Paintless dent repair

Has anyone ever offerd or thought about offering paintless dent repair? I've been told by several people who are not even in the car care business that it was a gold mine. And there is no one in this area that does it except maybe body shops but I don't even know if there's any body shops that do it paintless (with the rods). It seems like it would take alot of practice but it is a low overhead add-on. I orderd and received a promo pack from Ding King. Any body have experience with them?

Philip
Manager of detail Depmnt, Hadwin White Buick, GMC
Myrtle Beach, SC
E-mail: philipwsuggs@hotmail.com

Phillip:

PAINTLESS DENT REPAIR is a learned skill that only certain people can actually perform effectively.

As good a detailer as I used to be, I do not have the skills to perform PDR. It takes a person that is patient, a stickler for detail and who never rushes anything they do.

Those who "make a killing" at PDR are those who do it full time, it is not really something you can do part-time in conjunction with your detailing business, unless you are a rare one.

Those I know who do PDR and make "big bucks" chase hailstorms around the country and even the world, doing hail damage repair.

Others have full time, mobile PDR businesses that do from dealership to dealership everyday 5 days a week.

If you have the aptitude to do PDR you would need to leave your detail business for a minimum of two weeks for training and then when you came back you would have to practice several hours a day to become proficient at it.

Kind of like learning to play the piano. If you had an aptitue for music and you took lessons for two weeks straight, 8 hours a day, at the end of the two weeks of lessons you might know how to play the piano, but you could not come back to your city and look for a job in a piano bar; or as a pianist in a band.

Same analogy.

It is a big money business, but you have to committ to doing it full time and have the time and money to learn the skill.

Just my thoughts on the subject.

Bud Abraham
DETAIL PLUS SYSTEMS

Bud,
Thanks very much for that reply. Thats kind of what I thought, because the companies I've seen online had vans that just read PDR not detailing and PDR. I saw a demo of it being performed and I see what you mean about it being tedious.

Philip
Manager of detail Depmnt, Hadwin White Buick, GMC
Myrtle Beach, SC
E-mail: philipwsuggs@hotmail.com

You are welcome. Far too many unsuspecting detailers try to get into PDR and even Paint Touchup and Interior Repair when it simply takes too much time to do these services unless you have a single person doing one of the services and nothing else.

You might consider Carpet Dyeing which is easy and goes right along with detailing. We have an excellent system you can find at www.detailplus.com and click on Carpet Dyeing.

Or, windshield chip repair is another easy and good one to do.

Let me know how I can help you.

Bud Abraham

I'll check that out. Got a gallon of Diamond sealent that should be here next week. Did you ever get a chance to look at the web site?

Philip
Manager of detail Depmnt, Hadwin White Buick, GMC
Myrtle Beach, SC
E-mail: philipwsuggs@hotmail.com



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/19/2006 04:10AM by st. legal.

Gentlemen-
One way to offer PDR is to have a PDR man visit your shop once a week to service all of the appointments you set up. You are thus able to charge retail and pay him wholesale. In our town, we used to have an expert PDR man who charged low prices until he found out what he was worth and started charging more...
Philip-
You may want to post an evaluation of the sealant you are buying, once you try it out. You can run comparison tests by using a product on half a hood and a competing product on the other half. I'd be interested in your findings.
Doug
" It's True ! It was on the Internet ! "-actual statement by a somewhat credulous woman-

Doug:

You say apply one sealant to 1/2 a hood and another to the other half of the hood to compare.

What are you going to compare? You really cannot tell the reflective gloss off the surface of the hood on either side without a Glossmeter.

How do you tell the durability?

In short, there is, in my opinion, no way for a detailer or a user of any wax or paint sealant to tell how comparatively shiny one product is over another nor, if one is more durable than another.

Regards
Bud Abraham

Bud-
I admit this method raises certain questions but I don't think it is worthless. Where two waxes differ significantly in shine, I can see the difference. If I can't see a difference, it doesn't matter which has an edge.
You can probably get an idea of durability by water beading, slickness loss, shine loss and micro-marring no longer hiding under wax. The vexing problem is that waxes and sealants can still be present in at least some measure, after water beading has ceased.
In a side-by-side comparison, you can test the relative ease of application and wiping, amount of wax needed for coverage, cleaning action and apparent abrasive harshness.
This is like test-driving two cars ; you can judge the handling, ride, seat comfort, evenness of power delivery and braking stability but the human factor adds a subjective element to it.
I respect your right not to accept such a test as valid but I'm the one who is curious as to Philip's judgements.
Doug
" 99% of all statistics are made up on the spot. "



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/24/2006 03:37PM by Doug Delmont.

The dent repair is a learned skill. For $5000can. you can take a course. The course iS 3 months long then you are sent to a auction and you just fix dents on cars all day long and you are payed by the hour not the dent :'( . At the end of it you are certifed and you will easly land a job with a dent repair company. That is if you are avreage. And, like in detailing if you want to make money you have to be the top in you feild and a cut above the rest.

I doubt it takes any speacial gift to do. Self disipline and hard work with get you there.

But our dealership pays the dent guy 75$ per car. He charges customers 75$ PER DENT! and he easily gets it because the cost to get a body shop to fix it is so much higher.