PDR or Re-Paint for Hood Dent

A green, full-of-sap pinecone bombed my truck recently (not parking there anymore). Quotes from PDF folks are running ~$300. A new OEM hood panel is ~$350, although I don't know if they come painted. There's also the bodyshop route of sanding, filling, repainting the whole hood. I really like the OEM paint and have been careful to preserve it, so inclined to do the PDR thing but curious how others feel.

Any thoughts on how well the PDR approach will look as opposed to how it would look with new paint on the whole hood? PDR guy says 90-95% but won't say he can get it to completely unnoticeable, but then color matching paint on a 20 year old truck might also be hard.

Grateful for your guidance here Tacomaworld sages.

 

Panels never come painted, $300 is pretty good for someone to painstakingly remove that dent. I'd say it'll go from that baseball size to maybe a dime size ding, if not gone all the way. If you go the body shop route, I guarantee you're looking at a 2k+ repair easily.

 

I dont have much to add, but man thats a beautifully kept truck!

 

Nice truck. As long as the dent isn’t directly over a hood brace a good pdr guy should be able to get that out completely. A good body shop would never recommend putting any sort of bondo on the hood, so if they do stay away from the shop that does. If you buy a hood at least another 500-700 to prep and paint and whit is one of the hardest colors to match. Imo pdr. Oh, and a really good shop would want to blend into both fenders which will add to paint cost.

 

Thanks all for the compliments and guidance. I tried the PDR approach and got the highest rated guy in my area here in Northern California. He worked on it for an hour or so and said he had to walk away because the paint was cracking a bit. As you can see in the pictures, the higher dent is mostly gone but the lower, deeper dent is still very much there although a little less shallow. 2-3 small paint cracks now too although the metal isn't exposed.

At this point, I think I replace the hood. And the best option seems to be play the long game and find a matching hood from a donor vehicle. I've spent hours looking across the country on all the online listings I know of (Row52, Car-Part.com, Craigslist national search, Facebook Marketplace, eBay etc.) Nothing yet, but I think a clean one will turn up at some point.

***If you see a clean hood panel on a 1998, 1999 or 2000 Tacoma in natural white (paint code 056), please let me know, willing to pay and willing to travel***

The 1995-1997 hood panels are the same shape, but the white color was different (paint code 045).

I think finding a clean hood will take a while, but ultimately will be cheaper and preserve the OEM factor finish (as opposed to a body shop grinding down that area and painting the spot). But let me know if you have other thoughts!

 

Sorry for your dent. That would irk me, too! What the heck kind of tree is that that grows large pineapple-looking cones that obviously weigh a lot so I can avoid them at all costs? Do you have a picture of the tree?

 

That can be conventionally repaired and it wont cause any issues. Plastic filler on a hood is absolutely fine. The dent is small enough in the center where it will not require blending into the fenders.

Some issues you risk with a used hood are poor prior paint jobs, rockchips, paint failure, the color will not be the exact same because of manufacturing variants.

Just ask the repair shop to use the good clear on it, its usually reserved for high end cars. Regular cars get reguar clear coat.

If you are in the Sacramento area let me know, I work at a high end body shop.

 

Thanks as always for the quick replies folks. Good to know Old green, I hadn't realized they could do it and make it look nice. I've heard Yeamans mentioned in high regard here in the Bay Area, but grateful for any other Bay Area shops that could do a good job.

rkilpa, thanks for the kind words. The pine is I think a Silver Pine, but I could be wrong. It's fairly huge and has been bombing the roof and sidewalk around my place. I thought the truck was out of range but clearly I was wrong. The tree didn't do this last summer, so could be a number of causal factors, one neighbor has a the-squirrels-are-dropping-them-to-subsequently-eat-them theory, another neighbor has a it-must-be-the-heat theory. I haven't seen a pine tree drop green cones so regularly before, so mystery to me. Costly mystery.

 

I thought it might have happened while camping or something. It sucks it happened in your own driveway. If you can't utilize the garage for parking, get one of these. Less than the cost of another repair or removing the tree.

 

Thanks for the tip! I didn't realize they made awnings that are this robust. I'll look into it for sure.

 

What a shame! Such a good-lookin' truck! I'm sure glad that I don't have any pine trees where I park.

Don't know what I would do in your situation. Hope you get it fixed properly.

 

I got a Benjamin with conventional repair , no way they match the white.