As of January 22, 2011 Concours Auto Salon San Antonio is a Vale Certified Master Craftsman, as Paintless Dent Repair Technicians, repairing dented and hail damaged vehicles.
You’re probably reading this thinking “I thought all PDR techs had to be certified to repair dented and damaged vehicles”. This is the answer we were given by our customers when we informed them that our technician was going to test for third party certification. Well the answer is no there isn’t any law or regulation in place. As a consumer this is a scary thought. Would you hire a mechanic that was not ASE certified? Would you have your hair done by someone who is not licensed or certified? There are certifications for people who trim trees. There called Certified Arborist. Third party certifications are a way for the technician to gauge his or her skill level and for the consumer to know that the person their hiring to do work knows what there doing. You can find lots of Paintless Dent Repair company’s that state their certified or that their craftsman at what they do but the truth is there is only a little over 300 PDR technicians in the world that have been certified. Just because someone was trained and received a document saying that they have completed a course doesn’t give them certification.
What is the process for PDR certification?
Technicians are tested on late-model domestic and foreign hoods, deck lids and doors mounted to fixed stands. Paintless Dent Repaired areas are evaluated using a state-of-the-art, surface scanner used by NASA to rate surface irregularities, and by visual evaluation of the test administrator. A pre-determined acceptable tolerance level is programmed in the sensor software. Repairs that fall outside the acceptable tolerance level for the above listed criteria will constitute failure for the assigned proficiency level. The testing takes up to 4 hours. To be a Master Craftsman you must repair a #4 dent on a steel hood, #4 dent in a door and a #3 dent in an aluminum hood. A #4 dent is close to a 2 inches with a deep center. A #3 dent is close to 1 1/2 inch dent with a deep center. All dents are created using an air cannon that propels a hard rubber ball into the automobile panel at over 60 mph. Aluminum is much harder to dent and repair than steel and is a little smaller than the steel panel dent during testing.
By choosing Concours Auto Salon to have your hail dents or door dings repaired with Paintless Dent Repair you not only get our great customer service and competitive pricing but a repair that is done by a Certified Master Craftsman PDR technician.
