Took the wife's van to a chain shop for a dent pull and then re-did it myself over a weekend

She backed into one of those concrete bollards at the grocery store parking lot on a Saturday. The chain shop quoted me $340 and said they needed it for three days. I watched them use one of those slide hammer dent pullers and it left these tiny stress marks all over the paint. You know how those pullers can dimple the metal if you don't heat the panel enough first. So I brought it home, grabbed my glue puller kit from the tool box, some body filler, and a can of her factory color (it's that metallic gray, GM code G7T). Spent about four hours on Sunday with the glue tabs and a heat gun then another hour with filler and sanding. Total cost was maybe $28 for the paint and clear coat. The chain shop left those dimples but my job came out smooth as glass. Has anyone else had better luck with glue pulling versus those old slide hammers on modern thin gauge steel?

2 comments

2 Comments

reese_perry626d ago

Glue pullers make me feel like a real mechanic instead of a caveman with a hammer.

juliaa2526d ago

It's funny how a simple tool can change your whole mindset about a job. We get so used to brute forcing things that we forget there's usually a better way that respects the process more. That shift from just getting it done to doing it right is a nice feeling in any trade.