Everything You Need To Know About Hail Damage Repair
There hasn’t been a significant hailstorm in the Denver, Colorado area for almost eight months. Because of that, it’s likely few drivers in the area will be thinking about driving through hail any time soon.
But the reality is that the hail season typically starts around May and June in Colorado, meaning it could begin imminently.
Nobody expects the weather to have a significant impact on their vehicle, but hail is a different beast. If you’ve been caught by it, you’ll know how bad hail damage can be to your car. But few people know the ins and outs of hail damage repair.
That’s why we here at StormWise have written this post to outline the realities of hail damage repair. We’ll briefly cover what to expect with hail damage, how repairs are typically dealt with, and how much it will cost.
That way, you won’t be caught out when the hail season starts!
What Is Hail Damage?
Hail damage is a fairly self-explanatory form of vehicle damage. It relates to any damage sustained by a vehicle resulting from being caught in a hail storm.
Hail damage is typically felt on the exterior of a car, in the form of large hail-shaped dents. Unlike most other types of vehicle damage, hail damage usually impacts the entirety of a car’s exterior.
This is because, unlike other accidents, the damage isn’t concentrated. Instead, the hail shows little care for a target zone and simply pummels your car with little care as to the result.
In some good news, hail damage will often only affect the outer areas of a car rather than the internal framing or key functions. But this still means you’ll have an unsightly vehicle pummelled full of holes, even if the damage is only to the outside.
Now that you know the basics of what hail damage is, let’s go into greater detail on how hail damage repair works.
What Does Hail Damage Repair For A Car Consist Of?
When it comes to hail damage repair, the first stage in the process should always be in the form of inspection. If someone is quoting you any kind of car repair before seeing the vehicle in question, they likely aren’t reliable.
A thorough inspection allows the repair company to assess the damage first-hand. This can often be done either in-house or on-site by a repair company.
As an advanced hail damage repair provider, we at StormWise make it possible to even schedule an entirely remote inspection, using a virtual video chat service – try our virtual estimate today.
Once the damage has been assessed, you’ll likely need to talk about insurance if a claim hasn’t been filed. This is something a reputable company like StormWise can assist with. We’ll provide more details on that in the relevant section below.
After this, the real repair process starts. During a hail damage repair, your repair service provider should send you updates regularly.
A proper hail damage repair provider should, in most scenarios, be able to conduct a paintless repair of any minor hail damage. These advanced techniques ensure a car can be repaired without any sanding, filling, or painting (usually a costly part of the process) at all. There are times, however, where the size of the hail stone has damaged the paint itself already, and when that’s the case, repainting will be necessary to seal the panel and prevent any sort of rust from beginning.
This process where the vehicle is repaired without the use of any painting is known as paintless dent repair or PDR.