So around the end of July my car gets this horrible passenger door ding at work. A co-worker of mine suggested that I remove the door panel and try to pop it out myself. I ordered the trim panel remover that the service manual suggested (Snap-on A177A) and once I got it I went to work.......... only to find out that there was one tab that I couldn't get to without risk of damaging the door jam or the panel, and that one was near where the hinges are at. Taking a look at the pictures in the service manual, I'm not even sure if I would be able to get to where the dent is at, as they aren't clear enough to me.

Here is a pic of the ding:


And after applying some GS27 Scratch Remover:


A body shop quoted me $600 to get it fixed. Dent Doctor quoted me around $500, due to the fact that the ding is really close to the edge of the door and that they have to remove the whole door. So now I called up DentPro and they'll be coming to my house on the 29th, though I have a feeling that they might say the same thing as Dent Doctor. If anything I'd really like to fix it myself. The only thing holding me back is the risk of panel and paint damage.

So for now until this Tuesday I have 2 questions. Has anyone ever had a door ding at or close to where I got mine and got it fixed for cheap? For those who removed the door panel before, can you help chime in with info on whether that area can be reached from the inside or not?

 

i would pay a professional like dent pro to do it if they weren't charging $500 which is a lot. the dent pro in my area charges anywhere from $50-75 per dent not $500 for one dent. looking at the picture its about a 10-15 minute job for them cause i had a similar dent on my wifes car.

 

The biggest problem is it's on a crisp line...

 

i paid 80 bucks per dent on my 2004 accord. Came out flawlessly. Your prices are ridiculous and im sure you can shop around for a LOT better.

 

$500 - $600? They must be on crack.

 

our local Ding man charges $99.00 per panel and his work is TOP NOTOCH!!!

 

$40-130 here, depending on the damage. Had an entire Prelude done after hail damage for $1,700.

 

Those paintless dent removal guys use specialized tools. At least one of them looks like a spoon on the end of a stick, so they may not have to do incredible disassembly to get to the dent from the inside. You are paying for their tools, and the tricks they have acquired to utilize them. Just for the heck of it, I might try (and not too aggressively) using an ordinary household plunger on the outside of the panel. With any luck, some part of the dent may pop back into place, since the metal has some 'memory' of its previous shape.

 

And if you are repelled by using a toilet tool on your dent, you can go to this site:

http://www.toolsource.com/ost/product.asp?...25RXUK02F9X0R89

and buy a handy suction tool for $10.25.

 

I had a door ding on my passenger side door, about three inches under the mirror. While my ding didn't go as deep into the panel as yours does it was about the same size. My dent guy was able to access it just fine with his tools, cost me $50 to get popped back out. Given that your ding is fairly close to where mine was I don't think they should have any problems getting behind the ding with their tools. Being that the ding is on the line that goes down the car it might be harder to fix but I find $500 pretty outrageous. Did any of them try to get behind the ding without taking the door panel off?