ding king experiences/advice - PeachParts Mercedes-Benz Forum

rbn3 · #1 11-04-2002, 09:06 AM

Being a charter member of the "fool and his money are soon parted" club. I made an impulse buy at Target of one of these gismos. $29.95 for probably about $5 of parts. I took it home and try "pulling" a couple of small dings. I used the little bottle of what smelled like plain old isopropyl alcohol to clear off the surface. I hot glues the puller over the ding, waited 5 minutes, attached the bridge, twisted the nut and...dent the same. Instructions said multiple attempts might be required. Well 10 tries with varying amounts of glue all failed.

Any body know any tips, or should I caulk it up to another installment of my dues.

placo1 · #2 11-04-2002, 05:47 PM

That's interesting to hear and also something I'm not to surprised about.

I've heard this product actually works quite well on Japanese cars, probably because their sheet metal is very thin. A friend of ours has this and they promised to remove some dings from my wifes Honda, I'll let you know if it works.

However once she explained to me how it works I figured that there is no way a device that glues to the outside of a car could possibly pull thick sheet metal which you find on a Mercedes. I'd expect the paint to pull off before the dent.

#3 11-04-2002, 07:49 PM

My wife wanted to buy this product to get out a door ding in the 9-5. I already had the 4" suction and could'nt pull it out. Thanks for the advise.........Looks like one for the tax reciept box....

MTI · #4 07-30-2003, 02:47 PM

Having nothing better to do on a rainy Saturday in Honolulu last week, I went out, plunked down $25 and tried out the Ding King on some trunk and door dings.

After giving the shallow circle shaped parking lot war dings about three procedures, I have to say that it did improve the condition of the sheetmetal without harming the finish, but did not "erase" the dent. The instructions suggest that up to 10 procedures may be required and I might continue, but it got sunny . . .

Is it worth $25, well yes, but not if you're going to expect going back to "showroom" finish or a $75 "Paintless Dent Repair" job by a competent franchise. However, if you're one of those that feels internal pain looking at a ding or is just looking to minimize the visual appearance while saving up for bodywork and/or paint, then it is a good deal.

Pics and text posted on my 190E's treatment here: 190Revolution.net

Pete Geither · #5 07-30-2003, 06:17 PM

I have seen this scum bag "demonstrate" the miracle healing powers of the Ding King on the tube a number of times. If there was ever a case of out and out fraud, this outfit should be doing some hard time right now. The dents he appears to have fixed on the door and hood is an outright joke, and I hate to see people taken advantage of with an outright lie. People like that REALLY piss me off.

MTI · #6 07-30-2003, 10:28 PM

PJG56, don't hold back your feelings, it's not healthy

As a bored and somewhat disinterested user, I found that the Ding King made the dings look a lot better, but didn't erase them, so it's hard to say that it's a piece of crap. Oddly enough, Good Housekeeping Magazine gave it a thumbs up and they're usually a pretty hard sell.

Darrell Woods · #7 07-30-2003, 10:30 PM

We have a local repair shop also known as the ding king. I took in a Mazda RX7 with numerous parking lot dents to each door (I counted at least 15 small to medium sized dents, but none had removed the paint). I ended up spending $300, but the result was fantastic. Their technique required removing the interior door panels and working out the dent from behind, and you could never tell there was ever a single dent on the car. More expensive than the gizmo, no doubt, but a good way to get rid of dents if they're really bothering you.

Pete Geither · #8 07-31-2003, 05:35 AM

Well I feel a little better now,,,,sorry for my rant.

placo1 · #9 07-31-2003, 09:52 AM

Our friend let us borrow her "Ding King" and I gave it a try on my wifes 02 CRV. Note the CRV has very thin sheetmetal, no comparison to the 500.

I tried using the ding king three times on the same ding and did not see any difference at all. After the first try I read the directions again thinking I did something wrong, apparently not.

Lets just say I'm glad I didn't buy it.

tradonguy · #10 08-27-2003, 09:07 AM

Well, I'm glad to see that everyone agrees the the Mercedes has thicker steel. I used the Ding King on my Honda Civic and my Mercedes 240D back and forth. I was able to pull out the dent fairly successfully on my Honda Civic but when I tried to pull the dent out of my Mercedes, the dent only came out slightly. It was a great investment which paid for itself for the Honda but not for the Mercedes. I will keep it for those parking lot dings on the Honda. It's still a lot cheaper than having someone else pull out the dings but it is a very time consuming process.

JSNMV · #11 03-22-2005, 06:32 PM

Well I'll share my disappointing experience using a ding king on my Chevy Pickup hood. After an unsolicited baseball dent perfectly centered on the hood of my Silverado, the local body shop wanted $350+ to fill dent and repaint. The ding king seemed a reasosonable aternative. After several attempts to removed the dent I noticed smaller dents appearing where the bridge plungers rest. Eventually, I took the truck into a paintless dent removal shop and removed all of the hood dents, and a half a dozen more, for $150. Anyone desperate for a slightly used ding king? Save yor money and go to the paintless repair. Jim

#12 03-22-2005, 07:01 PM

Ding King is good for impressions NOT dents.

rbn3 · #13 03-22-2005, 07:13 PM

of the ding king was that it does nothing for impressions but it dented my checking account.

tradonguy · #14 03-23-2005, 04:41 AM

The Ding King worked well on my 2002 Honda Civic but it did not work as well on my 1980 240D. The metal was a lot tougher on my Mercedes. I think it works OK on a flat surface of fairly thin metal but not so well on thicker metal.

donbryce · #15 03-23-2005, 08:18 AM

Very interesting and amusing read. I have a little book published back in the 40's that was used to train the bodymen of the day on dent removal. Without going into detail, the basic approach was (and still is, IMO, I don't care how thick the steel is) to work the damage out of the panel in the reverse order of how it was inflicted.
That means that you use the appropriate body hammer both 'on' and 'off' the appropriate dolly to work the dent from the outside toward the center (in the case of a typical circular indentation, for example). Provided the metal hasn't been stretched too far from the impact, this method will work very well 90% of the time, and I wouldn't be surprised if that is the technique the dent removal franchises use (only with tools that have soft facings to not marr the paint). I've never seen their work, and we have no one here, so I'm speculating.
This dent removal method obviously works in the exact opposite direction, trying to pull it out from the center. That's like the old drill-a-hole-insert-screw-and-slide-pull-the-dent-out. That never worked either, even in the 40's.
Eastwood's pricey stud welder system is a variation on this trick too, I think, except that conceivably you could weld the pull studs around the outside and work your way inward - but after grinding off the paint and all, why not just do it the right way with hammer and dolly?