Chevy Silverado Bedside Dent Repair: The "Cow Incident"

Hey, it’s Andy with Mid-MO Dents! Today, we’ve got a unique repair on our hands—a Chevy Silverado that was damaged in an unusual way. The customer called us after a cow bumped into the truck’s bedside while they were feeding hay. This left a pretty significant dent in the high-strength steel panel, so we’re going to get this fixed up and back to looking like new. Follow along as we take on this challenge!

We started by pulling the truck into the shop and removing the taillight to get a sense of what kind of access we had from behind the panel. The dent ran through the body line and was about two feet wide at its largest point—definitely a big one! This was high-strength steel, which makes it a bit tougher to work with, but we were ready to tackle it.

Next, we removed the bed cap to expose additional access points along the top of the bed. This allowed us to work from multiple angles, which is essential for a dent this large. Once everything was prepped, we heated the panel to make the metal more pliable and ready for glue pulling.

Glue pulling is a great technique for big dents like this one. After applying the glue and pulling on the dent, we were able to bring out the majority of the damage. While the bulk of the dent came out, some smaller low spots remained, which is typical when using this method. The next step involved using a series of tools to meticulously push out the remaining low areas, focusing on the fine details that glue pulling can’t completely fix.

With the main dent pulled out, we moved on to refining the smaller areas. Using a variety of tools, we worked through each section, smoothing out the last few imperfections. This is the part that takes time and patience but ensures the final result looks flawless.



One thing that always amazes us is the power and precision of hand tools in the right hands—there’s nothing quite like watching a skilled tech work through a dent with pure arm strength. At this stage, we focused on making sure the most visible part of the damage was completely smoothed out before moving to the lower areas of the panel.

After a few hours of work, the dent was nearly invisible. We continued to make minor adjustments and touch-ups until we were satisfied with the results. The top part of the bed looked fantastic, and after a little more work on the lower sections, the entire bedside was as good as new.