As I write this, I am watching Moth Ball size hail come down on all the cars in the parking lot outside my office. The sound is about deafening. Can't see outside the windows.

Yep, the new mini is outside. Nothing I can do now....

Throw your body over, throw your body over it....

 

Where are you, Elon? Fingers are crossed for your MINI! Good luck!


Clo/Wanda

 

Oh boy...do I feel your pain!!! Hope your MINI is okay. Let us know, alright?

 

Good luck, I cannot imagine how you are feeling!

 

Eloncooper,

I cannot watch with your MINI at risk

I have seen pictures of the results of body damage from hail. Glad I don't get that in my area- only hurricaines.
I will say a MINI protection prayer for you right now.

 

Man, that was something. It's sunny out now.

I'm in Northern Virginia, and it rolled in and out really fast. Went out to check things out, but with car being wet (hey, nice wax bead ) and being pure silver, I can't tell if I have any problems yet. I do know the black Honda accord, and blue Corolla next to me are peppered (dented) pretty good. My friends Lexus SUV, and GMC pickup don't have anything that we could see yet.

I'll see when I get home, with a dry car and a shop light. I wonder if Mini of Sterling got hit as well, they are just down the road a bit.

I was just going to drive it inside the office and park it next to my desk, but other folks wouldn't go for it. Not my fault their car wouldn't fit through the door.

 

I feel for ya!! Hope there is NO damage. We recently moved from that area so I know how damaging those storms can be. Just talked to our daughter there and she said it was coming down pretty hard.... Keeping my fingers crossed for your MINI....

Cheers!

Donna :smile:

 

You might be alright with moth-ball sized hail. My MINI got hit by hail once...the bonnet was fine, but the roof was damaged. I couldn't tell 'til the next time I washed my car and I went over the roof with my water blade. There were puddles!!!!

I've often wondered if the bonnet, being one giant pressing, is made of heavier guage steel than the roof. (...seems the case to me.)

Anyway, good luck!!!

 

You msut be in arlington or NoVA because I'm watching the same thign and praying that hail didn't hit manassas wher my mini is hanging otu right now.. damn I've been driving a rental to work to cut down the mileage on the mini and nwo I wish I had driven hit casue at work the car is parked inside...! grr crazy weather

 

I hear it came from the west, and Manassas is west of Chantilly. Chantilly was hit pretty good.

You may be ok though, I was talking to a friend in Centreville, and it didn't even rain there. For other folks reading this, that's a lot of hail in one spot, and no rain three miles away.
Location is everything I hear.

 

If you think hailis bad... a few years back a local Chevy dealership had the engine off of an air force jet fall from the sky and hit one of their cars! Talk about damage!

 

Had some pea sized hail come down on my MINI a couple of weeks ago,very hard for about 10 minutes,and there was no damage:smile:.Hope you fair as well.

 

during my son's wedding on July 10,the sky blackened up pretty good,and when the hail started it was THE SIZE OF GOLF *****!Thank god I had a rental and it was parked under a giant ponderosa pine,but a bunch of others got Hammered.When Hail this big hits grass,it bounces about 3 feet in the air.I will probably never see this again,it was really spectacular.I had to feel bad for the 5 horses out in the adjacent field,they were really going insane,strangest thing though,their reaction was just to lie down and hunker with their heads tucked down as far as they would go.Hope your ride weathered the hail.moth *****............I still don't see how they get their little legs apart.........

 

I have a zip lock bag full of Golf ball to tennis ball sized hail from Tuesday evening here in Colorado Springs. My mini was safely garaged.

 

I'm in Centreville, we had some mothball/dime sized hail from that storm. It wasn't all hail mostly pouring rain.

The MINI however, was in a parking garage at AOL in Dulles.

BTW Chollomo and ElanCooper, you're both in the area how come we never see you at any local events?

 

Oh well. I was hoping to report that the MINI made it through the hail storm unscathed, but it was more than she could stand.

It held up pretty good compared to some others, but the bonnet got the worst of it. I have at least 20-30 dents in the bonnet, 5-8 on the roof (sunroof helped quite a bit), and two in the drivers door. I quit counting after that. My brother is an insurance adjuster, and he counted a lot more than i did. He spent some time on catastrophe duty down in Arlington Texas a few years back. Texans KNOW the hail.

It's funny to worry a little about the occasional door ding, and you come out and mother nature have given folks about 50-100 each all at one time. The path of the storm was really narrow, and we were in the middle.
Could have been worse. It's just one of those things. No dents in any moldings or style lines, so paintless dent removal should take care of what I need. Who knows, maybe I'll use a hair dryer and ice to see if a few pop back out just for fun. A few days of hot sun may take a few small ones out too. I'll get her fixed, and go worry about something else.

 

Elon-- Man, you have a peaceful mind. Don't know if I could be so cool. Had hail here in the midwest on Monday... I drove for cover under a tree and got no damage.

Godspeed.

 

Thats an excellent question, and I've been trying!, see the first couple events that I heard abtou up here were while I was IN 2 weddings.. the next ones came out whiel I was getting married and my honeymoon (in between the car was hit and was otu of commision for abtou 6 months while they put my baby back together again) needless to say jsut abotu everytime an event has coem had somethign I had to attend orwhat have you.. but I am tryign I see there is going to be a ride comming up this weekend, I am going to try and make it, but I promised my wife an uneventful wekend at home so that might not work out so well, but we'll see. If you see a green mini with the plate 1 T Bear then thats me please honk and wave, I'm their in spririt trust me

 

ElonCooper,

You survived. Paintless dent removal is a great option. I've seen it done and it is quite spectacular when performed by a master.

At least your glass did fine.

When will someone make a padded car? Maybe a padded car cover. I guess there might be a limit as to how much padding would be possible given that hail can be huge at times.

 

Have you contacted your Insurance? I recently encountered an unnatural amount of gravel on the road and ofcourse got stuck between cars so I couldn't get away...by the time I put 100 yrds between me and the next truck...it was too late my car had been sand...NO ROCK BLASTED! the windshield had two chips and two foot long cracks....I had my windows open and even got hit in the head three times...it sounded like a hail storm....that's how many...my car was brand new that morning...two months old...I'll take some pics of it...now it looks two years old...even the black tripm is all shot up...

My point is...I called my insurance and they were just as suprised as I...they fixed it gladly....Just a thought...my rates don't go up unless I make like 10 claims...

 

Who are you insured with, tuls? I've never made a claim, I've had my car hit in the parking lot, the damage was so close to my deductible i didn't bother. For some reason, I always thought my rate would go up even with one claim, but I suppose I'm wrong? I haven't had good experiences with insurance, considering I have a clean record, but I guess I'm being too cynical...

 

My MINI got hit with golf-size hail last summer. It was awful - and they were huge and solid. I was home and as soon as I heard the noise and figured out it was a massive hail storm, I ran out to get my MINI in the garage. MINI was in front of the house and my detached garage (in my previous house) was around the back of the house off the adjacent street (I lived on a corner). I got it my MINI and started it and floored it around the corner into my driveway. Unfort, I had a manual garage door and we kept it locked. It prob took at least 30 seconds to unlock the door - I was being pelted by hail so badly I almost got knocked out! At one point right before I got the door opened, I thought I was going to die out there - but I didn't care - I had to get MINI under shelter. Finally I opened the door (after getting hit with several large ones on top of my head) and got MINI in. The damage was bad. $4000 worth.

The good news is, like a high mileage MINI, I was able to view it as "a motoring experience" even though I wasn't really motoring. It was sort of a badge of courage. There must have been over 100 dents. The roof (even though it was a sunroof so there isn't much roof) took the brunt of it. I'd say the sides of the roof got 70-80 dents. It looked like cottage cheese. The bonnet got a handful and the doors got a couple along the high curved part that sticks out.

My MINI, now with 51k miles and into its second summer, has a lot less dents. The intense heat pops some of them out and makes others smaller. You don't even see them unless you're looking at a certain angle in the right light. In some lights it's hard to see at all. But in others, there are still quite a lot - but it's never really obvious.

I also got a number of them out with the DENT KING or something like that - you know - one of the ones on the informercial.

When I took it for an estimate and was told they'd have to take all of the exterior peices off - especially the roof - I said "no way". With all the rattles people were having - esp with the sunroof - I thought I was much better keeping the car intact and living with the damage. So that's what I did.

Good luck with your hail damage. The best thing is just to chalk it up to an experience for your MINI. It's something you'll never forget.

 

usaa...however, no matter who...I would imagine most of us have become so affraid of our companies jsut cause of the few horror stories out there...it never hurts to ask though

 

Everyone,

I was sitting in the same hailstorm in Vienna, VA last night. My car got heavily pelted by what sounded like a thousand marbles.

After checking out my car this morning, I haven't noticed a single dent anywhere on the car. I have two coats of Zaino Z-5 on the car.

I wonder if the polymer sealant of the Zaino really is as tough as Zaino claims .

-Troy

 

Eloncoop,


Ouch! that hurts just thinking about the hail storm. I just used PDR to remove the dimple left when one of Ohio's pellet gun snipers let one fly at my car. PDR removed all signs of the dimple, 'course I still have a chip in the paint from the lead/copper projectile. Just waiting on my AutoVisions paint pen to arrive. Then all will be well here.