In today’s world of viral videos and online how-to guides, there is no shortage of encouragement to take the Do-It-Yourself approach to a number of household projects. The same goes for automotive projects. If you own your own vehicle, you may have even taken advantage of some helpful videos and step by step DIY guides for basic car care. Being able to accomplish tasks on your own can be a great way to save time and money, but there are plenty of instances where you should just leave it up to the professionals at your local Vancouver auto body shop, especially when it comes to your vehicle. One of those instances is collision repairs. When it comes to making auto body repairs, you are better off avoiding the DIY approach all together. Here’s why:

You May Cause Inadvertent Damage

Nobody wants to make things worse by taking the DIY approach to a project, but when it comes to repairing collision damage on a car, that is exactly what you’ll probably end up doing. On the surface, repairing a minor dent, scratch or rust build up on your car’s body may seem pretty straightforward, especially after watching some DIY video guides online. Keep in mind however that these videos can easily be edited to give you the wrong impression about how easy collision repairs can be. Even a minor amount of damage to your car’s body can become a major problem if you use improper repair techniques, leading to higher repair costs and more time waiting for your car to be fixed. This is because dents and body damage require detailed repairs that focus on fixing the warped and distorted metal on your vehicle’s body. Simply popping a dent back into shape is rarely all that is required to fix the problem, which is why you should at least get a professional to assess the extent of the damage before attempting to fix the problem yourself. More often than not, you will just make the problem worse if you try to fix it without the proper tools or technique.

Problems with Paint

In the past, cars were given a single coat of paint which was applied using a one-step method. These days however there is much more that goes into fixing damaged paint on a vehicle’s surface. If you are unfamiliar with the proper steps you need to take to match and apply new paint to your car, you will likely just be adding to the problem, making your car look worse, not better, when you’ve finished. Applying paint to a damaged car requires a number of technical steps in order to ensure the paint refinishing isn’t noticeable or susceptible to fading or distortions. This requires a number of different professional grade tools such as sanders and polishers, as well as a specific paint match which can only be guaranteed by a professional. Without these tools and the necessary skills to take on this task, you will likely end up with more damage to the paint than you started with.

DIY can be beneficial when it comes to a number of different tasks. Unfortunately, collision repair isn’t one of them. If your vehicle is damaged in any way after a collision, be sure to trust the experienced autobody professionals at Spotlite Collision to handle your repairs.