I've been around cars almost all of my life, and this is the first time I have seen this done.

Basically it uses a piece of dry ice, placing it over the ding causes the metal to contract and the ding disappears.

I haven't tried it but here is the video. i just felt that it may help someone who needs it. It may not even work completely but it is worth a shot.

http://www.metacafe.com/watch/820799...asy_and_cheap/

After reading some of the comments, and the pdr guys bashing it. some points.

the metal must be hot. if it is cool out heat it with a hair dryer.

If you can't get dry ice, buy a can of air duster for computers and turn it upside down and spray it on the metal. the liquid refrigerant has the effect as dry ice.

 

two weeks ago we were hit with hail (golf ball size). the rental HHR I had was thrashed as was the wifes saturn Vue Being that insurance is covering the vue and replacing the hood and PDRing the roof and sides it may be well worth the experiment value if nothing else...

my only concern. is that being dry ice is -100*C is what is the long term affect on the paint/sheet metal bond...

 

probably none, since its just contracting the metal.. its supposed to be 90 today and sunny, my wife has a door ding in her sunfire, I'm gonna try the can of air upside down since i have one handy. but the ding maybe set in too long.

 

since the car is going to the body shop for a new hood it can't make things any worse...:)

 

I do PDR for a living and I am actually up in the DC area fixing the hail damaged cars. Ill save you time and money and tell you that dry ice, suction cups and upside down aersol cans dont work. Take your car to a quality PDR technician to have it repaired.

 

Arent you just a buzz kill?...

 

Well actually he said the same thing the people in the industry want you to believe.

Hey look I make my money off this....really...don't believe it


Nice try...we see what you did there. But like it was said...its dry ice...what damage is it really going to do? So what harm is there in trying?

 

cpope...maybe you'll be working on my wifes Saturn Vue and the silver 1LT hhr that I rented from Enterprise...but I did go out and buy some dry ice. since I'm having a big cookout and I needed some ice so i got a few lbs.

since they are going to replace the hood on the saturn I had a couple hundred dents to play with. I worked on a few the smaller dents the dry ice DID work. but it took about 10 minutes of working with one dent to get it to smooth out and it wasn't one of the bad ones. in that ten minutes you could have done probably could have worked out a dozen dents...

so if you have a few minor dings the dry ice MAY work but it takes time...

 

I hate hail. I got a bunch of dents from friday's storm on my car that I just got a week ago.

 

Bummer, Sunflowerhippi..... how bad?