Vandal-Buster :-( - Request for Help

Hi everyone,

It can happen faster than you think... Today, after work, as I was parking my car and walking towards the front door, I thought I was going to have a heart attack: There was a not-so-small dent in the front right fender!

Of course, I didn't collide with anything, and no one rammed into me either (you would hear that, especially since something like that is unlikely to happen from a simple collision), so it was probably a vandal or a troublemaker. Of course, there wasn't a note on the window, because people like that are far too cowardly to do something like that.

Since the insurance likely won't cover it, or it probably doesn't exceed the deductible, but I definitely want to get rid of it, I'm asking for suggestions: what's the smartest thing to do in this situation?

To avoid asking completely random questions, here are some pictures:

http://www.informatik.hu-berlin.de/~richling/tdi/tmp/

(There are about 700,000 of them, and the white spots aren't paint damage, it's just dirt - my car isn't really clean.)

Does it make sense to address this as quickly as possible (since the paint is undamaged)?

Would the method posted by Uwe work here?

What do you think something like that would cost?

What would you do?

Being annoyed by the stupidity and cowardice of certain contemporaries.

Best regards - Jan

"Hi... I'd say something hit it from behind, something relatively soft, and since there are no visible scratches, it could have been something like a Jeep with a spare tire mounted on the back, or a truck with rubber bumpers on the loading edge."
I find it relatively unlikely that there will be vandals and, consequently, more damaged cars. It's questionable whether filing a report would be worthwhile in that case.
By removing the plastic wheel arch liner, you should be able to access the dent from the inside.
If it were my car, I would proceed as follows:
- Apply oil to the inner side of the fender, from the bulge to the edge, to prevent any plaster from sticking.
- Apply a layer of 2-3mm rubber (e.g.,...) over the plaster. Insert a rubber hose (or a similar flexible object) coated with oil into the fender from the inside, and then mold the original shape next to the dent.
- Warm up the dent thoroughly with a hairdryer, being careful not to cause the paint to bubble.
- Cut the shaped rubber-gypsum sausage to the appropriate size and press it from the inside against the bulge.
- To stabilize the plaster, add wood wool or similar fibrous materials directly during mixing.

Alternative:
- Use a tennis ball to apply pressure from the inside against the center of the bulge.
- To prevent the paint from cracking easily, warm it up with a hairdryer.

It might still be necessary, after the initial dent has been pushed out from the inside, to use a tennis ball from the outside, pressing gently on two small raised areas just above and below the original dent, to push them inwards and make the surfaces flat again.

Does anyone have anything better to offer than my two schnapps ideas?

Best regards and good luck, Rainer.

Hi Rainer,

Thank you in advance for the tips... It's encouraging to hear that it might be possible to achieve the desired result without painting, as that would be quite expensive.

I need to see if I can try doing it myself this way (I'm not very good at those more "artistic" things... I prefer to tinker with things), or if I should have someone else do it, as long as it's not too expensive. It should be possible to reach the top without any problems; by removing the large container of washing fluid, you should be able to get there.

Regarding the cause: The frustrating thing is that I don't know exactly WHERE it happened. However, the car was never parked in a way that someone could have driven in from the side. It was either parked parallel to the street, partially on the sidewalk (as in the picture), or in a parking row perpendicular to the street, where there wouldn't be enough space for that anyway – you'd have to come in at more or less a right angle.

That's why the assumption about vandalism arises - the metal sheets aren't that sturdy, are they? You could probably damage them with just your fist.

Best regards,

Jan.

Hi!

I already posted about this before, but my workshop had a company remove four dents from a body panel. They outsourced the job to a nationwide mobile company. The cost was €99, including disassembly work, and it took 2 hours. The company guarantees the quality of their work. They only removed the dents; no painting was done. You can't even see the dents anymore. Before you try to remove the dents yourself, I would recommend finding out if professionals can do a better job. It's possible that Audi/Seat workshops know companies that specialize in this. If you can't find anyone, I'd be happy to inquire and see who might be able to do that.

Best regards,
Uwe

Hi Jan,

Unfortunately, a hollow profile runs along the upper inner edge of the fender, which would likely make it significantly more difficult to access the dent from the inside. If the bulge were a little deeper, a portion of its edge would likely appear as an outward-facing bend in the bulge.
That is to say, Rainer's plaster sausage trick (which is quite clever, by the way ) is probably only partially applicable (if at all).

You can, in my opinion, leave the bucket for wash water attached. To access the bulge from the inside, you must instead remove the plastic splash guard located in the fender.

...like approaching it from below? Because from the engine compartment, that large body of water is kind of in the way. I hadn't considered it from that particular perspective before.

By the way, the bodywork specialist at my "famous" Seat workshop mentioned that the dent might be too deep to repair without repainting. However, since I've heard conflicting opinions based on the pictures, I'll be getting a few more opinions from other companies. Even if that workshop person might not necessarily be right, I suspect it's probably not really a DIY project... especially since I've never tried anything like that before, and I don't have much faith in my "artistic" abilities.

I would definitely appreciate any feedback on the images, and any comments regarding their feasibility.

Best regards,

Jan.

Quote:

...like approaching it from below? Because from the engine compartment, that huge body of water is kind of in the way. However, I haven't looked at it from that particular perspective yet.

Hi.

Based on my experience with the left 6K fender, that seems to be the only way to push the dent out (however that might work in detail).

However, it might also be possible to pull the dent out using the "pin-gluing" technique, especially if the metal at the edge of the dent isn't too sharply bent.