My car came to me with about a 6 inch horizontal crease in the passenger door about 4 inches below the centerline of the door.

It is pretty shallow and did not break the paint. It can be noticed if you catch it at the right angle pretty easily.

I work at a dealership and had "dent wizard" try to take it out, but the guy who tried stopped and said the metal was a little too thick to get it out accurately.

Anyway...I took it to a highly recommended body shop guy here who speacializes in our type cars, and does FANTASTIC work. His opinion is that the paint is SO good on my car that fixing it may be more noticable than not fixing it and that I should think long and hard about it.

Here is my dilemma....the crease is driving me crazy...it is pretty much the only blemish on an otherwise almost perfect car.

What would you do?

You can see in my link that it barely shows up in photos, you'd have to look pretty hard to see it...but it is KILLING me.

Any suggestions , thoughts, or advice?

Apperently the highly recommended body shop guy isn't hungry. If the crease bothered me I would have it repaired. Dont know why the paint cant be matched unless its a custom candy color or something like that.

No, he can match it....color wise.
He just recommended I think long and hard. He actually said he could do it for about $350-500.

unc, remember what you've got there... a 38 yo true survivor car. Such a thing has been used, it has lived a long life and inevitably will show signs of that life.

Your body guy is smart. He may match the "color" but he'll never match the "feel" of that 38 y o laquer. The repainted door will be more obvious than the small crease, will bug you more, and will inevitably be the first step down a road that will give you a gorgeous restored car rather than a survivor.

It's kinda funny... you searched and searched for just the "perfect" Camaro, got lucky enuf to find it, and now are daily fighting the urge to "play with it". I can relate for sure. Maybe you should buy another one, not quite so nice. You could have a matched set, an unrestored original and a restified hot rod that you can get your hands dirty in whenever you feel like it!

o.k. here's my take on the subject, first off, I've never noticed any blemish in all the pics you've posted, so it's probably not as bad as you think, but like you, any blemish is too much for me (and my car has plenty!). But, the only thing that would bother me worse than a crease would be a partial panel re-paint. I would become obsessed with thinking that the area would be noticeable to others and have a feeling that the paint job wasn't uniform throughout. It all depends on which type of torture you prefer! Congrats, you have completed the transformation from inquisitive newbie to obsessive-compulsive car junkie! Remember the saying " real street-rods have rock chips!"

That was kind of the opinion the body guy had...he said it gave it a little character, and to kind of leave it.

The car has actually been repainted once about 15-20 years ago, but it was painted original color, and the body guy said the job was unbelievablly good. That is his apprehension in repainting the door. He thinks he can actually just repair the area and blend in the area.

I am not really interested in modifying the car in any way...but rather just getting it back to as great a condition as I can. There are a few chips in the paint here and there..but very few...I am not really worried about those. This crease drives me up a wall though.

I agree with y'sll and the body guy that the fix may irritate me worse.

I don't recall you saying weather or not your paint was original. If it is, I'd leave it alone. If it is a repainted car I'd have the crease fixed and the whole door repainted. Definately a dilema. It would drive me nuts to have a visible flaw on my car.

I don't recall you saying weather or not your paint was original. If it is, I'd leave it alone. If it is a repainted car I'd have the crease fixed and the whole door repainted. Definately a dilema. It would drive me nuts to have a visible flaw on my car.

The second owner (who had it from 82-92) was a Mercedes Benz (coincidentally enough) painter. He repainted the car in it's factory original color, and did an UNBELIEVABLE job on it. Even the body guy this morning said what a great job the guy did. The paint is , by my best calculation , at the very least 13 years old and looks brand new. I even have the gallon sized paint can from when he did it in all the stuff that was given to me. The body guy this morning said he can match the paint, but seemed to think it may still show somewhat as a repainted door to the microscope eye.

What I really wish is that one of y'all could stand next to it with me and look at it and then tell me what you'd do if it were yours.

Maybe one of the Georgia boys on here will see me at a cruise in and I'll get an in person opinion.

No rush...the car isn't going anywhere.

We all get wrinkles as we get older and survive the times. I would kind of agree with another opinion here of leaving it to give the car character.

But then again, it's buggin' the heck out of you. And as stated, the bodyman must be busy, or he would have accepted, maybe.

Another trick I've tried and it worked on a baseball dent my daughter and I placed in an 85 300ZX quarterpanel, was a application of CO2 fire extingusher. You might try and find a fire extinguisher retailer and ask him if you could buy/rent a bottle and frost the bejesus of the panel. You get a 50 lb bottle with 15 lbs of CO2.

I went and the guy I dealt with said he had a couple bottles he was going to unload and retest and refill. So, instead of wasting the CO2 to the atmospere to unload the bottle, he let me borrow them. I did a 6 inch path on both sides of the dent and frosted upto an inch or so thick. Let it evaporate and apply as needed. After three applications, the dent was gone. The metal squealed like a pig, being so cold, but it worked. It didn't damaged the paint.

The CO2 guy was amazed, cause I did it at his place of business. Physics applies here, the metal been stretched, you're shrinking it back to shape. To give you an idea, you can freeze a 12 oz can of beer with a 15 second application.

Doesn't hurt to try, Have the car in the shade to cool the metal from the sun, then start.

The body guy said he can, and will, do it if I want him to...he is not turning away the business. What he was saying is that if it were HIS car he would think about whether it was worth doing or not, based on how it might look after it is done versus how it looks now.

Understood !

Like I said I would LOVE it if someone from here could see it in person and tell me what they'd do. I am taking it to it's first cruise in's this weekend and I believe Georgia69 (Ron ) is coming to one of them...I'll get his 2 Cents then if he shows up.

The first thing I would do is get a second opinion from a different dent doctor type of place. I have never heard them say that they could not repair a minor dent, they are usually pretty accomodating and quite innovative. Maybe the guy you used was just not experienced enough in that particular type of dent?

The first thing I would do is get a second opinion from a different dent doctor type of place. I have never heard them say that they could not repair a minor dent, they are usually pretty accomodating and quite innovative. Maybe the guy you used was just not experienced enough in that particular type of dent?

The dent guy, who is the one we use on our Mercedes, is probably the best in town.

He got to the dent, but said that the metal is thick and when he has to push that hard he loses accuracy...he was afraid of not being able to get it smooth because he had to push so hard.

Boy I wished I had your problem! Very nice car.

Boy I wished I had your problem! Very nice car.

LOL...yeah, I shouldn't complain.
Thank you for the compliment, I appreciate it.

I wouldn't touch up the Mona Lisa, and I'd leave your Camaro like it is. I would have no problem supporting the idea of you doing it, but if it were mine, and since we are offering free advice, I vote to leave it. If it were a potential rust hazard, or the door was caved in, then I could see the urgency.

You ever see how a kid focuses on that one tiny speck on their face, and how we say that it is no big deal, yet they become fixated on it? Are you that guy today? :)

You ever see how a kid focuses on that one tiny speck on their face, and how we say that it is no big deal, yet they become fixated on it? Are you that guy today? :)

Yep...that's me today!
if it were just a small door ding it probably wouldn't bother me quite so badly...but this is about a 6-8 inch horizontal crease on an otherwise perfect car (barring the occasional chips here and there).

I'll leave it be for now I suppose...like I said...I think ya have to see it.

If you really want the best of both worlds, just buy another door and have it painted to match. Install the new one and put the old one on a shelf in the garage in case the paint ever fades. You can usually find doors relatively cheap at the swap meets.