Things You'll Need:
- Hair dryer or heat gun
- mallet/hammer handle or other rounded object
- assistant
-
Step 1
Examine the dent. As long as the plastic is not torn you can use this method to minimize the appearance of the dent. Works best on the outer part of the bumper beyond where the metal beam is.
-
Step 2
Use the hair dryer, or a heat gun if you have one and are very careful, to warm the dent area until it feels hot but not to the point that you can't touch it. You can warm the area, try step 3 and if it doesn't work warm a bit more and try again rather than getting it too hot first time out.
-
Step 3
Once the area is warm, have your assistant, I used my teenage son (no he did not make the dent), to use the handle part of a mallet to push against the back side of the bumper near the edge of the dent. If the dent has a deep section and a shallow section, start at the shallow end and work around towards the deep end. As the dent comes out have him/her move around the dent pushing the dent area back out. Don't push too hard at any one spot and move the hair dryer over the area being pushed to help the process.
-
Step 4
Continue around the dent towards the center. When you reach a certain point, the dent will pop out and it will be very close to like new. You may see some paint cracks but overall at 2 feet you can't see that it was damaged. The dealer wanted $400+ to fix my dent and with this simple trick it looks really good. Try this before you spend the $$$$
-
Step 5
If the plastic was torn you will still need to repair that. That is another story for another time. Good luck. Hope it works as well for you as it has worked for me. Since I fixed mine, I have showed many other people this trick and it has worked really well. The warmer the day the less you have to heat the bumper. I did my first repair in Maine in March. Right now in Texas you wouldn't need the hair dryer hardly at all.
