Car dent repair in Merrylands: Fix it yourself or send it to an auto body smash repairs shop?

It happens sooner or later in our full and busy lives. When your car gets a mysterious dent or accidental ding, scrape, or crease, should you get a gadget to repair it yourself, or get a professional panel beater to do it? 

Well, it may seem like a small issue, but not knowing what you don’t know could end up blowing up your time, cost, and effort greatly if the degree and location of damage turn out to be harder to fix with basic tools and skills. Here are some general pros and cons to consider.

People may want to repair car dents themselves because:

• Their insurance excess is too high, or dent repair is not covered by their car insurance.
• It looks like something they could Google, watch a YouTube video, and do it themselves from items purchased at a general hardware store.
• They enjoy testing out DIY dent repair tools and kits. After all, there is an instructional manual.
• They are not fussed if the results are not showroom perfect because their car has seen better days.
• They think the panel beater will rip them off. 
• Hail damage means there are too many dents and they believe it would be too expensive to get it done professionally. 

Why get a professional to do it? Here are 12 reasons to consider:

1. DIY means a much higher risk of damaging the paint and affecting your car’s appearance and resale value, and you may realise too late it is not a weekend job.
2. YouTube may make it look easy – but you realise soon after that it isn’t! You may realise too late that you may have the DIY kits but not specific repair items or experience, and need to make more trips to buy more things from the auto hardware shop.
3. You may buy a gadget in a store or online (long delivery time), but they could never be as good or precise as commercial ones used by professionals. You may need specific types of tools, glue, picks, rods, suction systems, or techniques you are not aware of. 
4. You cannot tell if damage to structural integrity lies beneath the surface, or have the experience to get perfect results with other damage at the first go.
5. Paintless dent removal may seem easy to do with a DIY kit (in principle), but getting great results really requires specific tools, skills, and experience. The worst thing is that amateurs can end up getting poor results even after spending all that money, time and effort yourself, so it’s not worth all that.
6. A car is a high-cost item, and often your pride and joy. You probably have high repair expectations that are best met by a professional smash repairer.  
7. You might need to remove parts of the car to get to the back of the dent, and not realise you don’t have the knowledge to put everything back correctly and safely.
8. If the paint has been damaged or the dent is in an awkward non-flat surface, a DIY approach probably won’t work. You need specialist knowledge to repair scratched pain, inaccessible locations, or sharp chips.
9. It is a second-hand car and you didn’t know it is impossible to DIY because the paint and metal panel have already been tampered with from previous dent repair jobs.
10. It’s a newish car with aluminium panels that are more fragile and much harder to repair. Specialist tools and techniques are required.  
11. You can’t use DIY techniques for non-metal damaged parts like plastic bumpers or cracks in glass.
12. You may lose your manufacturer’s warranty if you attempt to work on repairs yourself.