing 5 small but very noticable dings.  It looked like it had
been in a mini Colorado hail storm.  Body shops wanted $450 to remove them
and repaint the hood.  I suggested she try the paintless method.  The
people fixed her car in the parking lot at work and charged her $150.00.
One of the dings can still be detected if you look very closely.  The
others are completely gone.  She was very happy with the results and the
price.

Drew's advice on the removal of any metal chips is certainly valid if you
do have body work done which involves drilling.  But the paintless process
shouldn't leave any of these behind.

Skip Cannon