Before & After Dent Repair Portfolio | TN Dent Repair, East Tennessee

Before and after paintless dent repair on a Honda trunk lid

Job 1

Quick Visit, Left Happy

Honda, Trunk Lid

This Honda owner stopped by for a quick repair and left happy.

Before and after paintless dent repair on a Porsche rear panel and taillight

Job 2

The Propane Grill Incident

Porsche, Rear Panel & Taillight

A Porsche backed into a propane grill at a cookout. Taillight broken, panel dented. One visit, handled.

Before and after paintless dent repair on a Cadillac aluminum front fender

Job 4

The Fender a Shop Wrote Off

Cadillac, Front Fender (Aluminum)

A body shop had already written this one up for a full fender replacement, aluminum, hit hard enough to be right on the edge of cracking. Three hours later there was no fender order and no two-week wait. Just a panel that looked like nothing ever happened.

Behind the scenes

The body line took the hit hard enough to invert, pushed in instead of out, with the edge hinged outward from the force. Aluminum work-hardens on impact, so the metal was sitting close to cracking before anything even got touched. Why aluminum costs more to repair →

Before and after paintless dent repair on a Toyota Tacoma front bumper

Job 5

Three Weeks Old, Already Dented

Toyota Tacoma

Three weeks into owning a brand new Tacoma he caught a bollard and crushed the front bumper. Every shop wanted to respray it. Factory paint is harder and more durable than anything that comes out of a spray gun, especially on a bumper that takes constant road debris. Because the damage was fresh, the plastic still held enough memory to move back into place. Came out 99% clean. A pro touched up the minor scratching that remained and you'd never know it happened.

Before and after paintless dent repair on a Dodge Ram door

Job 6

Bicycle Handlebar Crease

Dodge Ram

A neighbor's kid caught the door with a bicycle handlebar and left a nasty stretched crease and a deep scuff. The truck already had other dents that had been sitting ignored. Since the repair was already in the driveway, the owner turned a bad situation into something that worked in his favor and had everything taken care of at once. Nobody lost on that one.

Before and after paintless dent repair on a Toyota Tundra bed side panel

Job 7

The Plunger Didn't Work

Toyota Tundra, Bed Side Panel

A backyard cookout, a neighbor backing into a Tundra, and a promise that an extra-large plunger would pop it right out. It didn't. What followed was the kind of panic that happens when someone genuinely doesn't know if a dent like that can be undone. The truck's owner, a middle school assistant principal, mentioned it to his dealership's service department almost as an afterthought, already resigned to a body shop bill his neighbor couldn't cover and a repaint he didn't want. That conversation is how this repair got booked instead. The fix needed more than tools alone. Working near the school, a small tree by the playground turned out to be exactly the right size to anchor a little extra tension against, the kind of leverage that makes a stubborn dent move the way it's supposed to instead of fighting back. A few hours later the keys went back. He stood there for a minute just looking at the panel, still not fully convinced it was the same truck.

Job 7

Second Dent, Same Truck

Toyota Tundra, Bed Side Panel

The second dent on the same truck, handled the same visit while he was still standing there in disbelief over the first one.

Before and after paintless dent repair on a Mercedes-Benz SUV rear hatch

Job 8

The Referral From a Service Writer

Mercedes-Benz SUV

This one belonged to a service writer at a dealership I had serviced for years. Service writers are the people who see every repair option available to their customers every single day. They kept choosing me. When this one needed work on her own car she knew exactly who to call. The automatic trunk had opened while she was pulling into a garage and left a gunshot looking stretched dent in the hatch with deep damage at the center. I measured it out so it made sense and there were no surprises, then got to work. The body shop next door, run by a friend, looked at the same damage and quoted $3,500 for the best possible repair. I repaired the hatch for a fraction of the traditional cost and left the factory paint on every panel intact. She came in already knowing what good work looked like. It still surprised her.

Before and after paintless dent repair on a Mercedes-Benz sedan door

Job 9

Sharp Door Dent

Mercedes-Benz Sedan, Door

A sharp, aggressive door dent on a Mercedes sedan. Gone in one visit.

Before and after paintless dent repair on a Lexus rear quarter panel

Job 10

The One Another Tech Passed On

Lexus, Rear Quarter Panel

Another technician looked at this one and passed. Not because he'd have botched it, the damage was just deeper than it looked and not worth the time it would take. That's usually where a dent like this ends up: written off, lived with. Getting to it meant pulling the taillight out first, about an hour of work before the actual repair even started. Once inside, there's a lot standing in the way: the wiring harness for the lights and backup sensors, bracing, sound damper padding, and a reinforced flange glued around the cutout where the gas door sits. The owner didn't care how difficult it was. She saw that dent every single time she filled up her car, and she wanted it gone, whatever it took. It came back done right, not just done.

Before and after paintless dent repair on a Kia sedan rear quarter panel

Job 11

Damaged Before It Hit the Lot

Kia Sedan, Rear Quarter Panel

An auction car that showed up damaged before it ever hit the lot. The transport company denied responsibility, which left the dealer holding a repair nobody wanted to pay for. That's usually where these sit for weeks, stuck in limbo while everyone points fingers. This one didn't sit long. Fixed, sold, moved on.

Before and after paintless dent repair on an Acura rear quarter panel

Job 12

She Never Stopped Calling

Acura, Rear Quarter Panel

A customer who started small: one little dent, nothing dramatic. That's usually how the easy calls go, the ones from people who actually take care of their car instead of waiting for it to fall apart. Then one day it wasn't small anymore. A deer strike on the freeway left a dent that had nothing in common with that first call. It came out anyway, and she kept calling back. Some of the best customers aren't the ones with the biggest jobs. They're the ones who never stopped calling.

Behind the scenes

The dent's crown sat past 135 degrees at the top, a locked-up angle that doesn't respond to shortcuts (rolling the windows up and blowing into the tailpipe does nothing, no matter what the internet says). It took a heat gun and about six hours of real technique. A broken generator meant relocating the car two miles to a lot with power, a ride back to get her own vehicle, then a return trip once the repair was done.

Job 13

The Trash Can Incident

Dodge Ram, Door

No claim. No report. No trace. Just a Dodge Ram, a trash can nobody saw coming, and this photo.

Before and after paintless dent repair on a lifted truck aluminum hood

Job 14

Every Reason to Walk Away

Lifted Truck, Aluminum Hood

An aluminum hood combined with every imaginable factor that makes a repair almost impossible. It was so hot that day the handprints stayed sweated onto the chrome trim the whole time. Every reason to walk away from a repair was sitting in that one panel. One of the tools didn't make it through the job. The panel did.

Behind the scenes

Aluminum, painted white, on a lifted truck, repaired at 114°F, one of the hottest days Sacramento had seen in a decade. The damage sat at the panel edge near the hood latch, complicated by existing seam sealer and aluminum that had already work-hardened from the impact. Why aluminum costs more to repair →

Before and after paintless dent repair, second dent on the same lifted truck aluminum hood

Job 14

Second Dent, Same Afternoon

Lifted Truck, Aluminum Hood

A second dent from the same afternoon. Same truck, same brutal heat.

Before and after paintless dent repair on an SUV door hit by a concrete bollard

Job 15

The Dreaded Yellow Bollard

SUV, Door

A yellow bollard at a bank, the kind of hit that usually scrapes paint straight off concrete. This one got lucky and left paint transfer instead. What you're looking at in the photo is maybe 10% of what was actually there. The damage ran the entire door, top to bottom, and none of it was uniform: crushed spots, bent bracing, high points, ridges, waves. The kind of damage most people with a normal workload turn away from without a second look. I guess I was bored that day. It came out clean.

Behind the scenes

The worst of it sat at the very bottom of the door, low enough to require crouching the entire time, with the rocker panel limiting how much room there was to move a light or a tool once the door was open. Getting real access meant about two hours of disassembly first: door panel off, carrier plate out, laminate glass pulled from the track. Only once all of that was out of the way could the actual repair start.

Before and after paintless dent repair on a Lincoln aluminum rear hatch

Job 16

The Hatch That Wasn't Latched

Lincoln, Rear Hatch (Aluminum)

A Lincoln hauling lumber with the hatch propped open, not latched, just a foot or two up. The backup camera never showed what was actually back there. One collision later, the entire hatch was twisted end to end, aluminum, bent through and through. A replacement hatch alone runs about $2,400 in parts, plus another $300 or so in shipping, before paint, materials, or labor even enter the conversation. This one got saved instead. I bid it too low and made almost nothing on the job. Worth it for the photo. Not exactly worth it for the invoice.

Behind the scenes

Most dents show up on convex panels, the curved, outward shape most of a car's body has. Concave sections read completely differently: what looks high from one angle looks low from another, the same way your reflection warps in the bowl of a spoon. Nearly all of this damage sat in the concave part of the hatch and along the double- and triple-braced edges built in for reinforcement. Aluminum work-hardens on impact, so the panel had wrinkled with force trapped throughout it, warped and dented at the same time. Why aluminum costs more to repair →

Before. After. Nothing in between hidden.

The trade-in nobody wanted to live with

17 more, before and after.

Quick Visit, Left Happy

The Propane Grill Incident

The Fender a Shop Wrote Off

Three Weeks Old, Already Dented

Bicycle Handlebar Crease

The Plunger Didn't Work

Second Dent, Same Truck

The Referral From a Service Writer

Sharp Door Dent

The One Another Tech Passed On

Damaged Before It Hit the Lot

She Never Stopped Calling

The Trash Can Incident

Every Reason to Walk Away

Second Dent, Same Afternoon

The Dreaded Yellow Bollard

The Hatch That Wasn't Latched

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