THE GOODS : A New Way to Fix Those Minor Dents and Dings
You exercise great care every time you pull into a parking lot. But then you return and find it. Another dreaded dent in the door.
Despite the best efforts of auto manufacturers to add plastic door guards--or, as did Saturn, go to plastic doors--most doors are metal and dents and dings are as much a problem as ever. Parking spaces are shrinking, automobile sheet metal is getting thinner and people seem to be more careless.
Almost nothing will damage the value of your car more than seemingly minor dents and dings. When you trade in a late model car, an appraiser will mark down the value based on the cost of repairing these blemishes.
The cost of a traditional dent repair can run up to several hundred dollars for a single door or fender. Dents must be sanded, filled, primed, painted and clear coated, a job that takes a couple of days.
Dent Wizard is a relatively new service that claims it can beat that cost and inconvenience through a non-traditional repair, in which long tools are inserted through access holes in doors and fenders to manipulate the sheet metal back to its original form. The company only fixes dents in which the paint is undamaged. Dents up to the size of a softball can be removed.
Dent Wizard charges about $89 to remove the first dent and $31 for additional dents on the same fender or door. I hired the company, which has locations nationwide, to demonstrate the service on my car.
I would give Dent Wizard mixed marks for its performance and service.
On the positive side, Dent Wizard did remove the two dents I asked them to fix. One was on the hood, the other on the rear left door.
Although not perfect, I doubt anybody but me could see the repairs.
But the Dent Wizard repair left the window of the rear left door broken. The company did arrange to have it replaced, but I lost use of the car for a day. Dent Wizard twice promised to also replace the professionally applied window tinting film so the new window would match the rest of the car, but after five weeks it has yet to make good on that offer.
Dent Wizard President Kevin Beattie acknowledges broken windows can occur, though only 17 windows have broken during the course of 45,000 repairs, he says. Beattie says the company strives for 100% customer satisfaction and offers a money-back guarantee on all repairs.
Dent Wizard does most of its business with dealers, and also has large accounts including Hertz and Nissan, which hires the firm to repair new cars dented in transit. If you want to try Dent Wizard, you can call (800) 336-8949 to find the nearest location.
