Tried PDR glue pulling a dent on a 2016 Civic, made it way worse

Had a small door ding on a 2016 Civic and thought I would save the customer some cash by glue pulling it instead of drilling. I used the cheap glue sticks from Harbor Freight and when I popped the tab, it yanked a quarter sized chunk of paint clean off down to bare metal. Now I am looking at a full repaint on that panel instead of a $150 PDR job. Did I use the wrong glue or is my pull technique just too aggressive?

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sam_anderson11d ago

A quarter sized chunk of paint down to bare metal from a glue pull? That sounds less like a glue problem and more like the paint was already compromised there. If that ding ever got touched up before, or the panel had a respray at some point, the bond between paint and metal is weak and any pull is gonna take it with it. Cheap glue sticks get blamed a lot but they usually fail by not sticking, not by ripping paint off. What temp were you pulling at? Cold glue on cold metal grabs way harder than it should and thats when stuff lets go. Before you quote a full respray, take a pic of the bare spot, sometimes thats a small blend job, not a whole panel.

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