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Hello, My name is Paul Whitehorn, I'm a professional Paintless Dent Repair technician. I'm going to give you the tools to understand professional car dent repair cost, based upon three primary categories.

1. Obstructions to your dent.
2. The Location of your dent.
2. The Size of your dent.

As we are going to be covering professional pricing for your dent. It should be noted that these prices may be different where you are located, but for the most part, if you're getting a high-end professional technician to look at your vehicle, these are pretty standard across the board. If you're seeing prices lower than this, it should be cause for concern. You're probably not getting a certified technician, which wouldn’t matter if you were hiring a lawn guy, but today's vehicles are rolling computers and you want a professional who won’t jeopardize the safety of your 30-120k dollar vehicle, to save a few bucks. So let's jump in.

SIZE:

In 25 years of repairing vehicles, I have never had a customer tell me that they have a large dent. Everyone and I mean everybody, (Smile Laugh) E-V-E-R-Y-B-O-D-Y-, has a small dent in their own eyes. One customer's beachball dent is another’s grapefruit, but to a dent repair technician, dealerships, and auctions a small dent is the size of a dime from your pocket. A quarter dent is a small dent, but every inch beyond that becomes multiplied not only by the width and depth but the waves outside of the impact area. To steal a mathematical term, for every additional inch, the dent's complexity is squared along with a techs effort. the deeper a dent goes, the larger we need to make the surface area of your dent. Since we cant push a sharp dent without cracking the paint, we must make your dent larger on the surface by two to three inches so we can push the dent out. I have an entire video on-site factor mapping to explain that process in more detail.

OBSTRUCTIONS

Here is a list of common obstructions and their percentage costs.

#1 Laminated Glass 10%
Roll your window down halfway and look at the top of your glass. If it has three ridges or groves you have Laminated Glass. [Find Images or take them] This is a triple-sheeted glass that is very easy to break if any pressure is applied to it. Since we may need to apply pressure to the glass we must use additional tools to protect and prevent it from breaking. Also, due to the risks involved we charge slightly more for it. 

#2 Behind Bracing 15%
A dent “in the open” can be directly pushed with a number of tools and leverage combinations, these can have larger surface areas to push more metal faster. If your dent is behind bracing this requires thin sharp tools that can double a repair time and requires far more technical skill level. In short, Dents behind bracing, limits our options, increases our risk and doubles the repair time. 

#3 Sound Deadening Pad 15%
Sound Deadening Pad keeps your vehicle quiet in the interior. It dampens all road noise from entering your cabin. For most, its the mark of a quality experience while driving. However, this padding is a thick concrete substance that is applied behind the sheet metal. Sometimes we are able to push through it, and other times it must be removed and replaced. 

#4 Body Line Dents 15%
The lines of a vehicle help it be more Arrow Dynamic while traveling at higher speeds. It also helps the vehicle be grounded and stable on the highway. These lines are sharp turns in the sheet metal that must be rebuilt and dealt with separately. Also, the risk of cracking paint in these areas is significantly increased. As a result, we charge slightly more in these areas. 

#5 Creases 20%
Creases are in a category of their own, they were not fixable with Paintless Dent Repair, until the advent of the LED lighting systems, which is only around 10 years old. From a geometrical perspective, it's like playing a game of pool and being required to run the table without missing a ball. They require a dent to be repaired from at least three separate directions. That is, it's like fixing the same dent three times or playing three games of pool at the same time and running the table, without missing a single ball. Having said all of that, if you have a crease make sure you hire a vale certified technician. 

#6 Aluminum Panel 30%
If you have a newer vehicle your hood is made out of aluminum. Aluminum and Aluminum Composite panels are the future of the automotive industry. They are lighter, stronger, and quite frankly safer than their steel counterparts. The amount of pressure required to dent them is 50-70% harder, which means they require 50-70% more direct power to repair them. When adjusting them they flex and spring back into position with only minor changes. As a result, they take twice or three times longer to repair. 

#7 Triple Layer Panels
You have the outer layer, a painted panel that you see, which is attached to a brace. Automotive manufacturers also ad additional layers in some places to reinforce and often direct metal to perform in specific ways if you get into an accident. These are also known as crumple zones. These zones usually have sensors for airbags among other functions. They always require the utmost care, technical know-how, and like bracing, limited access. Triple Layer panels can be found on the front of your hood, roof, and sail panels (The small panel that runs on either side of your window to the back of the vehicle.). These panels often need to be pulled from the surface, that’s where you place a special tab with glue on the surface of the vehicle and strike upward. 

#8 HSS
My menu is wrong here. It says HHS, but it should read HSS. High Strength steel is what we find in motorcycle tanks, duly flairs and many truck beds. It is extremely difficult to push on and requires a completely different set of tools. It is significantly harder than Aluminum and in many cases, it isn’t reparable with Paintless Dent Repair.


#9 RNI
Removal and installation of parts may be required to get to your dent. The list on this menu is not exhaustive, but these are the most common. (Just Read Through them quickly)

LOCATIONS:

 
The location of a dent is just as important as its size. It helps a tech answer a few vital questions that can significantly impact pricing.

1. What do I need to take apart in order to reach that dent?
2. Will I have leverage?
3. Do I need to create access?
4. What type of metal am I dealing with: Steel, Aluminum, High Strength Steel, Aluminum Composite, etc?
5. Can this be done in a customer's driveway or do I need it in my shop?

[There are accompanying images not here, they are in the video above, I had them in here but since I created them in adobe and had to hand write everything out, the files are quite large, unfortunately too large to put directly into this file]

Let us start with a typical 4 Door Pickup Extended. If you have a king cab imagine that the back door is the front door. 

The Areas in Red are Very Difficult to Access and may require lots of removal and reinstallation of parts. They also typically have triple layers, sensors, computers, and other vital components that need special attention. 

Blue indicates difficult areas that may still require some removal and reinstallation but are much better accessible areas.

Green areas are better from an access perspective, they indicate a lower chance to Removal and reinstall parts, good access, which often means lower costs. Fortunately, the green areas are also where you are more likely to get a dent. 

Don't Skip Ahead Just because you have a different model, these concepts are similar across most vehicles.

TRUCK AT BEDSIDE.
You can see the top portion of the bedside is green, this is assuming that you don’t have a Tonna cover or that you don’t have something that’s going to be in the way. If you have a toolbox, it needs to be moved so the plastic rails can be removed to access the factory holes along the top of the bed. If you don’t have plastic rails and access isn’t possible from the top, consider this portion to be read. The green near the rear will still require the taillight to be removed to gain access. 

TRUCK AT DOOR.
For Most Truck Models, If you open your driver door, you will notice a circular black plug, adjacent to your door handle. This can be accessed to hit dents directly under and just above on most models. The center of the door can typically be accessed from the top or by creating additional access. 

TRUCK AT THE FENDER
The best place to get a dent on a fender is in the green area below the body line. Blue areas may indicate access from the top or bottom to be created and red areas indicate the removal of headlight or tire.

TRUCK AT THE HOOD:
The first foot, from the front of most modern hoods, are triple-layered and the hardest portion to access. When dealing with the hood we have a saying. “We can only fix what we can see”. This means our eye needs to be able to sit 10 inches away from your dent and our magnifying glass needs to be 10 inches away from that. This is the typical reason that we remove hoods to repair dents near the center top portions. 

TRUCK AT THE ROOF
Like the hood the first foot, from the front, near the glass is triple-layered and the hardest portion to access. This is compounded by the fact that it will require a full drop of your headliner, Hand bars, sun visors, and upper central console. This image is assuming that you do not have a sunroof. If you have a sunroof it may need to be taken down and placed on hanging straps for your repair to be possible. If that is the case there is no blue portion. 

CAR AT THE QUARTER PANEL
Like the truck, the quarter panel of your car has some access near the rear once the headlight has been removed. This green area is usually open on most models, although it might require the need to create access in the light housing recess. Blue indicates areas where access creation will be required, but its typically easier to get to. 

CAR AT THE DOOR
Like the truck, the rear and front doors have great access in the center portions, even though half way down they usually do have a bracing and sound deadening pad. Only about half of them have plugs near the door handle that allow access to the dent, so unlike the truck, those are red and may require the door handle and interior portions to be removed and re-installed. 

THE CAR FENDER
Increasingly automakers are using aluminum on fenders and placing brackets with sensor computers just behind the headlight light, this is so your lights will track the road ahead at night. However, it also means that we may need to remove your headlight to access your dent. The green area indicates areas we can gain access from under the fender liner without removing the tire. The blue areas may require tire removal and red areas may require door removal or additional access creation. This is for the very same reason we may need to remove a hood. The eye, to dent, to light.

THE CAR HOOD
All new car hoods are aluminum, because of aluminum ability to reflect heat from your engine and its performance in front end collisions. They typically have far more bracing even in the green areas, but they are accessible and its less likely you will need to take the hood off, because of how far the glass sets back from the edge of the hood. In a nutshell, it has a better eye, to dent, to light ratios.

THE ROOF OF THE CAR
However, unlike the truck, the headliners are far more complex. Increasingly they have more options with dome lights and similar features. The back portions, on a hatchback, may require the hatch to come off. Once the headliner has been removed although there is a bracing and sound deadening pad, most of the areas are green, assuming we don’t have rails from a sunroof.  

SIZE

Now let's deal with your dents length. The length is defined as the longest portion of your dent. Most dents start at a 99$ minimum charge for a one-inch dent with no obstructions. A typical example in a driver door would be as follows. Someone opened a car door on you at Walmart, now You have a one-inch dent, in sound deadening pad in bracing with a light crease running through it with transfer from their cars color. You see a 1 inch circle dent and call around looking for pricing. You're going to get quotes from 99-200$. This is going to be your best case/Worst case quote. With a 99$ base, 30% for obstructions, possible need for removal and reinstallation of parts. Obviously, as the dent size grows or it's in the Red Zones this price could increase significantly. 
But at least now you know exactly why, how to relate with your technician, and what to generally expect. Here is a more in-depth look at each inch. 

Anything past 8 inches will be 25$ per inch.

The Width of a dent is 10% per every two inches. That is, you have a 6-inch long dent that costs 249$ by 3inch width, that dent will have a 10% multiplier costing 24.9$, bringing your total to 273.9$

The depth of a dent is defined in millimeters and a depth gauge is used to extract these parameters. Usually, this is not charged out past 1.MM depth. 2.5mm depth is usually not repairable or the metal has been so stretched that the dent will not be perfect. Having said that, most experienced technicians are repairing dents up to 4.5mm. This is largely due to several new industry innovations in the last three years. 

In conclusion: We have covered everything that you need to know to accurately understand the industry costs for professional paintless dent removal.

• You now know the basic Obstructions to your dent and their costs
• How The location of your dent can affect removal and reinstallation costs
• What length, width, and depth of your dents should cost

Having said all of that, most technicians like myself will package pricing based upon a number of other factors. For example, I typically choose the lower of two obstructions and rarely go over 70% of the original base price regardless of the size and location of the dent. 

I hope this has been helpful. Please don’t make your choice of a technician based upon price only. You're going to find some interesting characters out there, willing to come to your home to do a dent repair cheap. Be very diligent in choosing the right technician, not just the one who is the cheapest and most available. There may be a very good reason why he is hundreds of dollars cheaper and available.