- Dec 4, 2011
- 242
Ladies and gents,
It's not important HOW this happened, just that it did, and a terrible consequence thereof is my wife hasn't stopped giving me long sideways glances and snickering since. Suffice to say the passenger fender made sweet, sweet love to a concrete pillar in a parking garage when pulling out of a spot tonight at about 5MPH.
See the picture attached below: please note the mass of white in the middle of the dent is just the camera flash. There appears to be only one dent of approximately 1" depth, with no ripples or anything like that. The paint scrape is fairly substantial but I'm not yet sure if that's paint from the white pillar on top of my paint or if the black paint was scraped off revealing a white substrate of some fashion. I do know it wasn't coming off with my fingernail.
The plastic wheel well was somewhat dislodged from the little plastic plugs that affix it to the holes in the fender, but nothing else (door/hood gaps, tire clearance, etc) appears to be adversely affected.
So, what's next for me, presumably starting with the dent? I was thinking of pulling out the plastic wheelwell and smacking the back of the dent with a deadblow hammer to see if it pops back in place. If that doesn't work, I'm not sure what else to try - the long but relatively narrow shape seems like it wouldn't work with any of the suction cup type dent pullers. I could throw a heavy C clamp on there and pull back, probably with something wide underneath it to spread out the force and protect the paint. Other ideas?
After the dent is fixed to my satisfaction - what do I do with the paint? Sternly but lovingly direct it to straighten up and fly right to love up to its potential? Buff it with compound on a DA? Wet sand? If it ends up being scraped off too far to simply repair, am I going to have to have the whole truck painted to avoid having one fresh paint fender and the rest of the truck conspicuously 7 year old paint?
Appreciate those who stuck with my through my ramblings above. I'm really hoping this is a DIY fix situation. First time since high school (10 years ago) I've done anything of this nature and it's killing me, so the sooner the evidence is gone the better!
Cheers,
LT
View attachment 22273
It's not important HOW this happened, just that it did, and a terrible consequence thereof is my wife hasn't stopped giving me long sideways glances and snickering since. Suffice to say the passenger fender made sweet, sweet love to a concrete pillar in a parking garage when pulling out of a spot tonight at about 5MPH.
See the picture attached below: please note the mass of white in the middle of the dent is just the camera flash. There appears to be only one dent of approximately 1" depth, with no ripples or anything like that. The paint scrape is fairly substantial but I'm not yet sure if that's paint from the white pillar on top of my paint or if the black paint was scraped off revealing a white substrate of some fashion. I do know it wasn't coming off with my fingernail.
The plastic wheel well was somewhat dislodged from the little plastic plugs that affix it to the holes in the fender, but nothing else (door/hood gaps, tire clearance, etc) appears to be adversely affected.
So, what's next for me, presumably starting with the dent? I was thinking of pulling out the plastic wheelwell and smacking the back of the dent with a deadblow hammer to see if it pops back in place. If that doesn't work, I'm not sure what else to try - the long but relatively narrow shape seems like it wouldn't work with any of the suction cup type dent pullers. I could throw a heavy C clamp on there and pull back, probably with something wide underneath it to spread out the force and protect the paint. Other ideas?
After the dent is fixed to my satisfaction - what do I do with the paint? Sternly but lovingly direct it to straighten up and fly right to love up to its potential? Buff it with compound on a DA? Wet sand? If it ends up being scraped off too far to simply repair, am I going to have to have the whole truck painted to avoid having one fresh paint fender and the rest of the truck conspicuously 7 year old paint?
Appreciate those who stuck with my through my ramblings above. I'm really hoping this is a DIY fix situation. First time since high school (10 years ago) I've done anything of this nature and it's killing me, so the sooner the evidence is gone the better!
Cheers,
LT
View attachment 22273