How a dent technician looks at a panel at a dealer, without the workshop lights

My trade is paintless dent repair and detailing. Finding a small dent is mostly a matter of reading how light reflects off a panel, and in dent repair work that's done with dent repair lights. At a dealer, those lights don't come out. So when I look at a car for sale in Japan, I'm reading the panel in whatever light there is on the day. It has limits, and they're worth knowing before you rely on it.

Why the dent repair lights stay behind

When I was asked whether I'd take dent repair lights to a dealer, my answer was short: that isn't realistic. A dealer's forecourt is not the place for them.

So we don't use them on a viewing, and none of the photos in our sample report were taken with them. What you see there is the kind of photo a buyer would actually get.

What's left: the panel's own reflection

Asked how I find dents at a dealer without the lights, my honest answer is: with my own eye, trained by the job. I don't rely on tools, and I can miss one.

Without the lights, what's left is the reflection the panel already has. On a flat panel, a reflection runs straight. Where there's a dent, it bends. On our page about what dealer photos miss, that's how the dent in the roof of my own car shows up.

The light on the day changes what a reflection shows. When we photographed our sample car, the sky was clear and the afternoon sun was low, and strong reflections hid some small marks while showing up others. That's why our sample report has a line for the light on the day.

In a photo, it's harder again

A shallow dent can vanish completely from a photo, depending on how the photo is taken. A dealer's photos of a car aren't taken to look for dents, so a clean panel in a listing doesn't tell you much either way.

When we find a dent, we photograph it close up and in context, with a size reference next to it, so you can see where it is and how big it is.

What we can't tell you

• Every small dent. Without dent repair lights, some shallow dents may not show even to someone standing next to the car, depending on the light. If the light on the day makes a panel hard to read, we say so.
• How or when a dent happened. A dent on its own doesn't say what caused it.
• Whether a panel has had dents taken out before. We don't certify repair history. See how to tell if a car has been repainted for the paint side of that question.
• Whether a dent matters to you. For most cars, rust and the underside matter more than a small dent. See rust on the body or a part. We don't tell you whether to buy.

Anything we couldn't see is marked Not verified in the report.

If small dents are part of what you're unsure about, name the panels you care about most, and we'll photograph any dent we find there close up, with a size reference.

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Asking the dealer

You can also ask the dealer whether the car has any dents, or has had dents repaired. Whatever they say is their answer, and we mark it as Reported, not as something we've seen. A Remote Check is where we put those questions to the dealer in Japanese for you.

If you're worried about a whole panel of small dents rather than one, see hail damage on a used car from Japan.

Written by Yoshiaki Sagara, a paintless dent repair and detailing technician in Japan. He looks at cars for overseas buyers through Ninja Desk Japan. About us

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