Scratch and dent repair in Birmingham
Key scratches, car-park dents and trolley damage. Some of it polishes out, some needs paint, and the honest answer usually comes from a photo.
Scratches and dents are the damage people live with longest, because they are annoying rather than disabling. They are also the damage that costs the most at resale and the most on a lease return inspection.
Not all of it needs paint. Knowing which is which is most of the value, and it is the first thing we tell you.
When a scratch polishes out and when it does not
Run a fingernail across it. If your nail does not catch, the scratch is in the lacquer only and there is a good chance it can be machine-polished out without any paint at all.
If your nail catches, it has gone through the lacquer into the colour coat or the primer below it, and it needs filling and repainting to be properly repaired. A polish will improve how it looks and will not fix it.
Scratches that show bare metal or a different colour underneath need treating promptly. Once the protective layers are broken, the panel starts to corrode from the scratch outwards, and a cheap job now is cheaper than a rust repair later.
Paintless dent removal
Where the metal has been pushed in but the paint over it is intact and uncracked, the dent can often be worked back out from behind with specialist tools, leaving the original factory paint untouched.
This is the ideal repair when it is available. Nothing is filled, nothing is resprayed, and the panel keeps the paint it left the factory with — which matters on a lease return and on resale.
It will not work where the paint has cracked, where the metal has been stretched too far, or where the dent sits on a body line or an edge the tools cannot reach behind. In those cases the panel needs conventional filling and paint.
Car-park dents and door dings
Shallow dings in the middle of a flat panel are the best candidates for paintless removal. Creases, sharp dents and anything on a swage line usually are not.
Send a photo taken at a low angle with light running across the panel, rather than straight on. A dent photographed head-on in flat light can be almost invisible in the picture and obvious in person, and the angled shot tells us far more about what it will take.
Scratch & dent repair, answered.
Can a deep key scratch be repaired?
Yes. A scratch that has gone through the lacquer into the colour or primer needs filling, repainting and blending into the surrounding panel rather than polishing. Done properly you should not be able to find where it was.
How do I know if my scratch needs paint or just a polish?
Run a fingernail across it. If your nail does not catch, it is likely lacquer-only and may polish out. If it catches, it has gone deeper and needs paint to be properly repaired.
What is paintless dent removal?
The dent is worked back out from behind with specialist tools, leaving the original factory paint intact. It works where the paint is uncracked and the metal has not been stretched, and it is the ideal repair when it is available because nothing is filled or resprayed.
Should I repair a scratch that has gone to bare metal?
Promptly, yes. Once the paint layers are broken the panel corrodes outward from the scratch. Repairing it now costs considerably less than a rust repair later.
Other things we do.
Car body repair
Panel damage repaired and refinished so the repair disappears into the car. Fifteen years in the trade, working out of a spray booth on St Paul's Road, ten minutes from Birmingham city centre.
Read moreBumper repair
The most common job that comes through the door, and the one most often quoted as a full replacement when it does not need to be.
Read moreCar respray & paint
Colour mixed to your car's code on a scale, laid down in a controlled booth, and blended into the panels either side so the repair has no edge.
Read more