Auto Hail Repair

If you’re someone that treats their vehicle like family, then you might be wondering, “who’s best to take care of the damage on my truck?”. If that’s you, then you need to learn all that you can about how to repair hail damage on a truck. Doing so can help you understand why it’s necessary to get the hair damage repaired as quickly as possible. Educating yourself will also help make the right decisions when selecting an auto hail repair shop. See below for an in-depth guide covering the different types of hail damage on a truck, why you must fix the damage ASAP, and so much more. What Should I Expect With My Insurance? If you’re a new truck owner or are currently shopping for a new truck, be sure to include comprehensive coverage in your car insurance. It protects your car from non-collision accidents such as hail, hitting a deer, etc. If you currently have comprehensive coverage, then your hail damage repairs will be covered. Better yet, reputable repair firms, such as StormWise, can help you manage the entire comprehensive claim process. Don’t wait for another storm to hit. Capitalize on your comprehensive coverage right away to make your truck look as good as new! The Different Types of Hail Damage on a Truck All drivers know how harmful hail can be to a car. However, you might not realize that there are several different types of hail damage that your truck might sustain. It’s important to know the different types of damage so that you can identify what damage was caused by the hail storm. Here are the most common types: Dents—The most common form of damage from hail. They can vary in size and depth depending on the severity of the hail storm. Most often, they’re found on the hood, roof, and side panels of your car. Occasionally on the door as well. Paint Damage—Paint damage is common along the sides of the car. As the hail is falling, it can brush up against your car and scratch the paint off. If you see unusual marks on your car, it was likely from the most recent hail storm. Cracked Glass and Lights—Severe hail storms can put severe cracks in your car’s windshield. It can also shatter your lights, the glass around your car, and your side mirrors as well.  Crooked Side Mirrors—Large hailstones will knock your side mirrors out of place and can even knock them off in some instances. Trucks Require Specialty Repair StormWise specializes in truck hail repair. Not only do we have the technical knowledge and skills to repair trucks, but we also understand customer preferences. For example, truck owners sometimes don’t want to fix the roof because it’s tall and you can’t see it. Specialized tools are required for truck hail damage repair because most trucks are all aluminum. When you perform paintless dent repair on aluminum, you have to be certified, which we are for a very long time. Special parts of trucks can cause their own set of issues. For example, tailgates are unique to trucks, and the repair shop (like StormWise) has to know how to take them apart and put them back together. The Average Cost of Hail Repair for Trucks If you were to perform a common Google search on the topic, you might be led astray. It would give you the impression that the fix would be cheap and might not even be necessary. That couldn’t be further from the truth. The average hail repair for trucks is $6,500. To get a more accurate repair estimate on your truck, you can use a free estimator. Or follow the instructions here to use the Paintless Dent Repair Matrix (PDR Matrix, for short), and do your own calculations. The most common mistake among truck owners is waiting too long to repair the hail damage on their truck. If you don’t repair your truck’s hail damage in time, it can lead to even more costs in the future. Why? Because unrepaired hail dents can cause further and more severe damage to your truck. Learn more and see this under the “you risk paying more” section of this article. Additionally, you may get hit by a second storm. Your insurance company keeps track of hail storms. If you wait until the next hail storm season to get all the damage done at once, the insurance might refuse to pay. If the damage to your car is more severe than the most recent storm would’ve caused, they have reason to believe you waited too long to fix it and will refuse to pay the difference. That kind of repair can quickly add up on a truck. Don’t Fix the Dents Yourself Whatever you do, don’t try to fix the dents yourself. While hail repair experts make it look easy, it’s a lot more complicated than it sounds.  The common myths of using dry ice, compressed air, or sunbathing aren’t going to work. In fact, they’ll create more damage on your truck, which will lead to expenses your insurance provider won’t touch with a ten-foot pole. Take the truck to a hail damage repair service right away. Let our professionals use tactics, such as our paintless dent repair, to make your truck look good as new. Remember, as long as you have comprehensive coverage, it’s highly likely that your damage will be covered. How to Get an Estimate First things first, make sure that you use a hail repair specialist like StormWise instead of a normal body shop. Be sure to read the Paintless Dent Repair section of this article on how to choose an auto hail repair company. The experience with your insurance can fluctuate depending on the provider. Since COVID, most insurance companies ask customers (you) to file a claim with photos showing the damage. Taking photos of the hail damage on a truck can be difficult. If not done correctly, the insurance estimates will leave most of the hail dents unrepaired due to them not seeing the damage. See more details

According to the Rocky Mountain Insurance Information Association’s hail report, Colorado had the highest overall hail damage claims in the U.S. between 2017-2019. Over that three-year span, the “Personal Automobile” policy type for hail loss claims was second only to the “Personal Property Homeowners” policy type. Colorado’s most damaging hail season runs from around the middle of April to around September 15th. The Front Range is right in the center of “Hail Alley”! This is where the United States gets the largest hail storms. Folks who live here are looking at about three or four considerably damaging hailstorms each year. Read on to learn how to use the dent repair cost estimator to find out roughly how much you can expect to pay for the repairs. Dent Repair Cost Estimator You’ll want to get yourself some good hail insurance if you live in Colorado. Over the last 10 years alone, these storms have cost Colorado residents over $5 billion in insured damage.  Don’t worry, almost all insurance companies cover hail damage in the comprehensive insurance. If you live in one of the country’s hail-prone areas, the insurance industry recommends you have this specific type of coverage. Here at StormWise, we’re providing you with a convenient dent repair cost estimator, to make it super easy to find out the amount you may have to pay, depending on the number, size of the dents and other factors.  Count and Measure the Dents Before You Start Make sure you can see the dents in your car to get an accurate count. Measure the size of the dents with a Dime, Nickel, Quarter and/or Half-Dollar sized coin. For example, if you can still see the dent by covering it up with a Half Dollar coin, then the dent will be considered ‘Oversized’. Follow the Calculator Steps To get started, go to the dent repair cost estimator page. Enter the type of vehicle that’s damaged. Then enter the year it was made. Under “Left Side Panel Damage Information” you can select which area(s) was damaged. Your choices include: left front fender, left front door, left back fender, left back door, or no damage on the left side panels. For my 2019 Subaru Outback, I chose “Left front door.” The next field of the hail damage estimator is where you put in the number of dents. Then move over to the next field and choose the biggest size of your dent(s) from the following options: 0.75″ (dime size) 0.835″ (nickel size) 1″ (quarter size) 1.5″ (half-dollar size) >1.5″ (oversized) I chose 15 dent with a size of 0.75″ (dime size). The next field will show you the number of total dents on the left side panel. Next, you have the option to upload a photo of your vehicle damage. As you move onto the next page of the hail damage estimator, it’ll ask you to enter information about any top panel damage. Following the same steps of the left-panel, I chose 10 dime size dents in the top hood, and 34 nickel size dents in the top roof. The next page will cover the right side panels. I chose “no damage.” Move ahead to the next page and you’ll see that you’re asked “In Case We Lose Connection, Where Should We Send This Estimate?” In this area, go ahead and enter your full name, a valid email address, and the best phone number at which to reach you. How to Understand the Estimate The next page of the hail damage car repair cost calculator is the last step, which is your preliminary report. Mine says Your car has severe hail damage. 😭. You’ll see it conveniently explains for you the four main parts hail damage repair is usually comprised of, which are Dent Repair, Removal and Installation, Parts, and Sales Tax. This is a paintless dent repair cost estimate, so if there’s any damage to your vehicle’s paint, you’ll need to factor in the paint time, body time, and paint & material costs as well. My hail damage repair estimate, based on the information I entered above, my PDR cost is as low as $5,650 to approximately $12,000. The estimate range, in the end, is huge. That’s because the lower part contains a rough estimate of the PDR cost. Without knowing the specific location of the dents, it’s hard to factor in other costs such as R&I cost, part replacement, etc.. So the higher end includes the average cost of such from similar hail damage based on our decades of experience. That’s why on the final step when we provide you a cost range, we also give you the option to receive contact from us to provide more details, which is highly recommended to get an accurate and free estimate. Accuracy of the Dent Repair Cost Estimator Accuracy of the estimator heavily depends on your ability to spot and measure the number and sizes of the dents. This is another reason the estimate provides a huge range based on our experience working with customers who did initial estimates using online PDR calculators like ours. Believe it or not, counting dents can be very difficult for customers and even insurance adjusters. What’s worse is to provide an estimate based on only the pictures you take. Since COVID, most insurance companies don’t send adjustors to do a personal inspection. Taking pictures to show all the hail damage is a daunting challenge.  More details here. What’s Included in My Hail Damage Estimate? Let’s talk more in-depth about the four estimate parts we mentioned above. Note that a comprehensive “hail damage estimate” is what you receive when contacting StormWise, not something you can get from an online calculator, however, both are free. You’re looking at the “Paintless Dent Repair Estimate”, which is the time and labor required by a technician to fix the actual dents. Then you’re going to have your “Remove and Install Cost (R&I)”, which tell you the cost of removal and installation of parts as needed to reach the hail damaged areas of the vehicle. Moving on to the next part, you’re going to see “Part Replacements” which are

Should I try to pop my car dent with dry ice or compressed air? That is a question we get often. Different voices on the internet can point you in various directions, making it hard for someone who doesn’t have any experience and just wants answers quickly. Before you start trying out any of those techniques yourself as an alternative solution, know that we will provide answers about the myths associated with auto dent removal here!  We’ll give concise responses with all necessary information for an informed decision-making process so please keep reading on… The old way of repairing a car dent is expensive and time-consuming. It involves grinding down the surface, repainting it all smooth again with paint that’s not too thin or thick so as to risk leaving any marks behind; then you’ve got sanding followed by hours worth on top quality primer/base coat before finally getting back into your vehicle one last round for good measure – this process can take up weeks depending and costing tens of thousands of dollars. So car owners dread the repair and often search online for cheaper alternatives. There are numerous dent repair DIY tips from YouTube and blogs. The most popular ones are the compressed air dent removal and dry ice dent removal methods. But do they actually work? Hair dryer and compressed air dent removal – It Does Not Work. This is one of the most popular DIY methods of dent removal. You’ll find numerous videos and blogs that test this method or provide detailed description. Myth – How does hair dryer and compressed air dent removal work? Heat up the surrounding area of the dent using a hair dryer gently and slowly to avoid damaging the paint. One it’s hot enough, apply cold compressed air (or a high-risk alternative: dry ice) to cool down the center of the dent quickly to cause the metal to pop back to its original shape. Does it work? No, not even for tiny dents. You could patiently watch this popular YouTube video, in which Donnie tested multiple dents of various sizes, and find out after 15 minutes, none of his dents were fixed. Or you can take our word for it. Maybe you’d think the cold compressed air wasn’t cold enough and are tempted to try dry ice next. Dry Ice Dent Removal – It Does Not Work. Myth – How does dry ice take dents out of a car? The theory is that dry ice will cause the temperature of your vehicle’s bodywork to drop sharply, which in turn will help the dings to even out. Does it work? Dry ice dent removal is a popular topic on Google with more than 4.4 million results. So it must be true, right? Unfortunately no… Even if you pair the dry ice with the hair dryer method, the answer is still “No, it just doesn’t work.”  Some people believe this used to be an old-school method when cars were made of thick metals, requiring a speedy and extremely hot and cold cycle. And many of them try and then end up at our shop because it caused more damage. So why doesn’t it work? First of all, you have to heat up the metal significantly, and your hair dryer can’t produce that much heat. If it can, you may want to discard it because that wouldn’t do any good to your hair. When you apply that much heat professionally, you worsen the damage on your car, leading to more types of damage that would require repainting and spending more money. We haven’t seen any shop use this method for many years because, in addition to paint damage, the metals in modern cars will be weakened under immense heat. Also, dry ice is incredibly dangerous and cold enough to burn the skin in a similar fashion to frostbite. If you accidentally eat, swallow, or inhale dry ice, call 911 right away. Park In The Sun – It Doesn’t Work. The sun offers a lot of benefits, but it doesn’t pop out dents. This is another myth based on temperature changes.  Various articles on the internet claim that should you expose your car to the blazing hot rays of the sun for a considerable amount of time, its metalwork will expand. In turn, the dings and dents caused by the hailstorm will naturally begin to pop out. How we wish it’s this simple! At least this one doesn’t deal with harmful substances. So feel free to try it out, but don’t be disappointed when it doesn’t work. Make Use Of A Dent Repair Kit – It may or may not work. If leaving your car to bathe in the sun doesn’t seem to work, your internet search for DIY dent repair will likely lead you to a dent repair kit. The clue is in the name — this is a specialist type of equipment used to remove dents and dings from the bodywork of vehicles.  These kits are easily accessible and can be found in most auto supply stores. Better still, they’re incredibly affordable. As a result, it has led many car owners to believe that the paintless dent repair is easy and can be done by an amateur. It is doable, but do you have the skills? And should your car be your guinea pig? A DIY set technically works. However, we strongly advise you let the professionals fix your car’s dings and dents. Using these tools requires skills and practice.  DIY dent removal kits often come with a glue gun, a heat gun, various pulling tools, etc.. If not careful, you could further burn or crack the metal—and end up spending much more money fixing it. In addition, depending on the dent locations, you often need to remove the damaged panel before you could work on the dents. Provided you can find tons of resources teaching you how to remove and refit panels of your car, be sure to watch those videos