As I sink larger chunks of my life savings into my 'rolla I should expect more misfortunes to attempt to befall the car. Unfortunately I'm not always there to swerve it away from danger, and today a coworker's car door was blown into my passenger door by the wind (it was missing a the piece that limits the travel of the door so her car was damaged as well). Those little pug 205 doors must be heavy as hell.
It has a fairly shallow but sharp dent along the fold just below the window, it looks like someone swung down on it with a piece of rebar (and there's a solid layer of surface rust under the factory paint! Who would have guessed?). The coworker's offering to pay for the repairs but I'd rather just fix it myself, the rest of the car looks fairly trashed anyways. So how hard is it to get to this panel? The car will be in a shop for a week or two soon to get the GTS goodies swapped in so I could either take the door to a shop or fix it myself in that time.
I was always told that if there is a crease, you will not be able to repair the dent.
Aw E36 M3 berkeley E36 M3 
alex
UltraDork
12/18/12 10:27 a.m.
I think a competent body shop can repair it, but it's probably out of the realm of a DIY or PDR guy.
can you just buy a new door? reskinning is a pita. requires stripped the door all the way down, also specialty tools make it way easier, and even then its only easy after you berkeley up the first couple tries.
Took a pic at lunch, it doesn't really cross the fold, it just goes up to it:
You could sure try.
From my armchair, I'd say you need to apply force (via body hammer and dolly) down on the top point of the crease first, then bump the main part of the crease out from the back (again with hammer and dolly).
If you're not familiar with the way metal behaves around heat and/or impacts, read up on it. Hammer blows will make the metal thinner, and increase the surface area (think flattening a penny on the railroad track). Heat makes it expand and then contract slightly past its original point as it cools.
Worst case, you get some experience with bodywork tools and have to get a new door or reskin the one you've got, which are your options if you don't do the bodywork.
Hmm I haven't done any body repairs that involve heat, maybe better take this to a shop. I think my coworker wants to spite her insurance company anyway for not fixing the door problem earlier, a sentiment I can always get behind.
Hold a piece of dry ice on it for a few seconds.
Seriously.
I'll see if I can find dry ice and give that a try. It can't hurt...right?
It sure will if you don't wear gloves! 
Ice cream shops sometimes carry dry ice.
NOHOME
Dork
12/19/12 1:24 p.m.
Dry ice, or canned CO2 is not going to fix that. As amatter of fact the whole dry ice thing is more of an urban legend than not.
Best bet is to study the paintless dent repair techniques and have a go yourself, or pay up the $70 or so that they will charge you to make it go away.
If PDR can get rid of most of the dent, the scuff will probably buff out. The rust will not buff out. It probably jumped off that French tin.
