If your car is the victim of a rogue bikers’ urge to sneak past you at a traffic signal or your teenager’s desire to drive, read further on dent removal and painting.
Car owners face a tough time getting dents removed and repainted. Authorized dealerships charge a heavy premium and customers are paranoid about handing over their vehicle to an unknown workshop. One such customer, Advait (name changed), gave Cartisan’s service a try and was amazed by the transparency and ease of the process right from quotation and pricing to live service updates and easy payments via the Cartisan app. Here’s the story…
This is an actual case study of a Cartisan customer who got a dent & painting job done for his Audi Q3 (Diesel). The images/ videos are not enhanced or altered in any way.
Placing the request
Advait reached out to us about his Audi Q3 which had sadly been dented and scratched on the front fender and door. He placed a request through the Cartisanapp, mentioning the problem along with the vehicle details and shared the photo of the dent with us. This request reached one of our expert Service Advisors. Our service advisor reached out to him to get more details and diagnose the issue before sending a quote with the scope of service. Once Advait accepted our quotation, our technicians sprang into action to restore his vehicle, removing the dents and scratches and painting it to make it as good as new.
The Cartisan solution
Our workshops follow a 3 step process to fix dents back to the original shape, build up the surface and paint the car ensuring shade match and restore the car back to factory shine.
Step 1: Tinkering: In this step, our tinkerers remove the dents and match the profile of the car, i.e. they bring it back to close to the original body shape. This is done manually using hammer and pry tools followed by a dent puller to remove the dent. In this case, a spot-weld dent puller was used to remove the dent as new metal had to be welded in. Here’s a short video of the tinkering that shows how the dents are removed.
Step 2: Surfacing: After the tinkering is done, technicians use a grinder to bring the tinkered area to the same level as that of the surrounding paint, this is to ensure no imperfections in the surface finish. This is called feather edging. This step brings the dented area back to the original body shape with no imperfections. This done, metal body filler (2K Putty) is applied to the dent surface. The metal body filler is a compound which solidifies over time and provides a strong surface coating to the damaged metal to ensure shape and strength. After application, sanding is done again to build a smooth surface. After this process, feather edging is done again to ensure the surface matches the rest of the panel. Finally, we add a layer of spot filler to cover even fine imperfections.
Once we are absolutely sure that the surface exactly matches the body profile, a primer is applied over the area. This primer coat helps to absorb the paint coat. After the primer coat is dry, we use gum putty to fill even the fine imperfections, rubbing with 400 grit sand paper to scrub off the deposits. The exterior is then washed with plain water and soap and the car is ready for step 3!
While our video is only a few mins long, this step takes a lot longer in real life!
Step 3: Painting: For the actual painting, we take the vehicle to a paint booth. A paint booth provides a dust free and temperature controlled environment which helps cure the surface and ensures no contaminants that may spoil the finish. At the paint booth, we mask the remaining area using masking paper and tape. We prepare the correct base color paint and added the amount of thinner as recommended by the manufacturer to dilute the paint. The base coat is evenly applied covering the whole area. Multiple coats may be needed with drying time in-between to bring the right color and shine. In this case 2 coats were sufficient to bring the right color and luster.
After giving some time for the base coat to dry and cure, we again used a finer grit sanding paper to remove surface contaminants and then apply a clear coat over the base coat. Two coats of clear coats were applied to the vehicle and it was allowed to dry for 12 hours.
Once dry, the painted surface was thoroughly washed and polished with a wax compound making the car as good as new.
As with all things, the picture is worth a thousand words — here’s the picture of Advait’s fixed Audi with the dented area completely fixed and matching the original profile of the vehicle and painted to match the rest of the body color. One more happy Cartisan customer.
Cartisan is a start-up which offers complete car care solutions including services like car wash, detailing works, regular service, breakdown assistance, repairs, and body works. Cartisan works with a vision to offer high quality services while offering transparency and convenience.
