* Dent Methods * [Derek Jankowski]
2026-04-10T13:48:06.941Z
As a car collector and also retired military, not only am I very finicky about who I’ll hire to work on my cars but I also need to keep a very tight tab on expenses. Whatever is being done requires affordability plus the overall cost/benefit factor must be in my favor. Having door dings or hail damage on a beautiful vehicle is hard to look at. I had both, and after himming and hawing for months, I finally decided it’s time to get my Mercedes fixed. The vehicle I have has an aluminum body and there are several manufacturers producing aluminum bodied vehicles. If there are dings or damage from hail that needs PDR, not only will it require someone who’s specially trained but more important (at least for me) was finding someone who’d had experience. I wanted to see verifiable fixes, fixes on hoods, pillars, hood, trunk lid, along raised channels and seams. I’m extremely anal with a tad of OCD, and those are not meant as compliments, more so as personality traits that you’d think would shrink as I get older. Nope. I looked at every PDR specialist within the Twin Cities, MN, and I had several musts: must be mobile, must be affordable and without an unreasonable markup for mobility (if they’re mobile that tells me that they most likely will handle dealerships and that equates to experience) must have training for fixing aluminum bodies, must have verifiable fixes, preferably in pics, must not be in a hurry to get in and out. When someone’s in a hurry to do something, it tells me that they don’t want to be there and this makes me uncomfortable. Whereas when someone’s taking the time to look, feel, think and decide, it raises my comfort level. After doing my research, I contacted Dent Methods. They fit all of my “musts”, and after verifying that they can do what they say they can do, I made my appointment. The techs name is Derek. He was on time, respectful of my property, took the time to thoroughly look over my car, got his equipment ready and asked if I had any questions. I stayed with him in my garage and though it wasn’t intentional, as no one likes to have someone on their back when they’re working, I made sure he was comfortable and ready to roll. One thing I did take note of was how cautious he was around the vehicle and how he took time looking at every panel, every seam, ridge, pillar, etc. I felt like he was exactly where he wanted to be, in my garage working on my car and putting the years and years of training and experience to work. I left my garage feeling comfortable that I was no longer needed and let him do his thing. When I went back in to see how things were going, he was almost finished and said it’ll be another five minutes. I couldn’t wait, my OCD was in overdrive and the anticipation almost required me to light up another cigar. Then, he said he was done. I didn’t know what to expect, how it would look, would there still be waves after removing the dings or would it look like they were never there? I looked at the car, though I didn’t know where to start as I was a bit apprehensive thinking I’d still see something amiss but, nope, I was ecstatic. I was honestly beside myself. I looked, felt, side stepped and gawked. Nothing. They were gone. It was like being a teenager after getting my first car. That’s how happy I was. That’s how happy Derek made me feel, how this company who said they can do this or that, did exactly what they said they would and could do. This was done on an aluminum bodied Mercedes Benz where there’s nothing cheap about them and as a 66 year old retired male skeptic, with extremely high levels of OCD, I cant thank Dent Methods and Derek enough for the work they’ve done. It’s truly, truly exceptional, everyone I dealt with was a professional and they cared about me as a consumer, a collector, a car enthusiast, a person. Those are qualities money can’t buy.