Well, I got the first dent in my Prius last week. A crow that was eating some tasty piece of road kill on the shoulder decided to take off just as I was driving by at about 65 and was promptly turned into road kill by my hood. I learned a couple things from this: 1. The hood is made from aluminum. 2. Those paintless dent puller places are a rip-off: they estimated $325 to pull out a dent about 3 inches in diameter. So, instead of wasting $325, I decided I'm going to try and pop it out myself with one of those "Pops-a-Dent" devices you may have seen on late night infomercials. I figure it's only $27 with shipping so I'm not out much if it doesn't work. Anybody have experience with this device or similar ones? Am I going to ruin my hood? Thanks!
Sorry about your dented hood. My reply probably won't make you very happy, either. How easy it is to remove any dent, in steel or aluminum depends a lot on how much the metal was stretched and distorted. If no stretching/distortion you might be able to pop it back into place. Usually, though, there will be at least some ripples that will be hard to remove around the edge of the dent. These usually don't disappear without some hammer and dolly work and repainting. Whether you can live with them is up to you. You can try the gizmo and see what it does for you. Aluminum bends easily, that's good for you when straightening. But it also stretches easily. Stretched metal takes skilled hammer work and usually a bit of heat with a torch to take out. You really can shrink metal but it is not a skill you can learn in minutes. So, the main question is whether you will need to repaint the hood or not after any needed repair is done. You probably will, and if so you might check the cost of a new hood vs cost of repair, since painting will be the same.
<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(timmsumm\";p=\"88206)</div> Take a look in the auto department in Wal-Mart. I've seen that type of gizmo for sale there. Good luck.
Pictures. If you're really going to try it out, take pictures before and after. If you can, try to present the same lighting and angles for proper comparison. And no, I have no experience with them but if you get it to work, I'll get one if the need arises.
We got some hail damage on our hood last year. We did the paintless dent repair for around $300. However, we later heard that a new hood costs only $200! You may want to check into that (and confirm that price).
hood part number is 53301-47040 price is $218.54 from my price list but it's getting old so might be cheaper or more expensive. Then you'd need to get it painted. $325 seems expensive to remove a dint though.
Have used Pops-a-dent or similar on my old Miata. Works pretty well on simple dents. You heat glue stick plunger into dent with heated glue then pull up dent with screw. Adhesion of glue to paint is less than paint to metal and plunger pops off. I have not tried it on Ptius paint or aluminum but you have only the few bucks to lose. Let us know.
