New Profit Center: Paintless Dent Repair

If a car has minor damage caused by parking lot mishaps or even hail, it could be a suitable candidate for paintless dent repair, as long as the paint has not been damaged. To repair a car using PDR, a repairer uses special tools designed to tap and pull out the dent without damaging the finish, eliminating the need to paint. After the initial investment in tools and training, the only cost involved is labor. Weather permitting, PDR can be done outside — although a bay may be a better alternative for some shops.

"Any people who are interested in how their car looks will be interested in something like this," notes Jason Richards, an estimator with Beverly Hills Auto Body Inc. of Beverly Hills, Calif. A typical paintless dent repair customer is someone who comes in for collision work, Richards says. When estimators initially inspect the car, they point out any minor dings and dents to the customer and explain that the shop can easily and economically repair them while the car is in the shop. That approach also reduces the incidence of customers claiming dings occurred while the car was in the body shop.

Beverly Hills Auto Body doesn't have a technician on staff to handle PDR, but instead relies on Magic Touch Paintless Dent Removal of Los Angeles, a company that specializes in handling PDR for body shops in the area. Magic Touch owner Cliff Jameson visits Beverly Hills Auto Body as needed, doing his work on the company's lot. He often can respond to repair requests the same day.

Even with this outsourced approach, Beverly Hills Auto Body makes a healthy profit margin on paintless dent repairs. The company charges customers $85 to $225 for PDR work, depending on the size of the dent involved and the number of dents on the vehicle. For a job billed at $85, Jameson typically charges about $45, which works out to a 53/47 split (in Magic Touch's favor). Jameson's work requires about 35 to 40 minutes per panel.

Richards says Beverly Hills Auto Body chose this approach because the shop didn't have enough paintless dent repair work to keep a staff technician busy full time. Alternatively, some shops might train someone on staff in properly performing PDR repairs and have that person also do wholesale work for other shops. If that technician were also trained in conventional auto body repair, he or she could do conventional work when no PDR work was needed. As with any supplemental service, advertising the fact that the shop does paintless dent repair can help bring in additional work, according to our sources.

Proper training is critical to good paintless dent repair — and numerous schools offer programs ranging anywhere from one to three weeks. Shorter-length courses may suffice for technicians who are already trained in conventional body shop work because they already have an edge over students from other walks of life. Training programs, which often include tools as part of the package, run in the range of $5,000 to $15,000. That fee also may include a technician's travel expenses, and some schools will train additional technicians for up to five years if someone they have trained leaves a company.

Repairing hail damage using paintless dent repair typically is more time-consuming than repairing parking lot dings. A typical hail repair takes a full day and retails for between $500 and $2,000 per vehicle. In recent years, insurance companies increasingly have begun to encourage the use of PDR for hail damage. Because of the volume of work that a big hailstorm can create, some shops turn to national PDR companies that can send in a group of technicians to promptly handle the additional work.

Downs Paint and Body of Milton, Fla., chose that option after a big hailstorm a year ago. "At one time we had 10 technicians working here. We were taking in 20 cars a day," says Linda Downs, administrative secretary for the company, who adds that the visiting technicians often worked long hours to complete their work. The body shop's cut of the repair work was about 20 percent, Downs notes. The narrower margin, in comparison with what Beverly Hills Auto Body makes, isn't surprising, considering that the national company had the expense of bringing technicians in from outside the area to handle the hail-generated demand. Nevertheless, the weather mishap generated substantial windfall revenue for Downs Paint & Body.

As shops consider adding PDR, weather-related windfalls could add greatly to a shop's bottom line.