Oh, hail... yeah.

[roadrash]

Stupid hail pelted my poor car today. Doesn't seem to be severe, but there are plenty of dings, I'd guess at least 40 on the hood and roof. This is my first experience with hail damage, so I'm kind of bummed about it.

I guess I'll do a little searching for hail damage repair info and see what my options are.

[tiFreak]

ouch, sorry to hear that, hopefully you can get it fixed without draining your bank account

[ChItalian1027]

Your insurance should cover hail damage. I would check with them first. If not then you might have to pay out of pocket. Sorry to hear about it.

[roadrash]

First estimate: $2575

But, the good news is that the headliner will have to be removed, so I'm FINALLY going to get that recovered while it's out. LOL

And, yeah, considering how long I've been with State Farm (1989) and the fact that I have never made a claim, they have no reason to give me any crap about this.

[cooljess76]

Hey Joey this really sucks man. So sorry to see this happened to you, I remember when it happened to Maverix, his car really took a pounding. This would be a perfect opportunity for you to try something out and it might save you a couple grand. Have you considered using compressed air(Co2, computer cleaner or something of that nature) and a heat gun? I've seen it done before for small dents like these. The fact that you could remove the headliner and access it from underneath may help as well.

Basically when sheet metal gets dented, the metal distorts(stretches). By heating it with a heat gun(harbor freight sells them for less than 20 bucks, it's like a hair dryer on steroids), you're loosening the molecular structure of the steel. Once the area is really hot, you spray ice cold compressed air onto it and the metal contracts back to it's natural position, popping the dent out. For stubborn dents, perhaps you could have someone on the inside of the car gently coerce the dent out with say a wet rag while you're spraying air on it from the outside. Just a thought, at this point it's worth a shot.





There's a lot of videos that show this technique not working, however all of the ones I've seen are using a regular old hair dryer, not holding the can upside down and don't have the ability to access the backside of the dent.

[roadrash]

Tempting... but all of those were for bigger dents, so I'm a little leery of trying that method.

I'm going to get a few more estimates and see what the insurance says before I do anything.

[roadrash]

Second estimate: $2262

Insurance estimate was $1606 less a $250 deductible = $1356

I had the 2nd estimate done in the morning. Later in the day was walking past my car and looked at it... "WTF happened to my wheels???" Some smartass had washed my filthy wheels. LOL I knew it was my friend who works at that body shop, so when I saw him at a band rehearsal last night, I just looked at him, kinda scowled and said, "you think you're sooooo sneaky, don't ya?" He got all innocent and said, Whaaaat?? what are you talking about???" LOL

Then at the end of rehearsal he comes up to me and says, "Hey man, just wanted to let you know that if you bring your car to us for the hail repair, I'm going to buff it up and make it shine again." I tried to tell him that I'd have to see if I could afford that at the time and he said, "Oh, no, I meant for free because I need the practice." LOL Looks like I'm going to be buying someone a case of beer.

I've got another estimate scheduled for tomorrow, then will start making decisions. yay.

[cooljess76]

Just came up with a great idea thats sure to work. Start by removing your headliner and pillar covers. Then roll the windows up. Take a bicycle inner-tube and hook it up to a portable compressor. Place it inside the car and plug the compressor into the cigarette lighter. Close the door and wait. When that sucker pops, the pressure should pop all of the dents out

[roadrash]

LOL... Jess, I've got a "vision problem" with that: I can't see it happening. LOL

Also... 3rd estimate: $2677

So, I'm leaning towards going with the 2nd estimate of $2262. Obviously it's the cheapest of the 3, but a friend of mine works there also. The only issue is that of the 3 shops, this one seems less likely to fight with the insurance company to get more money out of them. I'll probably call them and give them a chance to impress me with how good they are at fighting with the insurance company.

I also stopped by the shop that would probably do the headliner removal/installation just to see how much extra they'd charge to recover it while it was out of the car. That guy was really annoying. LOL It took him 10 minutes of yammering about how that's all covered in the price that the body shop charges, the insurance will cover it, etc. blah blah blah. The whole time I'm thinking, "No, you assclown, nobody is going to pay to have the headliner recovered but ME, the insurance only pays to get it out of the way for the work to be done." Finally, he said it's probably be about $250 to recover the headliner. So, it looks like I'll be doing that myself. Will probably also remove/reinstall the headliner to save some money.

[tiFreak]

Originally Posted by cooljess76

Just came up with a great idea thats sure to work. Start by removing your headliner and pillar covers. Then roll the windows up. Take a bicycle inner-tube and hook it up to a portable compressor. Place it inside the car and plug the compressor into the cigarette lighter. Close the door and wait. When that sucker pops, the pressure should pop all of the dents out

or a window, only one way to know for sure