Vehicle dents can be annoying, frustrating, and expensive to repair.
Below is two little tricks you can use when you have one of those dents. Of course, not all dents are the same, and not all dents can be tackled the same way.
There are those hard to get to dents. There are those dents that require hours of pounding and stretching the metal.
Then there are some that require you to replace a complete door or fender.
Those dents cannot be fixed using the tricks below.
However, there are those almost perfect round dents that you think, man, if I could get behind this dent and give it one big smack, I could pop that thing right out.
Well, really, you can. So let us try some simple tricks to pull out a simple type of dent.
Do It Yourself Dent Removal Tips and Tricks
- Tip and Trick #1
- Tip and Trick #2
Let’s get the area where the dent is located and make it wet, maybe even a little soapy, as if you are washing the damaged area.
Now that it is a little soapy and wet. Try pulling the dent with a plunger.
Sometimes it takes a few tries and needs to be stuck in place, but a plunger can work on a simple type of dents.
Hopefully, this trick works for you. This method will do wonders on small, very flexible dents, such as on doors; if it does not, then try the next trick.
The first step is to remove anything in your way from accessing the back of the dented area. No matter the amount of room, just get some space.
In this picture, I have removed the wheel cover above the tire. You just need to remove a couple of small screws. I did not need to completely remove it. I removed Just enough so that I could get a couple of inches of space behind the dent.
In some cases, like a door that has a dent, you may need to remove the door panel on the inside.
Now take a ball needle that you would use to put air into a ball and place it into the ball letting all the air escape. You may need to step on the ball to get it as flat as possible.
Then push the ball in behind the dent. Make sure that you leave the needle exposed so that you are able to put air into it, in some cases when the ball requires being shoved way back. Make sure you can attach an air-line to the air valve.
Now that the ball is pushed into its position put air into it. Do not over-inflate the ball, or you may have another dent sticking out instead of in.
At this point, you can use a bicycle tire pump or similar the ball will only need about 5 lbs.
After you have seen the dent pop back out, you can deflate the ball and retrieve it.
Replace any screws you have removed in the wheel well or door panel. In this scenario, there was no chip in this paint, just a large dent. As you can see, after doing my trick, there is still no paint chipping, and the dent is gone.
So as you can see, with just a ball needle and a ball, you can become an auto-body man.
My personal favorite ball is the red kickball, also known as the playground ball; we used them as children on the playground. They fold up easily and very easy to get into some tight spots. And in cases where needed, they can stick out halfway and still do the trick because they are so much more flexible.
In short, some dents are better left to the professionals, but there are some that are worth doing by a DIY type person.
I had no idea that you can use balls to remove dents from your car. My wife and I noticed that we have a lot of small dents in our car. Maybe it would be better to hire an auto body repair service that can take care of smaller dents.
I didn’t know that you can use a plunger and water to remove smaller dents from your vehicle. My uncle accidentally forgot to park his car inside his garage when it was hailing last night, and he needs to find a way to remove the dents from his vehicle before he goes on a business trip next week. I’ll tell him that he should find a professional that can repair the dents.
Thank you for the tips! This will help out a lot.
WOW! Cool tricks. I might try this when I got dents. Thank you for this.
Whats the phases of sanding down and priming a truck from start to finish and what all would i need thank you
Thank you I’ve been checking out a lot of your post and videos. I am a women and need to do a lot of things by myself and you are so easy to follow. I’m more mechanical then my husband so I will try just about anything
Very cool. Thanks for the tips. Great auto repair blog.
Thank you for these tricks! I have used the inflatable ball dent trick before. I was able to use a tire innertube to repair the dent. I found the innertube was easy to get inside the dented area, and didn’t slip out as it was inflated. But I found when using a plunger, you really need to use a new plunger- as they get older, the rubber loses its ability to create a tight enough vaccuum seal to pull the dent.