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