Mine got hit today. Probably a couple hundred dings. Hood, tops of doors, below windows, roof, tops of fenders - pretty much everywhere.

It's a 2010 Forrester in great shape otherwise and paid for. I'm worried they will want to total it.

What does something like this cost to repair using PDR or complete refinish?

File the claim. Take the money. Sit on it until the storm sharks leave. Have repairs done at a reasonable cost.

You might even be able to get some out on your own on a hot day with dry ice.

My comments are based on having grown up in KS where after the storms the dollar chasers came in and set up PDR in parking lots etc. You want quality work done not "carnival" work.

my neighbor, downstairs has to park outside ,
she got about 60 hail hits,

had her son ( a body shop guy ) work on it for four days,
if you really really searched, and in the perfect light, you could detect four dings.

pretty amazing, she said that cars made after 2004 are easy to fix ,

Didn't lbj deal with something like that a while back?

Yes, 3 months after my misses bought her Forester XT, I was working in AZ and did not have time to clean her side of the garage.....mistake

$8k....later, looks new

quote:

Originally posted by dewhorse:
Yes, 3 months after my misses bought her Forester XT, I was working in AZ and did not have time to clean her side of the garage.....mistake

$8k....later, looks new

Guessing that is full panel replacement and refinish?

I had one 6 or so years ago. Had insurance with that Flo company (not going to plug them). It was quarter sized hail around a tornado. Missed the tornado but not the hail. Turned my FJ Cruiser into a golf ball. There were a whole lot of people in Tennessee that got hit. Whole car sales lots were decimated. Many of the insurance companies brought in companies that set up large scale operations to tend to the all of the insured vehicles needing repair. I took mine to Knoxville and they made my FJ look like it never happened. I was skeptical but it was amazing what they were able to do.

My 2010 Suburban got whacked a couple weeks ago, golf balls and bigger. Hood and roof and hard edges on the top plus several on the left rear quarter panel. Insurance adjuster estimated $3,700 to fix with paintless dent repair and hood getting replaced. Insurance covering it. Truck is otherwise in pretty good shape and average miles for its age.


They wrote me a check on the spot and it was up to me to fix or not. If I don't fix, they won't cover hail down the road.

My 2010 Tundra DC cost about $3500 to have all the dings pulled out. Done by a local collision place. This was back in 2014.

If they total it, you can buy it back as salvage for very little, then repair it if you want. Please note, the title will now be branded as salvage, and resale will potentially be affected.

You can then decide how much of the claim to spend on repairs. One inexpensive method is PDR, or paintless dent repair, where they use special tools to press the ding or dent out from the back side. This is an art, some practitioners are better at it than others. They can only fix what they can get to, and the repairs are typically imperfect, but it may be enough for your 9 year old car and still let you pocket most of the claim. Headliner will probably have to come out though. Dealers typically pay by the panel for this sort of thing, not by the ding, except for the headliner R&R.

Before you undertake a repair make sure it makes financial sense to spend this kind of money on a 9 year old car. If the insurance company totals it, they’re doing it for a reason. You’d hate to go through this hassle only to have the tranny go a year later. Start with kbb.com, book the car out, and remember the value you are seeing is for a car without hail damage.

In my case, I took the settlement and bought the car back to flip it myself, rather than repair it. Sold it to a specialty salvage yard that specializes in that make and pocketed an extra $600.

Had $13k worth of hail damage to my Audi. Took a month to repair and was a total pain in the ass. But most of that was my insurance company’s fault.

I have a 2006 vehicle that got hit, the insurance paid what the body shop estimated. In this case it was all going to be PDR, but lots of parts to r&r for access etc.

Probably a hundred or a little less, hits all together, and they quoted $2,800. I took a check for $2,300 after the deductible. Car books at $6-8000.

Based on the low mileage and but still low value resale etc, I elected not to have it fixed. It’s mechanically sound, so I plan to drive it until the wheels fall off.

If it was my newer truck or the wife’s car, I’d have it fixed by a locally recommended shop.

For a car that’s 10yrs old and you plan to keep, I’d take the check and bank it.

I had a 2008 Impreza get blasted in 2009, it was about 500 bucks short of Total loss.

Three years ago, my (now ex) wife's then 3 yr old Land Rover LR4 was heavily damaged in a hailstorm (golf ball to baseball sized hail) The total repair cost was in the neighborhood of $19K. About 3/4 of the roof was glass and most of the upper body was aluminum. Headlights, taillights, etc were also damaged. Insurance company wanted to total the vehicle, but, when they found out it was paid for, they went ahead and shelled out the cash to fix it.

The truck spent about two months in the shop (a good portion of this time was waiting for parts from England) and when the job was done, the ex took the truck directly to the local Land Rover dealership to get the repairs evaluated. She told me that the service guys advised that the repair shop did an excellent job.

My truck and camper were hit last fall. They ended up putting a new hood on and PER the rest. In bright sun you may find a defection, otherwise it is good. The wait to get in was the worst. 6 month wait, 3 weeks in the shop. My Buick was in a tornado 2 years ago, hail was golf ball and bigger. They had to replace hood and roof, trim, but Per the rest of it, looked great. Also had to replace the roof, windows, shutters and gutters last year, same storm as the truck. Worst part was dealing with insurance company.

It all depends on the size and location of the dents.

You could have a car with several hundred nickel sized dents all over in easily accesible areas that gets fixed in a day or two.

Or you could have a car with a handful of softball sized dents that's either a total loss or requires several panels to be replaced and painted.

It all depends.

$5500 in hail damage to my truck. State Farm was great, so many vehicles damaged in the area that they set up a special claims drive-thru tent in a Lowes parking lot. Gave me a very fair estimate and I took it to the local Ford dealer. Hood is aluminum, they just replaced it. PDR on the top. Replaced a side mirror, one of the vinyl bed rails, and the cowl between the hood and w/s. About as painless as it gets.

PDR guy estimate was $4800. We will see what the body shop estimate is Friday. A combination of PDR and panel replacement may be cheaper. Hood ding count 100-150. Roof ding count 150-200. Most other panels all have 5-15.

storm came thru a couple years ago,

golfball + sized stuff fell for about 5 minutes,

new roof, new siding, new screens in the windows (fortunately no broken glass) and damage to my Mini and Tundra,

Allstate sent a hail specialist up from Texas,
he wrote up the Cooper, said most would be PDR, (one side, hood, roof, hatch, some broken trim, no glass breakage)

my Tundra is a 2000, 185K at the time and I told him he had better not total it,

he did not, wrote up PDR etc etc, and it made the cut,

I took it to an Allstate recommended shop, had them do the car first, and it cost Allstate more due to some area's that they could not do PDR on, and some trim issues,

then I took the truck ,

it also was more, (oddly, the cab only was damaged, both sides of the bed, and tailgate were fine)

they ended up replacing the hood, since that was cheaper than PDR or standard dent repair, but spent more on some of the other areas than what was written up,

all together Allstate paid much more than they thought, I paid my standard deductible, and my car and truck had new paint,,,

quote:

Before you undertake a repair make sure it makes financial sense to spend this kind of money on a 9 year old car. If the insurance company totals it, they’re doing it for a reason....
In my case, I took the settlement and bought the car back to flip it myself, rather than repair it.

Yeah, depending on whether you can find someone who works from home or a small shop to do it cheap... I think I'd pocket the money and save it for the next car.
If it still runs well, it'll still get you from point A to point B. It just might not be as pretty as it was before. Drive it till the wheels fall off.
When the time comes, you'll have the insurance money in the bank for a down payment on the next one.