Right now, there are about 256 million registered vehicles in the United States. Not surprisingly, these cars don’t all look brand new -- getting dings and dents are basically a part of car ownership, as is repairing them.

Why bother repairing dents, if you don’t mind how they look? To begin with, ignoring dents obviously impacts the resale value of the car, if you ever decide you don’t want it anymore. On top of it not looking very good, dents and dings can pave the way for rust, and replacing an entire section of your car is a lot more expensive than popping out a dent. Here are a few other things you should know.

1. Insurance Often Covers Hail Damage
Although hail can happen anywhere, states in the “hail alley” -- Wyoming, Colorado, Nebraska -- can expect about seven hail storms every year. Hail damage is typically covered under your insurance. It makes sense to get hail damage repair as soon as possible if you don’t need to worry about covering the cost.

2. Dent Removal Technicians Know What They’re Doing
A dent rod can often be used to remove a dent. These work on dents up to three inches in diameter. Small dents take a matter of minutes -- 10 to 15 on average -- to fix, but larger dents can take potentially several hours. An experienced technician can get anywhere from a 80% to a 99% repair on the average small dent!

3. Little Dings: Paintless Dent Repair
Minor dents can be fixed using paintless dent removal -- this is possible so long as the paint surface hasn’t been damaged. The more shallow the dent, the better an option this is (for sharp dents, other techniques may be required). In most cases, technicians use body picks and metal rods to push out the dents from the panel’s underside. Body filler might be necessary when there is too much damage to simply push. The paintless dent repair technique is usually less expensive, since fewer steps are necessary for the dent removal technicians to complete.