You can see in the pics, I've got a pucker dent right after the fender ridge, and you can see a scratch leading up to it (but not on it). No idea when it happened, just appeared one day.

The dent isn't bad, and I haven't tried buffing out the scratch yet. I am wondering if it's safe for the average, inexperienced person to use the heat gun/ice water method to pop this out.

A body shop recommended that I paint the whole fender again, but I think that is probably more of a sales pitch to get more work. But if that's what it takes, I suppose I'll have to. But I'd rather try to pop it out first.

Thoughts?

 

You can always call up paintless dent repair guys. They're cheap and fast. As for the scratches, you can get some touch up paint.