We just had a bad storm in Western KY with larger than golfball sized hail. My truck, wife’s Jeep and my daughters car all sustained significant damage, not to mention the shingle roofmost likely. I’ve heard a lot about this paint less dent repair. I was just wondering how bad of damage they will try to repair. My truck probably has over 200 dents in just the hood.

If you get someone good they can do amazing work. Buddy’s vehicle got peppered a few years back and I would say he was a few hundred in the hood, roof, and trunk. Got it repaired using the paint less repair and you would have no idea it had ever been hit. Generally if the paint is not cracked they will be able to do it.

Not sure how far west you are but I can get the name here in Central Ky if you feel like traveling a bit.

And are you referring to just as in tonight? Just pulled up the radar and that storm front which is now approaching Bowling Green looks pretty nasty.

Looks like the red will be a touch south of me. So hopefully no damage here.

Some people can do amazing PDR, some you will see it forever. Your adjuster is going to be the one making the call on how to handle it.

quote:

Originally posted by Black92LX:
If you get someone good they can do amazing work. Buddy’s vehicle got peppered a few years back and I would say he was a few hundred in the hood, roof, and trunk. Got it repaired using the paint less repair and you would have no idea it had ever been hit. Generally if the paint is not cracked they will be able to do it.

Not sure how far west you are but I can get the name here in Central Ky if you feel like traveling a bit.

And are you referring to just as in tonight? Just pulled up the radar and that storm front which is now approaching Bowling Green looks pretty nasty.

Looks like the red will be a touch south of me. So hopefully no damage here.

Yes, it was just this evening. Another headed this way so it could get worse.

quote:

Originally posted by Skins2881:
Some people can do amazing PDR, some you will see it forever. Your adjuster is going to be the one making the call on how to handle it.

I figured they will probably try to do the least expensive route.

All depends on the skill of the guy. Panels like hoods and trunk lids they will replace if they get too bad. No one even wants to replace a car roof of at all possible to avoid.

You would be absolutely floored by how much a skilled PDR guy can get out.

Often the decision is to total the vehicle, or repair it. Its cheapest to total it. Then the owner needs to decide if he wants to buy it back and do the repairs himself or just buy another one.

I crashed my jeep a couple of years ago. The tow truck driver said "that one will never see the road again". I have no idea if he was right or not. In my old age, I don't have the energy to do the mechanical repairs myself. They gave me a check and I parked the old jeep in my checking account. I just let my wife drive me around.

A bunch of stuff going on right now. No idea where new and used car prices will go. My thin experience taught me I'd have to add in cash to buy a similar replacement. The idea being they aren't real generous with their settlement. You can fight them, but all the while you're out transportation. If the windshield is broken, you probably can't. You seem to be a family without transportation at this point. They've kind of got you over a barrel. Its costly to replace 3 vehicles with new ones.

I bought a Dodge Magnum many years ago that had gotten pelted all the way across the hood and roof close to 80 dimples. About half were serious

They had a paintless dent repair company fix it. There were only two left that were somewhat noticeable when finished. If you weren’t critiquing it to an extreme you’d not know they were there

My bet, if you've got north of 200 dings and they're bad, the insurance company is likely to total the vehicle. PDR is great, up to a point, and it sounds as though you've exceeded that point. Most importantly, get a survey done of the roof on your house. You may be in need of a re-roof.

We had a huge hailstorm a couple of years ago that did $3600 damage to my new Jeep. I let my insurance company,GEICO, handle it. The company hired a professional crew that travels around the country just doing hail damage repair since so many cars were damaged. It took a while to get it repaired but they did a great job and you can't tell it was ever damaged.

This happened to me last year. I went to a Gerber shop and made it very clear I did not want my car totaled.

They estimated it at 4k. Large panels like the hood are often replaced rather than use Paintless Dent Repair (PDR), as that is cheaper and what happened in my case. The shop actually subs the PDR work out to mobile pros that only do that.

Everything else gets PDR. When done, you could not even see any of the hundreds of dents mine sustained. It was horrible and a lot of the dents were difficult as they were on a ribbed SUV roof.

I was very impressed with the job done. The total came in at $8k. My part was $100. All of my co-workers repairs came in around $8k too.

GET INTO A SHOP FAST BEFORE THE WAVE HITS. You may wait weeks otherwise.

My repair took a week being one of the first in, which sucked because I did not have rental coverage. At least I got a AAA discount on the rental and have a credit card that covered rental insurance for free if I used it.

quote:

Originally posted by Oz_Shadow:
This happened to me last year. I went to a Gerber shop and made it very clear I did not want my car totaled.

They estimated it at 4k. Large panels like the hood are often replaced rather than use Paintless Dent Repair (PDR), as that is cheaper and what happened in my case. The shop actually subs the PDR work out to mobile pros that only do that.

Everything else gets PDR. When done, you could not even see any of the hundreds of dents mine sustained. It was horrible and a lot of the dents were difficult as they were on a ribbed SUV roof.

I was very impressed with the job done. The total came in at $8k. My part was $100. All of my co-workers repairs came in around $8k too.

GET INTO A SHOP FAST BEFORE THE WAVE HITS. You may wait weeks otherwise.

My repair took a week being one of the first in, which sucked because I did not have rental coverage. At least I got a AAA discount and have a credit card that covered rental insurance for free if I used it.

And when you get ready to sell or trade, that repair will appear on your CarFax and that vehicle will be worth substantially less than a similar but non-hail, damaged vehicle, and can really spook potential buyers. If you're going to keep a car forever, it becomes less of an issue. But if your plan is to only own a car for the length of your loan, I'd push the insurance company hard to total it, and then negotiate the final payout as best I could.

If you think you have 200, you might have 200-400. The good PDR guys can spot any dent!!!

Toyota dealer did a car which had countless small hail dents.
The results were unbelievably good.
I wouldn't have believed it, had I not saw the before and after.

Just to tell a story.... took a vacation to S.D. this past September - October rented a Toyota Rave from Hetz and while there had one hell of a hail storm.... week after getting back from this great trip got a package from a company called Purco with pictures of what I consider minor damage... they wanted $15,000.

I believe in Michigan you have the final say about repairs as far as who does the repair. Request you insurance to not report damage to car fax.