WHAT IS PAINTLESS DENT REMOVAL?

Owning a car these days is not uncommon. However, in Poland, the car is still considered a luxury means of transport. Lately, public awareness of car care is increasing. In the case of damage to the bodywork in the form of dents, caused by minor damage on parking lots or external factors, e.g. chestnuts, acorns falling from trees, or the effects of hail, vandalism, most often it ended with a visit to a body shop and restoration of the damaged elements to their original state. This involved leaving the car in the workshop for a few days, repainting damaged elements and, worst of all, the necessity to use a car filler for repair. The cost of body and paint repairs is quite high, and therefore many car owners had to bear high repair costs or come to terms with the damage. A factor that has a negative impact on bodywork repairs is the fact that the car loses its value after such repairs. New car dealerships suffering from transport damage or standing in dealership parking lots, which may also be "victims" of hail, are also affected. Fortunately, there is a method of repairing dents in the car body without the need for repainting (Paintless Dent Repair) abbreviated as PDR. I will use this abbreviation in the further part of this description.

In the further part of my work, I am tempted to prove the following theses:

1. Repair of the car's bodywork without any tinsmith's intervention - is it possible? Yes, using the PDR method,
2. Technological advantage of PDR methods over traditional body and lacquer repairs,
3. Lower cost, shorter time of PDR repairs over traditional body and paint repairs
4. Innovation and the future of PDR repairs

Fig. 1 Marked visible traces of hail on body parts.

I will try to introduce innovation and interest the recipient with the PDR method. A method that allows you to repair dents, even those caused by hail, without the need for long, costly and time-consuming sheet metal work. This is the method by which the services can be performed mobile. A method that saves time and money compared to traditional body and paint repairs, does not leave any traces of repair, preserves the original paint coating and does not cause loss of value of the repaired vehicle. Is it possible, or is it just a half-measure, and the traditional bodywork repair will be necessary? The aim of this study is to present PDR repairs and an attempt to select the appropriate method of car body repair in the case of minor damage.

The scope of work will include a comparison of car body repairs using the PDR method and the traditional body and paint method. The results will be analyzed and conclusions will be drawn about the effectiveness of the PDR method.

WHAT IS PDR?

Paintless Dent Repair (PDR), i.e. removing dents without painting. It is a method of repairing damage to car body elements caused by various factors, e.g. parking damage, hail or chestnuts falling from trees, acts of vandalism without the need to repaint them.

HISTORY OF PDR

In the 1940s, the employees of the Mercedes Benz factory began to pay more attention to the dents on the car bodies of the cars produced at the factory, which had to be removed. This generated additional costs as the elements had to be repaired and re-painted.

Oskar Fleig - one of the factory employees began to develop a repair method that did not require any tinsmiths intervention. Using a tablespoon, he began to push the dents from the inside, thus preparing the body parts for painting. Over time, the effects of the repairs were so satisfactory that they did not require painting.

The PDR method also uses a method called Glue pulling (removing dents with glue), but the origins of this method have not been recorded in the history pages. Regarding the development of this method, only the word of mouth stories passed on by senior PDR technicians remain. It is certain that the glue method is younger than the method of pushing dents first used by Oskar Fleig, and that Japan is indicated as the country where the glue method was created. In the course of the evolution of the PDR, various devices and tools appeared that did not find general recognition and use in the PDR market. You can cite solutions such as dent removal via image transmission, where the technician mounted a camera over the dent and, looking at the screen displaying the image from the camera, pushed the dent from the inside. This method was also born in Japan. It was similar with a hammer working on the principle of an impact, which removed dents from the inside, or a glue pad combined with a slide hammer. Such tools are not found in the suitcases of technicians from Europe.

Fig. 2 On the left, Oskar Flaig, the inventor of PDR, and Erich Nussle, the founder of Nussle Specialwerkzeuge.

This method was known only to a few factory workers and was not disseminated outside the production plants. It was not until 1960 at the New York motor show that this method began to be used on a larger scale. At the fair, Oskar Fleig was responsible for caring for the bodies of cars presented at the fair. He dealt with the removal of minor dents on the bodies of the presented cars, which appeared during the day, caused by the carelessness of visitors to the fair. Oskar Fleig used simple, generally available tools such as a hammer, screwdrivers and table spoons. These actions can be considered the beginning of a method of removing dents without varnishing.

After the fair, Oskar Fleig began working on the development of PDR technology. In 1962 he was promoted to foreman for his commitment to training the personnel of the Mercedes Benz plant. Soon after this event, Oskar Fleig trained the first technicians in the United States of America. The New York auto show is considered a breakthrough in the history of PDR. The first companies producing professional tools for removing car body dents using the PDR method, as well as companies providing services for individual customers, appeared in the United States. In the 1970s, the first PDR technicians appeared in Europe.

However, due to the significantly difficult availability of tools from abroad, they used tools of their own production. Economic problems and the lack of availability of tools greatly impeded the development of this field in Poland. Fortunately, the losses were quickly made up for, and the current skills of Polish PDR technicians are not much behind the world's best. The PDR method returned to Europe from the United States via Italy. Italian PDR technicians revolutionized the market first in Italy and then in Germany. The PDR technology in Germany was kept a secret for a long time, it was made public when Italian teams of technicians removing dents without painting began to appear on the German market.

In 1983, the company Dent Wizard was established in the United States, associating thousands of technicians from both Americas and Europe, in 2008 it employed over 1,400 people. In 1996, Erich Niissle founded the Gartringen-based company Niissle Spezialwerkzeuge, which has been using paintless dent removal for over two decades, producing specialized PDR tools and providing training in paintless dent removal.

APPLICATION OF PDR

The method of removing dents without PDR varnishing can be used to remove small and deeper dents of the bodywork resulting from various factors such as hail, parking damage, acts of vandalism. Experienced PDR technicians can also remove much larger dents formed on the car's body. Using the PDR method, we can remove dents on virtually every element of the bodywork made of steel as well as aluminum, such as the hood, fender, roof, pillars, doors, boot lid. Who is the PDR service for? For everyone, from individual customers through car dealers to insurance companies.

Thanks to the PDR method, we can restore the appearance of our car's bodywork to the showroom. In the case of car dealers, the application of the PDR method can bring significant savings in the case of new cars standing in the open air and waiting for their buyer. In the event of a hailstorm, there is a very high risk that such cars will be damaged by hail and that there will be traces on their bodies in the form of a significant number of dents in the body. As it might seem, the only way out of such a situation would be to replace the damaged elements with new ones, which would involve the need to re-paint them and would reduce the value of such vehicles or sell them at a much lower price without repairing such cars. However, the PDR method comes in handy here, thanks to which we are able to remove almost 100% of the effects of hail without re-painting the body parts. Even leaving no trace of the repair and the need to inform the potential buyer about them.

Fig. 3 Before and after PDR repair

In the case of individual customers, repairs using PDR technology do not reduce the market value of the vehicle through recoated body parts. The most important factor qualifying a car to undertake a PDR repair is the original, factory, undamaged paint coating. In the case of an earlier, re-painting of a bodywork element and a new coat of paint by a paint technician, there is a high probability of damage to the paint coat, such as a crack or even detachment of a part of the paint from the body element, and it will be necessary to re-paint.

Fig. 4. Visible paint defect after tearing off the glue adapter

Another factor that often goes hand in hand with recoating an element is a car filler, commonly known as a putty. The car putty is used to smooth the surface prepared for the painting - filling defects, scratches or just dents.

The car putty is plastic, so it can be shaped in any way, and when completely dry, it hardens. When a dent is formed, the putty is able to deform along with the sheet, but it is not flexible enough to restore it to its original shape while removing the dent. If you try to remove a dent where there is a putty under the paint, you can be sure that the putty will crack together with the paint.

It would seem that such a situation completely eliminates the sense of removing dents using the PDR method? Nothing could be more wrong. If we have had a dent, and a body element has been previously painted or, worse, repaired with putty, and we still want to remove the dent from our car, we can combine the PDR method with traditional paint repair. We can remove the dent with the PDR method, thus preparing the element for painting and eliminating the need to use putty. Insurance companies also recognize the PDR method for motor claims or claims caused by other external factors, often using a platform similar to the calculation of claims costs.

As you can see, the PDR method is increasingly used in the automotive field and uses the growing awareness of consumers about alternative vehicle body repairs. The PDR repair method can be used to repair both steel and aluminum body covers. During the deformation of car body elements as a result of external impacts, similar phenomena occur as in the case of their intended forming. Then, concavities, bulges, bends and kinks form in their surfaces. Their removal requires the opposite of the processes that caused them. Due to the stiffness of the outer shell elements with a shell structure, such deformations usually occur in relatively small areas and have the shape of trough depressions.

The repair is limited to softly pushing the dented part outwards or pulling it out by gluing plastic glue adapters and pulling them with a suitable tool. After such an operation, the element regains its original shape thanks to the internal stresses that have remained in it since its embossing. This effect is commonly referred to as "sheet memory".

WHAT IS PDR?

The method of removing dents without painting PDR (Paintless Dent Repair) is based on restoring the original state of a sheet that has been damaged by a dent without having to re-paint it. Two methods are used, the so-called wire, in which the dent is repaired from the bottom of the damaged element by "pushing" the metal sheet from the inside with the use of specialized tools for removing dents, commonly known as wires or hooks. These tools work as a lever. The technician pushes the sheet upwards with very precise movements, adjusting the appropriate pressure until the unevenness is completely leveled. For the exact location of the indentation, a shadow lamp is necessary, which also emits stripes in the place of the indentation, thanks to which we are able to determine the exact center of the dent, i.e. the place from which we start removing the dent, then with a spiral movement from the center of the dent to the outside, massage the sheet metal from the outside of the indentation. It is an invasive method.

The second used PDR method is the glue method. It consists in sticking a special adapter, the so-called the glue pad or a mushroom with hot-melt glue and then pulling it with a special puller or slide hammer. It is a non-invasive method, less accurate and less precise than the wire method. We can use the glue method in places where there is no access to dents from the inside, e.g. roof posts, which are closed profiles

First of all, the tools used in this method do not require as much space as traditional body painting tools. You do not need to have many separate rooms and a very expensive paint chamber. A room with an area of ​​approx. 30 m2 is sufficient for comfortable work. The necessary tools can fit in a large bag or in special mobile workshops dedicated to PDR technicians. Their dimensions are so compact that you can fit them in the trunk of a car.

Mobile workstations for PDR technicians. Source: PDR Mobile CASES

The most important tool is a shadow lamp, which can be mounted on any element of the car's body, powered by batteries. All other tools used are hand tools. To perform repairs using the PDR method, you also do not need a number of special permits. It is enough to start a business and you can start repairing. You can run a business using for this purpose even a home garage without the need for special adaptation for this purpose.

ADVANTAGES AND DISADVANTAGES OF PDR AND PAINT REPAIRS

When thinking about the traditional tinsmith method in the case of repairing our car, we most often think about the need to leave our vehicle for at least a few days in the workshop and whether there will be no visible signs of repair after the repair is finished. If it is necessary to repair body parts made of steel, the repair technology also requires the preparation of the surface for repair and after repair, which is synonymous with the need to recreate the varnish coating on the repaired element or its part, if it is not necessary to paint the entire element. Such a solution is more advantageous from the user's point of view, but it does not guarantee that during the operation of the vehicle, traces of local painting will not become visible or the newly applied lacquer coating will not differ from the previous one. This problem may also appear in the case of repairing a vehicle that has been in operation for several years, in which the varnished element will be distinguished by a new varnish coating from the current one. During the operation of the vehicle, its paint coating is influenced by various external factors, such as dirt from roads, UV radiation or micro-scratches on the varnish coating, which can make the varnish coating increasingly dull. Most often, in the place of sheet metal repair, it is necessary to use a car putty to level the surface. The used car putty coated with car paint creates a thicker paint layer (the thickness of the putty and paint is measured together) than the paint itself. Alone painting by a human hand (elements are factory painted with the use of paint robots, which apply an even layer of lacquer to the painted element set by the manufacturer. The thickness of the factory paint coating, depending on the manufacturer, is 80 - 150 microns) will not be perfectly homogeneous as after factory painting. In the case of recoating a car body part, to reduce the difference in the shade of the varnish coat between the recoated part and the part with the original varnish coating, it is necessary to shade the edge parts. Shading is a technique that allows to compensate for minor differences in color, obtaining a color transition of the newly applied varnish with the original varnish invisible to the human eye. Repaired body parts reduce the value of the vehicle. Undoubtedly, this is the biggest disadvantage of body and paint repairs. The technological process of body and paint repair usually takes several days, including the drying time of the last layer of paint and clear lacquer. At an ambient temperature of approx. 20 degrees Celsius, the paint dries for several hours. This time can be shortened to several dozen minutes using the previously described car dryers. The paint reaches the hardness sufficient for use after several hours, but full after a few days. This means that for a few days after picking up the car after painting, we should avoid washing the car, e.g. in an automatic car wash, which could damage the fresh paint coating. However, body and paint repairs are not limited only to body shell repairs. With the use of appropriate tinsmith equipment, we are able to repair not only the body plating, but also the structural elements of the body, three-dimensional stampings of the pillars bodywork, floor sills. Not all components can be repaired or the repair of a given component is technically possible, but definitely not economically viable. Then the element should be replaced. Bodywork elements such as the hood, boot, doors, front fenders can be easily replaced with new ones because they are attached to the body with bolts, the floor sills, roof trim, rear fender trim, body pillars should be cut out and replaced with a new element. They are attached to the body by means of spot welds, welded or riveted joints. Nowadays, with the use of appropriate tools and the technology of the manufacturer of a given vehicle, almost any type of damage can be repaired.

The use of the PDR method has only been possible for several decades. This method has not been developed by any car manufacturer, despite the fact that it had its origin at the Mercedes factory. Nobody has patented this technology and has no exclusive rights to use it. PDR tools have been constantly refined by manufacturers of tools used in the PDR method based on the need for more and more helpful and easier tools for PDR technicians and allowing them to repair more types of dents in different places on the plating. Car manufacturers do not use the technological possibility of possible PDR repairs, but all kinds of technological holes in the car body left after the production stage make it much easier, and even enable repairs with the use of PDR. Even if it is technically impossible to locate the tip of the tool directly under the dent, e.g. the lower edge of the rear fender in double-door car bodies. We can make a hole to insert the tool, and after the repair is finished, mask it with a mask and plugs. Authorized car dealerships are increasingly using the services PDR technicians to repair small dents in new cars as well as authorized body repair shops due to the acceptance of this repair method by insurance companies. Unfortunately, the PDR method is limited to repairing only those dents on which the lacquer coating has not been damaged, the dents are shallow and have gentle edges, and the sheet metal has not been stretched in the place of the bend, which means that the elastic limit has not been exceeded. On the other hand, it is possible to remove a dent that occurred at the edge of the bend of the plating, most often the door. Using the PDR method, we keep the original paint coating in its original form. There is no need to use a car filler and re-paint the repaired bodywork element, thus eliminating the risk that the repair effect will no longer be satisfactory over time. Paradoxically, the modern PDR method is significantly different from the traditional body and paint repair lasting from a few to several hours. the cost of repair using the PDR method can be even 50% lower.

This PDR repair takes from several dozen minutes for small dents to several hours for larger dents. In the case of repairs aimed at removing the effects of hail, where the number of dents on the entire car may exceed 1000 dents, the repair time is extended to several days, but is still shorter than with the same repair using the traditional body paint technique. Traditional filling and varnishing is practically pointless in the event of minor dents. Nowadays, time is the most valuable for many people, which if you want to use the services of a body shop, it is necessary to take the car directly to the workshop and pick it up again. Often, the exact cost estimate for repairs is only known after a workshop inspection, usually combined with the need to dismantle vehicle components. As for PDR, technicians are able to estimate the cost of dent removal based on a photo of the dent provided by the customer and the make and model of the car. For the maximum comfort of the customer, PDR technicians are able to perform the service with access to the customer, practically anywhere, e.g. in the underground garage of an office building, while the customer is at work. Currently used car paints are flexible so that small and shallow dents do not crack it. For painting car bodies, car manufacturers no longer use acrylic varnishes, where the base varnish for color and clear varnish are mixed together. Decades ago, these paints were commonly used in passenger cars, e.g. in the Mercedes W124. Today, only a few manufacturers use this type of paint for the coating of commercial vehicles. The varnish does not always remain intact when a dent is formed.

ENVIRONMENTAL AND HEALTH ASPECTS

Each body shop is subject to environmental obligations, non-compliance with which may result in penalties or fines in the event of environmental inspections. Car repair shops have recently become a frequent place of inspections carried out by the Provincial Inspectorate for Environmental Protection or the Municipal Police. In car workshops, installations emitting gases and dust into the air will include paint shops, body shops, welding stations and boilers for heating rooms. As in the case of waste management, there are also reporting and other obligations related to the impact of activities on the atmospheric air.

WHO IS A PDR TECHNICIAN?

A PDR technician performs work involving the removal of dents in car bodies without the need to paint them afterwards. The PDR technician is not yet classified by the Ministry of Family, Labor and Social Policy. There is no use to look for the profession of PDR technician on the lists of occupations. If you want to become a PDR Technician, you should undergo training in a qualified company offering PDR training, completed with a practical exam and obtaining a certificate authorizing you to perform PDR services. Despite the fact that the PDR Technique is not classified as a profession on the list of professions, obtaining the appropriate certificate entitles the person offering their services in a given profession on the labor market to practice the profession and meet the qualification requirements. The regulation on the classification of professions and specializations for the needs of the labor market and the scope of its application does not regulate the issue of admitting to the profession and meeting qualification requirements by persons offering their services in a given profession on the labor market, nor does it regulate the standardization of education, training and the granting of qualifications by entities offering these services (e.g. courses and training). Classification is primarily a tool used for the purposes of statistics, employment, job placement and counseling, conducting research, analyzes, forecasts and other studies on the labor market

REPAIR TIME

Each sheet-metal repair, apart from the repair process itself, requires appropriate preparation of the element to be repaired. The example of the Renault Scenic II car, produced in 2007, has a straight, longitudinal dent on the front left door trim. I will compare the technological time needed to repair a given element. The comparison will be based on the calculation of the repair valuation by the Link4 insurance company based on the AUDATEX system, an authorized Renault Decar service center in Warsaw and a company dealing with the removal of dents without painting with the PDR method – Automax Detailing

Visible longitudinal dent on the fender

The damage was caused by rubbing the vehicle in question by another. Despite the serious damage that appeared at first glance by the numerous abrasions to the paintwork, in fact it turned out to be a car's white paint residue with which the two vehicles had come into contact. The aforementioned white varnish residues could be removed non-invasively without leaving any traces, while a shallow, longitudinal dent was formed in the extreme upper point. According to the repair technology, the entire element is eligible for repair and painting. Due to the lack of visible traces on the door protective strip, the necessity to paint the strip will be omitted. In order to be able to start repairing the door, a series of preceding steps should be performed, and some of these steps should be performed in the reverse order after the repair is finished. A man-hour is a unit of time in body and paint repairs and mechanical repairs. The Link 4 insurance company provides the time needed to perform a given activity in time units, where 10 time unit = 1 working unit of 1 technician, and the rate for one man-hour is PLN 63.00 gross. In the cost estimate generated in the AUDATEX system by the insurance company, we will find a breakdown of the cost estimate into labor, painting, varnish material for a given part and spare parts. To calculate the time needed to repair a body element, the labor and painting time should be taken into account. It takes 16 units of time to paint an element. To sum up, the time needed to paint the element is 2 hours and 24 minutes. The total time needed to prepare and paint the element is 4 hours and 42 minutes, not including the time technological process needed for drying and hardening of the newly applied paint layer, the need to move the vehicle to individual workplaces, preparation of the varnish mixture, cleaning of tools and workstations after work. If it is necessary to replace an item with a new one and the item is out of stock, you should also add the time needed to bring the part, which may be, depending on availability and location, from several days to even several weeks. At the same time, the repair time will be longer. According to the authorized Renault service point, the time needed to prepare the element for painting and the painting time provided by the vehicle manufacturer is the same as according to the AUDATEX system. Automax detailing from Warsaw specified the time needed for the repair to 2.5 man-hours. In summary, the PDR repair time is more than half the time. The repair will also be performed in one working shift.

Usually, it is difficult to find a repair shop on the market that will agree to repair according to the rates quoted by insurance companies. In this case, the most reasonable solution is to use the services of authorized services and decide on a cashless repair. Thus, we cede the claim for the payment of the due compensation for the repair of the damage to the service performing the repair. For some time, however, also in the domestic market, we have been able to take advantage of the third option of repairing our vehicle in the event of minor damage to the bodywork in the form of dents caused, for example, by hail or minor parking damage, e.g. such as in the example described above. The third method is completely different. There is no need for time-consuming and costly preparation of the vehicle for repair and painting damaged elements. This method is called Paintless Dent Repair, which means literally a paint-free dent repair.

The company AUTOMAX DETAILING www.automax.waw.pl from Warsaw estimated the removal of the dent at PLN 350. As you can see, the cost of removing a dent based on the three institutions' valuation varies considerably. How does the comparison of repair costs with the PDR method and the traditional body and paint method look like? Comparison of the repair cost according to AUDATEX and PDR:

PLN 595.70 - PLN 350 = PLN 245.7. by choosing the PDR repair method, we gain PLN 245.70 compared to the body-paint repair according to the AUDATEX valuation and as much as PLN 820.80 compared to the body-paint repair according to the Renault valuation.

Correspondingly, this gives us 41.24% savings compared to traditional repair according to AUDATEX and 70.10% according to Renault.

THE FUTURE OF PDR AND PAINT REPAIRS

Personal vehicles have a history older than the automotive industry. The first cars were delivered in a mature form and in various forms, from the varieties of horse-drawn vehicles known for centuries. The classic carriage, created in the 16th century in Italy, and then systematically improved to the form of the 19th-century stagecoach, seems to be much closer to modern solutions. The current automotive term "carrosserie" comes from its Italian-French name, which in Poland is synonymous with the concept of a body. The two-seater version of the coach in France was called the coupe, which is still used today. All versions used a closed passenger compartment with a typical self-supporting design, as it was connected to the passenger chassis only with leather straps attached to the four springy outriggers of the frame.

On the other hand, in open carriages, e.g. in country carriages and city carriages, the main load-bearing element was the floor, complicated in its shape, reinforced on the sides with appropriately bent, low sides, and in total resembling ... today's floor slabs. Wood was used as the basic material for the construction of passenger horse-drawn vehicles and passenger cars in the first decades of their history. Structural skeletons of body were made of its hard varieties, and cover elements, i.e. roofs, front and side walls, floors and door sheathing, were made of waterproof plywood (attached to them with nails or screws).

The plywood was painted with paints. They were covered with oil or covered with leather, and after the First World War, it was replaced with a softer, easier to process steel sheet, which was still attached to wooden frames with screws. At the same time, however, in the interwar period, completely different solutions appeared, announcing a radical revolution in the design and production of car bodies. It is difficult to point the exact time when traditional sheet metal techniques began to be used in the construction of road vehicles. It was certainly due to aesthetic reasons, appreciated almost from the beginning by vehicle buyers. Since the Middle Ages, good tinsmiths have been able to do much more with a flat piece of soft copper or iron sheet than just cut it to specific dimensions and make holes for fixing screws on the edges. For example, they could use a hammer to make out of it on wooden forms the armor of knightly armor, a bowl or a pot of very regular shapes. Therefore, there was nothing to prevent the use of the same method to form the fender, headlight housings and 7 engine bonnets.

In Western Europe, as much as 70 percent of the value of tinsmith and paintwork services is currently related to minor or medium repairs, i.e. not requiring straightening of the load-bearing body skeletons.

The share of major accident repairs in the activity of body shops turns out to be even smaller when it is counted according to the number of repaired vehicles, not the amount of revenues, because it must be remembered that repairs of structural elements are usually more expensive than others, because they are more time-consuming. There are two general reasons for these disproportions to worsen rapidly: on the one hand, the growing intensity of road traffic, especially in cities, means that there are more and more minor collisions and relatively minor external damage, mainly to the shell parts. On the other hand, cars are becoming cheaper and cheaper, thus lowering the profitability limit for their complex and costly restorations after serious accidents. This is the case for both owners of damaged vehicles and insurance companies, and repair shops have to adapt to declining demand.

In Germany, for example, it is not profitable to repair cars older than ten years old, even when it comes to the effects of not very serious road collisions. However, also in Poland, the demand for their repairs is gradually decreasing due to the growing costs of purchasing spare parts, especially in relation to the market price of a used car. Therefore, it seems that all market changes taking place abroad await us in the near future.

The method of removing dents without painting was created several dozen years ago. Initially, it used various types of workshop tools, and even kitchen cutlery. Along with the spread of this method, special dedicated tools began to be created to enable and facilitate the removal of dents without the need for painting. When using the PDR method, the best tools are made of stainless tempered steel with a and strength appropriate for the purpose. Only such tools ensure the comfort of work and the precision of repairs. PDR tools are characterized by high tensile parameters. A very important feature is their strength and tensile strength Rm and hardness HRC. Meeting the quality standards of the tools requires full control throughout the entire production process, from the moment of production in the steelworks, where they are subjected to special treatment. The production cycle of one tool takes about 12 weeks, and the technological process is complex and complicated. The chemical composition of steel allows for any formation of strength parameters and hardness of steel depending on the parameters of heat treatment. The performance is characterized by appropriate hardness and strength as well as corrosion resistance. The manufacture of tools from stainless steel allows the use of tools when repairing aluminum elements.

TOOLS USED IN THE PDR ADHESIVE METHOD:

Plastic adapters – glue tabs, used in the adhesive method in combination with a slide hammer or manual puller

Slide hammer - put on the glue pads or mushrooms

Manual puller - put on the glue pad, in contrast to the slide hammer, it allows for light and precise pulls of the mushrooms

Hot melt glue - used to stick glue adapters to dents. It is characterized by high tear resistance and is safe for the lacquer. Can be removed with silicone remover. Melting point approx. 195 degrees Celsius, operating temperature range 0-25 degrees Celsius

Hot-melt glue gun - allows you to melt the glue in order to apply it to a plastic adapter. It can be equipped with temperature regulation

TOOLS USED WITHOUT GLUE PDR METHOD

A set of tools called wires or rods for pushing dents from the inside.

Dent removers are divided into five groups depending on where the dent is located:

Heble - they operate on the principle of leverage. Long, thick with different tips for removing dents where there are no reinforcements, with direct access to the outer sheath where the dents have occurred. Length from 60 - 90 cm. They require a fulcrum.

Possible endings for heble. Source: Ntools.pl

For reinforcements - used in the place of the dent of the outer jacket, and under the dent there is a reinforcement with a technological hole through which a wire can be passed and the reinforcement can be pushed out by twisting.

FINAL CONCLUSIONS

Bearing the above in mind, and referring to the introduction to this work, I hope that I have managed to prove the theses set out in the introduction that:

•  it is possible to repair the car body plating without the intervention of a tinsmith - using the PDR method
•  a great technological advantage of the method PDR over traditional bodyshore repair • PDR repairs require significantly shorter repair times as well as generates much lower costs over traditional bodyshops repair
•  PDR method is innovative for people, the environment, technology and working conditions, and the future of PDR repairs will develop and found more and more customers, saving them and money Minor damage to the car's bodywork in the form of small dents does not necessarily mean the need for an expensive and time-consuming repair in a body shop.

The current possibilities of using the PDR method make it possible to restore body plating elements to their original appearance within a few hours at a much lower cost than the traditional tinsmithing method. Facing the choice of repairing an element of a car body using the classic tinsmithing method, and the PDR method, the PDR method turns out to be a more advantageous choice. Despite the use of repair technology provided by the vehicle manufacturer by bodywork workshops, the end result is not always satisfactory. First of all, after body and paintwork repairs, the car loses its value. The PDR method may not be used in all cases and repair by a bodyshop will be necessary. During traditional sheet-metal work, you can use the PDR method to avoid the use of a car putty to smooth out small unevenness of sheet metal.

Based on the analysis of costs and repair time, comparing the PDR method and the traditional body and paint method, it was found that:

•  repairing car body dents using the PDR method does not reduce the value of the vehicle,
•  using the PDR method allows to significantly shorten the repair time.
•  the PDR method allows to reduce the repair costs by up to 70% compared to the traditional body-paint repair, application both for the operator and for the environment.

To sum up, the PDR method can be considered a reasonable alternative to the traditional tinsmithing method in the case of minor damage to the car body plating, in the event of more serious damage it will be necessary to use the traditional tinsmithing method. Repair using the PDR method is fully professional and eliminates the need to use the classic method of sheet-metal repair. The PDR method allows you to shorten the repair time and significantly reduce the cost of vehicle repair. It can be stated that the assumed goal of the work has been achieved, and the analysis of the repair costs based on the discussed example showed that the PDR method was selected correctly.

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