So my MINI got caught in a hail storm last night. I'm trying to sell this car. (This is one of the reasons why. I will be going back to grad school, and I won't have anyplace to shelter the car for a while.) The storm hit about 3AM; it was shocking. It hailed for what seemed like forever...somewhere around 20-30 minutes. I was helpless and could do nothing but watch the MINI get pelted with hail. I'm also shocked at how well the MINI faired compared to other cars. Not sure how that happened. Some cars looked awful...mine looked like it didn't have any damage at first glance. Upon closer inspection I noticed about 10 tiny little dings. I want to sell this car....and soon....but I want to get this taken car of first. I have a few questions.

1) I've learned over the years that there are lots of incompetent people out there trying to work on cars. What can I look for when looking for a shop to do the work? Should I look for someone that knows MINIs? Or can anyone do this kind of thing?

2) None of the dents are very big. (I honestly didn't even notice them at first.) They're very tiny. Two or three on the hood...7 or 8 on the roof. Are these difficult to PDR? Is it very expensive?

Thank you for any input.

 

Don't you have insurance??

 

Oh yeah...no way I'd go without that. If it's less than my deductible, I don't see any point in messing with it though.

 

If you have insurance, that would probably be a $0 deductible claim due to act of nature. Depends on your policy, though, of course.

This happened to me on Good Friday two years ago. Was in church that evening and huge storms came up. Did $1800 damage to the Honda I had at the time. My friend's Jeep Liberty had over $5000 in hail damage. The claim on my house was around $20K when it was all said and done (new roof, siding, paint, etc.) It was huge hail.

If you don't have lots and lots of dents, PDR is what they will want to do. There are probably more dents that you noticed at first. As long as the paint is not damaged in any way, PDR can be performed.

That said, I know my friend with the Jeep had an entire new roof put on his Liberty because there were so many dents that it was more cost effective for the body shop to replace and repaint the roof than PDR all the dents out of it.

Any good body shop will do a good job on your car...it does not need to be a MINI dealership. There was so much hail damage here in Indianapolis that some people were waiting up to 6 months for body work to get done. I headed out of the city and drove about an hour out to another town and got an estimate there....was able to get right in. That's something to think about.

Also, I was in the process of trading my car in at the time this hail hit. Had already worked a deal on the new car and everything just short of signing papers. The dealership ended up agreeing to take my insurance check (signed over to them) for the amount of the damage and they then refunded me the unused portion (the insurance estimate was $500 higher than actual cost). The secret was using their preferred body shop that they trusted, so they had no problem with the hail damage and taking the car in on trade. Not sure if you were planning to trade or just sell, but that's how I was able to work my situation out.

Good luck.

 

Yes, this should be a freebe, it happened to me also & I got $5K for a few bumps. Never did get them fixed, I can hardly see them. I almost fell over when they gave me the check and they don't hold it against you, act of God.

 

Wow! Thanks for the comments. I had no clue this kind of thing was so expensive. I feel much better knowing that my insurance might take care of it...and if they don't at least I know my payments won't go up if I make use of my insurance through my deductible. Even $500 is better than $5,000.

 

Do you have any pictures? I would have been freaking out the whole half an hour!!

 

I was pacing the floor the whole time...didn't get much sleep afterwards either. I've never seen it hail that long before...I'm new to the Tulsa area. From what people told me today, hail storms aren't uncommon in this area. As far as pictures go...I don't even think the damage is bad enough to catch on camera. I had to catch it right in the light in order to see it. Luck of the draw I suppose. It looked like quarter sized hail here where I live, but I think other parts of Tulsa had much larger. At least I saw quite a few cars that were in much worse shape than mine...so I assume some areas had larger hail.

 

Well I'm really sorry to hear about it and good luck with the repairs. I definitely feel for you on this one!

 

Thank you. BTW...I like your Clubman! Looks real nice!

 

Good luck getting it fixed, and with grad school! Been there, done that.

I hail from Tulsa (bad pun intended, sorry couldn't help it) but have lived in SC for the past 10 years. Hail is more common there, thankfully most of it is small, but that is one thing I really don't miss about Oklahoma. Note to self: if visiting Oklahoma family in spring, fly or drive old Subaru wagon there.

 

Try Dent Wizard. They are owned by *** Companies and are very good. Your dealership should know how to get in touch with them.

 

Probably not a bad idea. Especially around this time of year.

Thank you. I'm meeting the adjuster tomorrow. I'll start checking around for Dent Wizard this weekend...or something similar maybe, if we don't have a one in this area.

 

You're lucky it wasn't spiked baseball sized hail like what happened in Prescott Valley a few years ago. Windshields were shattered, plastic side mirrors knocked completely off, etc.

Best of luck getting it fixed, and study hard!

 

Does the difference in the quality of the sheet metal, have something to do with the difference in damage between cars ? Also the difference of the ratio of curves to flat surfaces?

 

I doubt its free... It would be covered under comprehensive and if you have a $0 deductible for that then it would be free.

 

If you see it happening you can run out
and throw a thick blanket over it.
It helps for normal sized [for here] hail.
Probably doesn't do too much for the
super size versions.

Although I agree it's rare that you are
in the exact position to do it.