“Engineering Magic,” Adhesive Technologies, and Precision: How Paintless Dent Repair Is Changing the Automotive Service Industry

Photo of Vitalii Novitskii

For most car owners, repairing a dent still means several days without a vehicle, filler, repainting, and a repair bill running into thousands. Traditional body repair, however, is gradually losing ground. Paintless dent repair (PDR), which is a technology that restores body panels without damaging the factory paint, is becoming one of the fastest-growing segments of the global automotive repair market.

According to Research and Markets, the global PDR services market, valued at $1.89 billion in 2024, is set to approach $3 billion by 2030, reflecting sustained annual growth of over 7%. The tools segment is growing at an even faster pace, with market volume projected to increase by more than 50%, from $2.58 billion to $4.07 billion over the forecast period.

This growth is driven by several factors: the expansion of the global vehicle fleet, an increase in insurance claims for minor body damage, rising demand for faster and more cost-efficient repairs, and the growing importance of environmental considerations. Unlike traditional bodywork, PDR does not require paint or coatings and generates minimal waste.

In this interview, Vitalii Novitskii, founder and engineering manager of Glexo, one of the leading companies in the global PDR industry, shares his insights. Vitalii is the author of innovative paintless dent repair technologies and tools, including proprietary adhesive systems and technical solutions that are now used by professionals worldwide. Under his leadership, Glexo has evolved from an engineering concept into an international brand with a strong technological foundation and global distribution.

In the interview, the expert discusses the advantages of paintless technologies over conventional body repair, how innovation is developed within the PDR industry, and which technological directions are likely to shape its development in the coming years.

Vitalii, PDR technologies have existed for decades, yet interest in this field has surged in recent years. From an engineering perspective, why does PDR outperform traditional body-and-paint repair?

Honestly, from an engineering standpoint, traditional body repair has historically been an inefficient process. It is invasive, time-consuming, and largely irreversible. To remove a dent, technicians typically have to strip the factory paint, apply heat or welding that alters the metal’s structure, or mechanically deform the panel, followed by filler and repainting.

As a result, an original factory panel is effectively turned into a «repaired» one; it is no longer in its original condition. PDR succeeds because it is based on a fundamentally different principle: material preservation. Instead of replacing parts or masking damage, PDR restores the metal to its original stressed state while preserving the factory paint and panel geometry. This is a core distinction from conventional repair methods.

The key advantages here are technology and speed. The modern market demands mobility. Traditional body repair is tied to paint booths, ventilation systems, specialized facilities, and lengthy drying processes. PDR, by contrast, is a «dry» technology that does not require dedicated premises. Repairs can be carried out virtually anywhere: at a dealership parking lot or even at the customer’s home, within hours rather than days or weeks.

There is also a significant environmental dimension, which is increasingly important. PDR does not use solvents, does not generate filler or abrasive waste, and does not require the manufacturing and global logistics of replacement body panels. This makes the technology not only more efficient but also substantially more sustainable.

Glexo is known for its developments in adhesive systems. On your website, you describe materials with Newtonian behavior that change their properties under different types of mechanical impact. For a broader audience, this can sound almost counterintuitive; even a bit like “magic.” Could you explain how this works and what actually happens to the material in practice?

It may sound unusual, but it’s grounded in real physics; namely, polymer rheology. That’s the core of our engineering approach. Most сommon adhesive systems behave in a single, fixed way: they are either soft or rigid, with little variation in between. Our goal was different: to create a “smart” material that responds to the rate at which force is applied.

In practice, it works as follows. Our adhesive compositions have variable viscosity. When the material is applied to the vehicle body and pulled gradually, the polymer chains are able to slide relative to one another. In this state, the compound behaves like a dense, elastic mass, providing strong adhesion even on complex body geometries.

However, when a sharp impulse is applied — for example, when using a slide hammer — a phase transition occurs. The molecular structure locks almost instantly, and the material stiffens, effectively becoming a rigid, solid link.

Why is this important? It addresses the core challenge of energy transfer. If an adhesive stretches like rubber, it absorbs and dissipates the impact energy. Our material, by contrast, becomes rigid at the moment of impact, allowing maximum force to be transmitted directly to the metal. This makes it possible to extract even complex dents effectively.

Of course, this approach requires a high level of skill from the technician. The specialist must learn to sense the moment of transition and work deliberately with the material’s physical behavior, rather than relying on purely mechanical force.

Developing materials like this is clearly a long and complex process. What non-obvious challenges does an engineering manager face when creating a product for a global market, where performance must remain stable across a wide range of climates?

You’ve touched on one of the toughest challenges in R&D. Creating a product that works in a laboratory accounts for only about 10% of the success. The real challenge is ensuring consistent performance under uncontrolled, real-world conditions. Our clients operate all over the world, from +45°C in Dubai to sub-zero temperatures in Canada and Scandinavia. Polymers are highly sensitive to thermodynamics, so we have to run hundreds of testing cycles to find a precise balance of components that will not flow in extreme heat or become brittle in cold environments.

Do certain car brands perform better with PDR than others due to their body design or materials?

It’s less about the brand and more about when the car was made. The chemical industry is constantly evolving, and automakers are continuously introducing new types of paint finishes: harder coatings with increasingly strong hydrophobic properties. As a result, the surface of modern vehicles is becoming progressively more “slippery” at the molecular level. What bonded perfectly to a 2010 BMW, for example, may simply not work on a 2024 model. This puts us in a constant race to adapt the adhesive properties of our compounds to ever-changing paint formulations, ensuring that our systems remain reliable and predictable in real-world use.

Where is the PDR tools industry heading today? Are there still unresolved engineering challenges you’re actively working on?

Vehicle body structures are becoming increasingly complex. Aluminum is now widely used, and unlike steel, it does not have the same shape memory. At the same time, high-strength alloys are becoming more common, and they are extremely difficult to reshape using conventional methods. This creates a fundamental challenge: the tools of the future must be capable of generating very high levels of force, while remaining extremely delicate when interacting with a thin layer of paint.

If we look further ahead, beyond incremental improvements, we are actively exploring non-contact methods of influence. Today, this may sound almost like science fiction, but we are conducting R&D in the field of electromagnetic field applications. The idea is to apply force to the metal locally, without any mechanical contact between the tool and the surface, effectively shaping the panel through controlled magnetic fields.

This is what we consider the “holy grail” of PDR; correcting defects using pure energy. At the moment, this work is still in a deep R&D phase, but it is precisely these kinds of technologies that have the potential to reshape the market over the next decade.