All hail the magicians of paintless dent repair!

Imagine your car being pounded by hailstones the size of baseballs. It would certainly be badly dented and the surface rough and battered-looking.

But if you leave it in the hands of a paintless dent repair technician for a few hours, you’re likely to get it back looking as good as new with no trace of hail damage! We visited our Hail Centre in Saguenay to show you the impressive work these specialists do.

Traveling hail repair teams

Dent-removal technicians get called upon to work from coast to coast in Canada, and as far south as Texas. When a heavy storm hits, they go where they are needed to repair the damage to cars.

They bring their expertise and tools – often as many as 300 pieces of equipment. This is because repairing hail damage is precision work that requires considerable dexterity.

Rods used to repair dents caused by hail

Next stop Saguenay!

We met Marc Dumas and Alexandre Chabert at the Saguenay Hail Centre as they prepared for their next assignment: to repair cars damaged in the July 27, 2016 storm.

The hailstorm that struck the region wrought damage across an area including La Baie, Chicoutimi and Jonquiere. It came as a shock for residents who aren’t accustomed to seeing hailstones quite so big!

Some smaller hailstones that hit the home of a belairdirect client during the Saguenay storm of July 27, 2016

Hailstorms are typically more severe and frequent in Alberta, while Quebec is usually spared the worst of these events. “As a rule, hailstones in Quebec are the size of golf balls,” said Serge, an insurance adjuster at the Hail Centre who works closely with the auto technicians. “But this time, we saw some the size of baseballs, and even as big as softballs,” he noted.

Damage estimates and dent repair work are carried out using special lamps that make it possible to see tiny dents on the body of a car

The technique

Various techniques are used in the paintless dent repair process. One involves using a glue puller to suction out the dents.

The most common method for getting dents out of a car is to push lightly under the dent with a metal rod. “This sometimes requires a hundred light knocks to fully remove the dent,” said Alexandre Chabert. “When you’ve got a car with 150 imperfections caused by hail, it’s a painstaking process!”

Moreover, the projectiles aren’t smooth. “Some hailstones aren’t round; they look like meteorites and are very deformed. These things can make pretty ugly dents on a car,” added Richard, an insurance adjuster at the Saguenay Hail Centre.

Since each dent has to be evaluated and approached differently, paintless dent removal can be extremely time-consuming.

Paintless dent repair does not harm cars. “Metal has a memory and all we’re doing is restoring it to its original shape,” explained Alexandre Chabert.

The technique is difficult and technicians train for years to learn the trade. “Mastering the technique takes time. It requires a lot of experience and coaching from colleagues,” Dumas pointed out.

Paintless dent removal technician Alexandre Chabert repairing the hood of a car. He works with metal rods, from the inside, to pound out the dents.

Hard work, done with pride!

Since technicians are often forced to work bent over or in uncomfortable positions to access hard-to-reach dents, it’s physically very demanding work. It also involves highly repetitive and precise movements that can take a toll on the body. The job is so taxing that some technicians are able to do this kind of work for only a few years.

It’s intense work, especially because the technicians on Marc and Alexandre’s team are very thorough. “As technicians, we’re very proud of what we do, and we’d never return a car to someone unless it has been 100% repaired,” concluded Marc Dumas.