Last summer when I was in Arizona, someone dinged my car while it was parked on the street outside my house in Seattle. The inconsiderate someone didn’t leave a note or offer to pay for repairs, and I was too poor at the time to get it fixed (I’m still too poor). So the dent has bugged me every time I drive my car, which is only about once a week, so it has been endurable. The thing that really bugged me about it, though, was that the dent distorted my bumper enough that the clips on the car didn’t hold the bumper flush to the side of the car. I don’t know why things like that bug me, but they do. So this weekend I decided to take things into my own hands.
Using only the little pink toolkit that my dad gave me for Christmas, a hammer, a towel and a hair dryer, I fixed (somewhat) the dent on my own. Here’s how I did it: I used the tools from the little pink toolkit to remove the rear bumper from my car. Then I took the bumper inside my house and heated the dented area with a hair dryer (so the plastic would be more pliable), covered the dent with a towel (to protect the plastic from the hammer’s sharp edges), and banged on it with a hammer. Using the little pink tools, I reattached the bumper to my car. I didn’t have quite the right tools or training to completely smooth out the dent, but at least now the clips can keep the bumper in the right place. Not bad for an hour’s work.
You are my hero! Seriously–those dents LOOK like they should be so easy to fix, but I have never actually done it. And I wouldn’t have thought of the blow dryer. Well done.
Now want to try to get the dent out of my truck?