Questions

Do you need my power, water or driveway tap?

No. The van carries an inverter, a compressor, its own lighting and its own water. Nothing plugs into your house and nothing runs off your office’s outlets. What we do need is space: roughly twelve feet clear on the working side of the car, and ground that is reasonably level.

Do I have to be there?

Not usually. A great many jobs are done on keys left at a front desk or in a lock box. Most door work needs the interior card off, so the car has to be unlockable, and we will tell you that when we quote rather than turning up and finding out. For anything involving paint we would rather you saw it before we packed up.

Will the dent be completely gone?

Often yes, and on a soft round ding in the flat of a panel it will be genuinely invisible. But not always, and you get told which before you agree to anything. A dent that is sharp, that sits on a body line, or that has been in the panel for years and has taken a set can come back eighty or ninety per cent and leave something findable in a low sun. That is a real outcome and it goes on the estimate. What we will not do is sell you a hundred per cent and hand you a ninety.

Can you fix it if the paint is cracked or chipped?

No, and this is the one hard line the whole trade should hold and largely does not. Paintless repair works while the finish is intact. Cracked clear over a dent means the metal underneath is stretched and the coating has already given up; pushing the panel back opens that crack into something you can catch a fingernail on, and the panel now needs paint that it did not need before. We check it on the photographs and we check it again on the line board at the car.

How do you price hail?

By panel and by density, not by the dent. Once a hood has forty dents in it, counting them is theater — what matters is which panels are hit, how many dents per square foot, how deep, and whether any of them are on a body line or over a brace. Every panel gets a band and the bands add up. That is the same way a hail matrix works in a body shop, and it is the only version of the arithmetic that survives being checked.

Aluminum panels — can you do those?

Yes, and they are a different animal. Aluminum has far less memory than steel: it does not want to spring back toward its original shape, so the work is slower, needs more heat and takes many more small passes to get the same result. It also work-hardens as you go, so there is a limited number of attempts before the metal itself stops cooperating. It costs more and it takes longer, and any mobile operator quoting an aluminum hood at a steel price has either not looked at the car or does not know what it is made of.

Do you drill holes?

Not without saying so first, and mostly not at all. Access is found through window channels, tail light apertures, drain holes, and trim that unclips. Some panels are bonded, braced or foam-filled and the only route in is a new hole, which then has to be sealed and treated properly or it will rust from the inside in a few years. If that is the only way, you hear it before you decide, with the cost of doing it properly included. Quite often our advice is not to.

Glue pulling or working from behind — which do I want?

Behind the panel, wherever there is a way in. Working from the back means the tech is moving the metal directly with a rod tip and can feel exactly what is happening, and the result is cleaner. Glue pulling — tabs bonded to the outside of the panel and drawn out with a lifter or a slide hammer, then the high spots tapped back down — is for panels with no access at all, and it is a real technique, not a shortcut. What it is not is a way to avoid taking a door card off because it is Friday afternoon.

Do you take insurance?

We are not on anybody’s preferred list and we do not negotiate supplements. What you get is a written work order with every line and every price on it, which you are free to submit yourself. For a hail claim that document is usually exactly what an adjuster wants to see. What we will not do is write a number to suit a claim rather than the car.

What about rain, or working in a garage?

Dent work carries on in most weather as long as the panel can be kept dry. Anything involving paint stops — humidity and a damp surface will ruin a bumper repair days after it looked fine. Garages are ideal for hail and for paint. The one thing that beats us is height: the van stands about nine feet four, so it does not enter a parking structure with a six-foot-eight clearance bar. We meet you at street level instead, which is why we ask for a photograph of where the car will be.

Do you do paint?

Only spot repair on bumper covers, with proper prep, adhesion promoter, flex additive and extraction. There is no booth on a van and there is no honest way to pretend otherwise. A full panel respray, a color that needs a blend across three panels, or anything metallic across a large flat area belongs in a booth, and if that is what your car needs we will say so.

How do I pay, and when?

At the car, when the work order is signed off, card or transfer. Nothing is taken up front and there is no deposit, because there is nothing to hold — the van either turns up or it does not.

How far will you come?

Twenty-five miles from St. Petersburg with no trip charge, further with one that is printed on the estimate before anybody drives. Past about seventy miles it stops making sense for a single car and becomes a fleet conversation. The rings and the arithmetic behind them →