How it works
How a dent comes out without paint
A dent is stretched metal, not a missing piece. Paintless dent repair puts the stretch back where it came from, which is why the finish on top of it survives.
What you actually do
Photo in the morning, dent out by the afternoon
Four things happen, and only the first one involves you.
- 1Minute one
You send a photo and a number
One or two shots at an angle, what happened, and where to call you. No account, no password, no card.
- 2Straight away
Repairers who cover you see the job
Up to five of them, nearest first. They see the damage and the distance; they do not see your name or your number.
- 3Usually within hours
One accepts and calls you
The others are closed out the moment somebody takes it, so you are called once rather than five times.
- Before any work
A written quote you approve
Priced from their rate book, panel by panel, with the working shown. Then the dent comes out, and a photo report and tax invoice land in your inbox.
The craft
What the technician is doing to your panel
Four things, in order, to a panel that never comes off the car.
- Reading it — the light board
- A technician never looks at a dent head-on. They hold a board of parallel lit stripes over the panel and read the bend in the reflection. A dent kinks the lines; the shape of that kink tells them how deep it goes, how far the metal has stretched, and where the high spots are. It is also how they know when to stop.
- Getting behind it — access
- Rods go in through a window channel, a light gap, a tail light aperture or a drain hole, whatever reaches the back of that panel without taking the car apart. Where nothing reaches, the dent is pulled from the outside with a tab glued to the paint and released with alcohol.
- Working it — small pushes, hundreds of them
- The metal is not hammered out. It is pushed in tiny increments from the centre of the dent outward, releasing the tension in the stretched steel a fraction at a time, with the reflection checked after each one. This is why it takes an hour and why it cannot be rushed.
- Finishing — knocking down the crown
- Every dent leaves a slightly raised ring around it. The technician taps that flat with a knockdown against the light board until the stripes run dead straight. At that point the panel is the shape it left the press, and the paint on it has never been touched.
30-second check
Run a fingernail across it
The trade's own test, and you can do it where the car is parked. It decides whether your dent is paintless work or a panel shop's.
Not sure? Send the photos anyway. Being told it isn’t a paintless job costs nothing and saves a wasted trip.
Questions
How much does paintless dent repair cost in South Africa?
A single trolley ding on the flat of a door starts around R750 including VAT. An R5-sized dent is about R810, and a golf-ball dent on a bonnet about R1,320. Hail is priced per panel by how many dents there are and how big they are, so a bonnet with light hail is roughly R2,000 and a whole car with light hail about R6,300. Those are figures from the default rate book; each repairer prices from their own and shows you the working before anything is agreed.
Can hail damage be repaired without respraying the car?
In most cases, yes. As long as the paint is not cracked or chipped, a technician works the metal back from behind the panel with rods and reads the surface in a reflected light board. Nothing is sanded, filled or sprayed, so the car keeps its factory finish. Where hail has broken the paint, or a panel is too far gone, a repairer will tell you that up front rather than after starting.
How long does it take?
A single dent is usually an hour or two, often while you wait. Light hail across a bonnet, roof and boot is typically a day. Severe hail on ten panels can run to several days. A panel shop doing the same car conventionally would normally book it in for a week or more because of paint and drying time.
Will it affect my car's resale value or service history?
The opposite of a respray. Paint thickness gauges are standard at trade-ins and auctions, and resprayed panels show up on them. Paintless repair leaves the original factory paint and its thickness untouched, so there is nothing on the car to declare and nothing for a buyer's gauge to find.
Which dents cannot be fixed this way?
Anything where the paint is broken. The quick test is to run a fingernail across the damage: if it catches in a crack or a chip, the panel needs paint and paintless repair alone will not finish the job. Sharp dents right on a panel edge, panels with existing filler or rust, and damage severe enough to need the panel replaced also fall outside it. Send photos anyway and a repairer will tell you straight, at no cost.
Should I claim from insurance or pay for hail repair myself?
It depends on your excess and on what a claim does to your premium, so check your policy. Because paintless repair costs a fraction of a conventional respray, plenty of single-panel and light hail jobs come in below or near a typical excess, which makes paying directly worth working out. If you are claiming, repairers on Dentz issue a written quote and a before-and-after photo report your insurer can work from.
Do I have to bring the car in for a quote?
No. Photos taken at an angle, so the light runs across the damage, are enough for a repairer to price the job. A quote from photos comes as a range; it is fixed in writing once someone has the panel under a light board, and no work starts before you approve that figure.
Is this free for car owners?
Yes, completely. You pay the repairer for the repair and nothing to us. Repair businesses pay for the software they run their workshop on, and the leads come with it, which is why quoting you costs nothing.
Who gets my details?
Your request goes to up to five repairers who cover your area, and at that point they see the damage, the photos and roughly how far away it is, but not your name or number. The first to accept the job gets your contact details; the rest never do. You are called once, not five times.
What if the price changes once they see the car?
A photo quote is a range, not a promise. When the repairer inspects the panel they issue a fixed written quote, and work only begins once you have approved it. If what they find is different from the photos, you see the new figure before anyone touches the car.
One photo. One call. Dent gone.
Free to ask. No card. Fixed in writing before anyone touches the car.
Takes about a minute. No account, no password.