How Does Stormwise Fix Your Hail Damage
Since the mid-1990s, auto repair industry experts have been using the paintless dent repair method to repair small dents. Its advanced metalworking that takes years to perfect.
We at StormWise get behind the panel and work the metal up from the back side.
Paintless dent repair involves taking the car apart as needed to gain access to the back side of the panel and using metal rods with varying tip shapes depending on the sharpness of the dent to gently massage the metal to its original, flat, and perfect shape.
Using A Dent Repair Kit
For small dents on your car hood, a car dent repair kit may be a simple and inexpensive solution. You can easily find these kits at any local auto supply store and they are very user-friendly. Each kit often includes a knockdown tool, a glue gun and many stems for different sized dents. You may be surprised at the way the kit works and the professional result it makes. But we do recommend this kid for small dents only. For deep, large dents, it is better if you take your car to garage as the repair kit can not fix them and even cause more damage.
Dealing With Rental Cars
Another benefit of getting a comprehensive insurance plan is the ability to rent a vehicle if your car is being repaired. This is completely covered under your plan, and your insurance will even cover the rental car in the event that anything else should happen.
Auto hail repair specialist companies like StormWise will even grant you a complimentary rental vehicle while they work on your car so you never lose the ability to get around.;
We always keep the customer in mind above all we know your life shouldnt become less convenient just because your car is out of commission for the moment.
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How To Repair Small Car Dents And Hail Damage
Maintaining the best appearance of your car takes dedication. You wash it, wax it, and drive it carefully, you take care of it. However, you cant control the driving conditions of other drivers and the weather. A car can rear end you, or a car parked next you can slam their door into your car. Plus, with the bipolar winter of Arizona, a possible hail storm can damage your car. Having dents on your vehicle is infuriating. Excel Collision has a few tips on how to fix small, minor dents on your own.
Simple Ways To Remove Smaller Dents From Your Car
Theres nothing more annoying than getting a dent on your newly purchased car. Even if youre a careful driver, you cant always avoid falling pine cones, wrongly parked cars or pebbles that hit your car when youre on the road. Since getting a dent removed by a professional can be unbelievably expensive, many of us would never consider fixing them.
However, dents, especially small ones, are not worth losing sleep over. There are plenty of ways to remove them from your car by using common household items such as a plunger, vacuum cleaner or aluminum foil. Not all of the methods will work for you, so you should decide which one would be the best for your car.
NOTE: If adentis too large, deep or has resulted in damaged metal, there is, unfortunately, no other way than bringing your car in for a repair.
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Diy Hail Dryer Auto Dent Removal Technique
Heat the dented area with a hairdryer and place a cold wet cloth on the dent while the area is still hot. The dent will pop out by itself.
Does it work?
With a hairdryer, you will not be able to heat up the metal enough to manipulate its molecular structure. You will, however, heat up the metal enough to severely fatigue;the metal and run the possibility of needing a panel replacement.
Warning:;When using a hair dryer to heat up the metal on your vehicle, be very aware that the extremely elevated temperature of the metal can severely burn your hands.
What Is Paintless Dent Removal For Hail Damage
You begin researching about getting the hail dents out of your car and come across a unique way to fix dents called Paintless Dent Repair. You find out that this is the best option to repair minor damage and those little dings in your car and that it is actually recommended by your insurance company. Even your vehicle manufacturer says this is better for your car since it saves that original factory paint finish and keeps the car up to the OEM specs, or original factory condition, by keeping all the cars original parts.;
Youve now decided that paintless dent removal is what you want to use to get your car back to its original condition. But you are curious about just how vehicle hail damage repair is done with paintless dent repair.
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What Kind Of Dents Can Be Repaired
The paintless dent repair success rate is between 80-90%. Most shallow dents on relatively broad surfaces, provided that the paint is still intact and not badly creased, can be repaired with PDR methods.; The remaining 10-20% cant be fixed due to depth, location or complexity. DIY;dent pullers;rarely;work;on deep, jagged;dents;or damage along the edges of body panels where the shapes are complex.
Pros & Cons Of Paintless Dent Repair
Pros
- Cheaper Because theres much less material and potentially less labor required, PDR can work out to be much cheaper than a body shop.
- Faster Repair Times Paintless Dent Repair means a lot less downtime. Depending on the size of the damage, you could effectively drive your car away the same day.Not only that, many independent PDR techs will come to your work or home to repair the car within an allotted time. This is much more convenient than sending your car to a body shop for it to sit in their yard for weeks on end.
- Maintain Authenticity Since paintless dent repair is the act of removing dents without filler and refinishing techniques, your car is still 100% authentic .This isnt necessarily a huge deal, but its always best to avoid filler and repainting panels whenever possible.
Cons
As you can see both services have their pros and cons.
Its really up to you which one you choose. Unless youre making an insurance claim, then theyll make you use one of their trusted body shops.
Id personally avoid making a claim as much as possible. As long as the paint is not cracked, minor hail damage doesnt really need to be repaired. You definitely shouldnt spend money that you cant afford on making your car look good again.
If youre on a budget and want to repair hail damage yourself, the best place to start is with a DIY Dent Repair Kit. Though I must admit, its not for the faint-hearted.
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Hair Dryer And Compressed Air Expansion And Contraction Method
This method uses an infusion of hot air and cold air. As these two come together, they allow a dent to pop out on its own. The hair dryer makes the plastic expand in the dent and the compressed air is cold and makes the plastic contract, essentially popping the dent out. Heat the dented area of your vehicle with a hair dryer at the highest setting possible. Get it as hot as possible and then use a can of compressed air to blow on the dent. The cold air will contract the plastic and allow the dent to pop out on its own.
S To Take After Hail Damages Your Car
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How To Prevent Future Hail Damage
The absolute best way to prevent future hail damage is to move to an area where hail is very unlikely. I cant remember the last time hail fell in my area, and when it did, it was very small, leaving behind zero damage.Admittedly, completely uprooting your life to avoid hail damage isnt a realistic solution. There are other things you can do, but youll still be a victim to hail while driving.
Unfortunately, as a car owner, no matter what you do, you can be unlucky. If the damage is going to occur, you can try your best to prevent it, but it will likely happen no matter what.Sometimes all you can do is be prepared to fix whatever happens to your car. Whether this is learning the skills to repair it yourself or having an emergency fund to pay a professional.
How Can Paintless Dent Repair Fix Hail Damage On Your Vehicle
by Paul Kordon | Apr 2, 2020 | Hail Repair, Paintless Dent Repair
When dealing with vehicle damage from inclement weather, whether from hail damage or due to storms causing tree limbs or debris to hit your car, it can be frustrating to find skilled professionals capable of fixing these issues. Hailstones especially can cause extensive cosmetic and structural damage. The good news is, paintless dent repair can remove dents of many different sizes and depths resulting from a hailstorm. Heres how paintless dent repair can fix hail damage and restore your car to its original condition.
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Is It Worth Getting Hail Damage Repaired
This question is mostly whats your car worth to you?. When I first got my car, I wanted it to be perfect, but overtime stopped caring as much because its an old car with little value.Unless the hail damage is going to cause rust problems or significantly worsens your driving experience, its probably not worth fixing it.The cost of a professional repair is expensive. You may get independent body shops that will repair the panel relatively cheap, but to go through your insurance, it could cost $1000-$3000.
Remove & Replace The Damaged Panel
Depending on your car and whether you are able to get the panel you need from the junkyard, it may be easier to remove and replace the damaged panel. In cases with extreme damage, it may even be necessary. Its useful to know how to fit and refit doors, wings, bumpers and wing mirrors but you may not have the time, tools or even want to. If you want to learn how to remove and refit panels you will need tools. The absolute minimum that you will need is a socket set, plastic trim clip tools, and a metal trim clip tool. Providing you have a common car, there are many resources on youtube that will help you to see exactly what needs to be done to remove and refit any panel on your car. Keep in mind that if youre working on a brand new model, parts will be harder to come by and therell almost certainly be no tutorials online.
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How To Repair Hail Damage On A Car With Paintless Dent Removal
In order to properly fix all the minor hail damage to a car, it all starts with a thorough inspection of the damage. This starts with a clean car to better be able to see all the dents that are all over the vehicle.;
When you bring your car into a dent repair shop, a special light or reflection board will be used to find every dent that is on each panel. Sometimes a special paint marker will also be used to circle each dent so they can better be seen in a photo. This also helps to know the exact amount of the dent count.;
One of the most common methods used to do paintless dent repair for hail damage is by pushing the dents out from inside the panel. To gain the access needed for this, many interior panels and exterior parts will need to be removed.;
Many of the parts and body panels that need to be removed may include:
- Headlights
- Antenna
- Inner door panels
Depending on how severe the hail damage is and if there are any other damaged auto body parts that would need to be replaced there could be more items that will need to be removed.;
For more info about how a vehicle headliner is removed for hail damage repair, check out this video.
How To Remove Hail Damage Dents
Are you looking how to remove hail damage dents from your car? Look no further and watch this video about removing hail damage dents.
Video Summary
Welcome to Excel Dent Removal. Today, I am going to show you how to remove hail dents when the damage is under a brace.; I have a dent in the trunk lid, and trunk lids tend to be heavily reinforced and braced. Most of the damage is going to be under a braced area. There is limited access and maybe only a couple of dents are in the open, but those dents seem to be a lot smaller.
Here are the different tools to remove these hail dents. These PDR tools are designed to get inside and under braces as you will see this from my demonstration.; I will have to get underneath each dent and push them up.
Let us take a closer look and Ill show you how bad the damage is.; Now the trunk lid is off the car, if we look, you will notice all these hail dings when using our paintless dent repair light.;;
Now you can start to see a lot of these dents. You can see some of the dents are along the edges, a couple of bigger dents are along the side and this is what the underside of this trunk lid looks like. ;
You can see there are some little openings which help greatly for our paintless dent repair tools, and generally not every trunk lid is the same. Some are reinforced with more access, and some have a lot more bracing with less access. ;This trunk lid is probably average and has good access for removing dents.;;
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Wondering If You Can Fix Hail Damage To Your Car Yourself It May Be Possible If You Have The Right Tools And A Lot Of Patience
If you care about keeping your vehicle in good shape, few things are more disheartening than seeing a patchwork of dents spread over your roof, hood and trunk after a hailstorm. Without the protection of a garage or carport, this sort of damage is always a possibility when hailstones start falling.
Once the damage is done, you might think the only option is expensive bodywork done by professionals. Not necessarily so. If your insurance policy doesnt cover you for hail damage repair, you might be able to restore your vehicle to nearly perfect condition with the right tools and approach.
That said, there are certainly cases where the extent of the hail damage is beyond what can be practically fixed in a driveway. A trip to a body shop is the only way forward in those situations. Learn how to tell the difference, and see for yourself how much good you can do when fixing hail damage to your car.
If I File A Claim For Hail Damage Theyre Going To Raise My Premium And Its Just Not Worth It
This is a common misconception, and every year people lose a ton of money, because they dont understand just how costly the damage is, and they dont want to pay a few extra dollars a month.
More to the point thats not how it works. Hail damage is a no fault claim, or an Act of God, if you will. Its not your fault, and you can not be singled out for a rate increase simply because you get the hail dents on your car repaired.
Youll notice your insurance has Collision coverage, and Comprehensive coverage. If you crash into a wall thats your fault, goes against your collision coverage, and your rates may well increase.
A hailstorm is not your fault. After all, you didnt hit the hail it hit you! This falls under your comprehensive coverage. The money is there in a pool, available to fully and properly repair your car whether you choose to take advantage of it, or simply let the insurance company keep the cash if you think they need it more than you do.
When there is a large amount of hail damage in a given area, rates may go up, yes but EVERYONEs rates go up, whether they filed a claim for damage or not. This is why in our area we already get to pay some of the highest premiums in the country because of our hailstorms. Of course this also means youve already paid for the benefit, so you may as well accept whats yours.
Mistake #5
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