I just picked up a 91 SER that is going to be my project car. It has about 5-6 fairly large dents in the doors and quarter panels. I can get to the back of the dents by taking the interior panels out and was thinking maybe I could try and take a soft head hammer and carefully try to tap them out holding a backing iron on the other side so I push it out even to the rest of the body. There is a section on body work in the back of my Haynes manual and this inspired me. Has anyone tryed to do body work themselves or is this kind of stuff best left to a professional? I just figured I could save some money chasing the dings out myself before I have it spryed. Any tips?

I would price it out both ways. Take it around and get a few estimates on what it'll cost to prep and paint it having them fix the dents and have a few quote you a price with the dents left alone (don't say you're going to fix them). You might want to get a quote from a reputable dentless paint removal outfit. That might be cheaper than paying the bodyshop to fill the dents. Then compare. I doubt that taking the dents out yourself is going to save you enough to be worth your time, and I doubt they're going to want to give you the same guarantee that they'd give other people if they know they're going over the top of your work. Trust me, bodywork sucks. Even if you can get the dents close, you or the body shop is still going to have to use some plastic filler to get it right, sand it down, prime it, guide coat it, etc. Figure out how much time you'll have to spend at work to pay for it and then figure it'd take you three or four times that long at home doing it yourself to get it nowhere near as good as they will. It's a hard lesson learned and I'm still paying for it (Taking two weeks off work this month to finish my truck that's been sitting unfinished for 5 years, and I'm this close to scrapping the whole thing, cutting my losses.) But unless you plan to make a career out of it and get good enough at it to hate it, you don't want to take that route. I've been trying to be a jack of all trades my whole life and am now realizing that it's not realistic and is really not cost effective. Trust me on this one.

wow, thanks for the advice. That is a good way to look at it and I respect your advice especially reading your sig.

Originally posted by Toolapcfan
You might want to get a quote from a reputable dentless paint removal outfit.

I think you meant paintless dent removal ;)

I think you meant paintless dent removal ;)

Yeah, that too. LMAO! Dentless paint removal, what's the point? and why would you dent a car up removing paint? :)

That is a good way to look at it and I respect your advice especially reading your sig.

I appreciate that. I'm all about doing stuff yourself, but sometimes the money you save yourself costs you more than it was worth, not just monetarily but in time and stress. you need to figure out where you draw the line, and the sooner the better. It's taken me painting 4 cars to figure it out and I'm done when this truck is, and I still bought two new spray guns, a 2.0 for priming and a 1.4 for base and clear coating because I got them both for like $150 total. I want to have them around to do touchups, but if you've got metallic paint, touchups are damn near impossible for even an experienced professional. Luckily the SE-R is tomato red (or Aztec Red as people like to call it, but it's tomato red if you ask me) and my wife's grand am is white. So doing touchups might actually be economical. I was going to touchup the paint on the XE before selling it but it's metallic and it'd never match. Too much info, blah blah blah, I'm a posting whore, sorry. :)