A guy in Phoenix offered me $400 to 'just buff it out' on a quarter panel with a 6-inch dent

Honestly, he brought his truck in last Tuesday and pointed at the crushed metal like it was a scratch. Said, 'My buddy with a buffer can do it for fifty bucks, so your price should be close.' Tbh, explaining the hours of metalwork and paint blending just bounced right off him. Has anyone else had a customer who genuinely thought major damage was a quick fix?

3 comments

3 Comments

kevin_roberts412mo ago

Wait, his buddy said he could buff out a six inch dent... for fifty bucks? That's the part that got me. Like, what's in that buffer, magic fairy dust? You'd need to invent a whole new kind of tool. A buffer just spins a pad, man. It can't reach into a crater and push the metal back out. That's just... wow.

faithk922mo ago

Maybe he meant a dent puller kit?

the_kevin14d ago

The last time someone pulled that on me I just walked them over to my computer and showed them a youtube video of a full quarter panel replacement with paint matching. I told them, "This is what happens back there. Your dent might be six inches but the work area is more like two feet." I think the visual click really helped because he stopped arguing and just asked about payment plans. Sometimes people don't get the process until they see the actual labor involved. Once they understand it's not just a polish job the conversation gets a lot easier. You're not alone in dealing with that kind of disconnect.