Aluminum PDR

[stomachmonkey]

Hey guys, Happy Sunday

So this week we got hit with one of those freak hail storms we get around here.

All day they were saying my area was out of the severe risk zone.

Sitting eating dinner and we get an alert to "Seek shelter, Get indoors immediately. Severe potentially lethal hail inbound to your location."

Welp, I couldn't get the XK adequately covered in time and it got dinged.

I'm really upset about it because the car didn't even have 1 scratch or rock chip. Paint is pretty much the way it left the dealer 12 years ago.

It didn't get hammered as bad as my other cars in the past but even one ding is too much.

XK's are Aluminum and I know they can be PDR'd but it's not exactly the same as regular steel bodied cars. Like they need to have Aluminum dedicated tools so not to transfer steel onto the panels and stuff like that.

Anyone know any specific questions to ask that would help me to know if the PDR guys I'll be interviewing actually know how to work Aluminum or are just telling me "yeah no sweat I can do that" but they actually have no clue.

[Steve Carlton]

I'd try asking some local Jaguar service advisors for a good recommendation. Or any dealer that sells a lot of aluminum bodied cars. It's a different kettle of fish.

[Zeke]

Originally Posted by stomachmonkey

Hey guys, Happy Sunday

So this week we got hit with one of those freak hail storms we get around here.

All day they were saying my area was out of the severe risk zone.

Sitting eating dinner and we get an alert to "Seek shelter, Get indoors immediately. Severe potentially lethal hail inbound to your location."

Welp, I couldn't get the XK adequately covered in time and it got dinged.

I'm really upset about it because the car didn't even have 1 scratch or rock chip. Paint is pretty much the way it left the dealer 12 years ago.

It didn't get hammered as bad as my other cars in the past but even one ding is too much.

XK's are Aluminum and I know they can be PDR'd but it's not exactly the same as regular steel bodied cars. Like they need to have Aluminum dedicated tools so not to transfer steel onto the panels and stuff like that.

Anyone know any specific questions to ask that would help me to know if the PDR guys I'll be interviewing actually know how to work Aluminum or are just telling me "yeah no sweat I can do that" but they actually have no clue.

Never heard that. It would mean the tools would have to be SS.

[stomachmonkey]

Originally Posted by Zeke

Never heard that. It would mean the tools would have to be SS.

What they are referring to is not necessarily the tool itself transferring but if you use the same set of tools on aluminum as you use on steel you can transfer steel the tool has picked up from being used on a steel car.

I guess the shorter way to say it is the tools gets contaminated.

[stomachmonkey]

Originally Posted by Steve Carlton

I'd try asking some local Jaguar service advisors for a good recommendation. Or any dealer that sells a lot of aluminum bodied cars. It's a different kettle of fish.

Yeah, Aluminum doesn't have the same metal memory and gets harder as it's worked so if the tech doesn't know what they are doing you can end up with a ding that's no longer fixable.

[TimT]

I stopped by a high end body shop about getting a ding on the hood of my Cayman massaged out, the PDR guy they recommended wouldn't touch it because its aluminum hood.. Still looking for a guy but living with the ding

[stomachmonkey]

Originally Posted by TimT

I stopped by a high end body shop about getting a ding on the hood of my Cayman massaged out, the PDR guy they recommended wouldn't touch it because its aluminum hood.. Still looking for a guy but living with the ding

I don't want to replace panels because of paint match. Car is white which is an easy color but I'm really nit picky about paint jobs. If it's not a 100% perfect match it will make me crazy. The original paint is perfect, not a nick, scratch, blemish anywhere.

And I can't replace the roof skin anyway so I don't have much choice but PDR.

[David]

I've only had my 930 done so no experience with aluminum but I bet an experienced guy could do it or at least know if it can't. I'd ask the best paint and body shop in town or county who they use. I was talking to a couple PDR guys in a bar last year. I could tell within a few minutes they'd been doing it a long time and knew what they were doing. They said they follow the hail storms. Body shops will replace all the panels but don't want to replace the roof so they call these guys in.

[Zeke]

Originally Posted by stomachmonkey

What they are referring to is not necessarily the tool itself transferring but if you use the same set of tools on aluminum as you use on steel you can transfer steel the tool has picked up from being used on a steel car.

I guess the shorter way to say it is the tools gets contaminated.

Well, that's too easy to correct. Polish the tool heads before using them on the AL.

I face the issue in welding. Have to keep wire brushes, etc. separate. If I had a file I would just clean it with brake cleaner and acetone. Now a file is an extreme example. If I was talking about a hammer that would take 15 seconds to decontaminate from steel particles. But you're correct, it's easier to not go through this if you do enough AL repair.

The real problem with AL is that it has no memory. Steel does and incorporates stresses when bent or dented. These stresses are used to the advantage of the PDR method. Working AL is the same as initial metal shaping.

I've gone down this rabbit hole before your thread. Very tedious as if PDR wasn't tedious enough.

[schwarz633]

My wife a had a little grocery store parking lot backing incident with her Cayenne and I took it to a PDR guy. He wouldn't touch the liftgate damage as it is aluminum. The quote from a body shop is $1400. I also had him quote on a very light crease on the front fender that you wouldn't even see unless I pointed it out to you. He told me that his quoting software doubles the price for aluminum versus steel.

[unclebilly]

KHS (know how solutions) seems to travel around and set up shop after these type of events. They made a tremendous F’ing mess on my old Tundra. Ruined the headliner, the roof dents came back in a subsequent minor hail storm (nothing else got dented), tried to put on mismatching vent visors, missed a bunch of damage, avoid them like the plague mixed with aids and herpes…

Go to a brick and mortar PDR shop that’s been around a few years with a good reputation and you will be pleased. I had a golf ball dent pulled out of my 86 930, my wife’s old cayenne done, our old Lexis LX 450 with hail damage (same storm as the tundra mentioned above) and a door ding in my WRX and it was perfect.

[wdfifteen]

C’mon guys. Has everyone here retired their man card? All you need is to spend half an hour on YouTube and a couple hundred dollars on tools. Where’s the fun in hiring someone else to screw it up when you can screw it up yourself?
BTW, out of curiosity I watched a couple of YT videos on the topic and no metal ever touched the car.
Aluminum has a lower modulus of elasticity, meaning it can be permanently deformed by a shallower dent than steel, which would make it less of a candidate for PDR.

[unclebilly]

Originally Posted by wdfifteen

C’mon guys. Has everyone here retired their man card? All you need is to spend half an hour on YouTube and a couple hundred dollars on tools. Where’s the fun in hiring someone else to screw it up when you can screw it up yourself?
BTW, out of curiosity I watched a couple of YT videos on the topic and no metal ever touched the car.

I’ve tried… those guys are magicians. I’m also terrified of cracking the paint.

[jhynesrockmtn]

I've had some amazing results with PDR but all on steel bodies cars. My 996, 356, etc. I found my guy by talking the Porsche dealership service manager. Maybe call the Jag or Audi dealer. Audi has been making the A8 in aluminum since the mid 90s.

[KRLocke]

The most important question I would ask is can I talk with past customers for whom you've done work on their aluminum bodied cars.

Everyone will say yes I can do it. Most can't and will be watching aluminum PDR videos on YouTube.

[Steve Carlton]

A friend of mine is the best PDR guy I've ever seen. Aluminum is more difficult, but doable. I saw him take a "karate chop" out of the power bulge on an aluminum hood on an Audi with a brace behind it. I couldn't see a trace. Once in a while he and others would get flown out to Kansas City by Chrysler to repair hail damage on brand new cars.