My buddy told me to use a heat gun on that dented quarter panel and it cost me $300 in extra work

4 comments

4 Comments

Is it really that bad to try and fix something yourself? Sometimes you have to try a simple fix before paying for a pro. A heat gun sounds like a normal idea to me. Maybe your buddy just had bad luck with his own car. I've tried stuff like that and it worked out fine. Not every piece of advice ends in disaster.

price.ben1mo ago

A heat gun at 600 degrees can melt ABS plastic in about 3 seconds flat. My cousin tried it on a bumper crack last spring and the plastic sagged like a wet noodle before he could even blink. It's not about being unlucky, it's about plastic having a real low melting point compared to metal. Even a hair dryer on high can mess up paint if you hold it too close.

evahenderson2mo ago

You know how sometimes a simple fix turns into a huge mess? A heat gun on a plastic bumper is a perfect example. That plastic can warp or bubble in a second if you don't know exactly what you're doing, and then you're buying a whole new part. It's like what reese_rodriguez86 said about the sink, you start with a small problem and end up with a flooded bathroom. Some jobs just need the right tools and experience from the start.

reese_rodriguez862mo ago

Oh man, that's a classic move right there. My own "helpful" ideas have cost me way more than that over the years (like the time I tried to fix a leaky sink myself). Free advice from a buddy can get real expensive, real fast.