Any experience with hail damage repair?

My 2003 Shinsen got pummelled by golfball+ sized hail on
Saturday and it's pretty dented up. Obviously the hood and
trunk lid took the brunt of the damange, but there are pretty
good sized dents in all of the fenders and the tops of the
doors. To get an idea of the density of the damage, There are
two good sized dents on the gas filler lid. There are even
dents in the "forhead" panel above the windsheild, and the
paint is visibly cracked in a couple spots. The windshield
also has a 3ft crack, but that's not what I'm worried about at
this point.

[It's a rather sickening feeling to stand 15 feet away from your
car and watch hail like that beat down on it for 10 minutes.]

Assuming the adjuster doesn't declare it totalled, should I get
it "fixed" or just take the check, buy another Miata and sell
the dimpled one to somebody who wants to practice body-work?

I've heard some unhappy stories about replacement hoods and
trunk lids and about peeling paint after dent removal.

Anybody had badly hail-damaged Miata repaired?

--
Grant Edwards grante Yow! I hope the
at ``Eurythmics'' practice
visi.com birth control ...

On Wed, 04 Jun 2008 11:56:10 -0500, Grant Edwards >
wrote:

>My 2003 Shinsen got pummelled by golfball+ sized hail on
>Saturday and it's pretty dented up. Obviously the hood and
>trunk lid took the brunt of the damange, but there are pretty
>good sized dents in all of the fenders and the tops of the
>doors. To get an idea of the density of the damage, There are
>two good sized dents on the gas filler lid. There are even
>dents in the "forhead" panel above the windsheild, and the
>paint is visibly cracked in a couple spots. The windshield
>also has a 3ft crack, but that's not what I'm worried about at
>this point.
>
>[It's a rather sickening feeling to stand 15 feet away from your
>car and watch hail like that beat down on it for 10 minutes.]
>
>Assuming the adjuster doesn't declare it totalled, should I get
>it "fixed" or just take the check, buy another Miata and sell
>the dimpled one to somebody who wants to practice body-work?
>
>I've heard some unhappy stories about replacement hoods and
>trunk lids and about peeling paint after dent removal.
>
>Anybody had badly hail-damaged Miata repaired?

Not a Miata but a 2001 Mitsubishi Magna (Diamante in your language :-)
here in Oz.
The car was Black and came back better than new.
I still see it these days and it looks just as good.
Sounds like the damage wasn't as severe as yours though....I suspect
your Miata may well be written off.
Good luck with it.




OzOne of the three twins

I welcome you to Crackerbox Palace.

>>Anybody had badly hail-damaged Miata repaired?
>
> Not a Miata but a 2001 Mitsubishi Magna (Diamante in your
> language :-) here in Oz. The car was Black and came back
> better than new. I still see it these days and it looks just
> as good. Sounds like the damage wasn't as severe as yours
> though....I suspect your Miata may well be written off. Good
> luck with it.

Well, the adjuster didn't total it. The estimated repair total
is a little over $5K. The private-sale value according to
various web-sites was around $12K. If it was a few years
older, I suspect that the resale value would have been low
enough that it might have been totalled.

The hood, fuel door and trunk lid are going to be replaced, and
they're going to fix the dents in the fenders, doors,
above/around the windsheild, and in the piece between the
frankenstein bolts.

The windshield is also going to be replaced, but since there
was a pre-existing stone chip, the adjuster said that was a
separate incident and I have to file a second claim for the
glass damage. Whatever -- there's no deductible on glass
damage, so it doesn't matter to me how they want the paperwork
done.

Now I just need to decide where to have it fixed, and see if I
can get the insurance company to cover OEM parts...

I guess I'll put off buying a used MazdaSpeed Miata for a
while, even though a factory turbo sure sounds like fun.

--
Grant Edwards grante Yow! Are you selling NYLON
at OIL WELLS?? If so, we can
visi.com use TWO DOZEN!!

On Wed, 04 Jun 2008 17:54:16 -0500, Grant Edwards >
wrote:

>>>Anybody had badly hail-damaged Miata repaired?
>>
>> Not a Miata but a 2001 Mitsubishi Magna (Diamante in your
>> language :-) here in Oz. The car was Black and came back
>> better than new. I still see it these days and it looks just
>> as good. Sounds like the damage wasn't as severe as yours
>> though....I suspect your Miata may well be written off. Good
>> luck with it.
>
>Well, the adjuster didn't total it. The estimated repair total
>is a little over $5K. The private-sale value according to
>various web-sites was around $12K. If it was a few years
>older, I suspect that the resale value would have been low
>enough that it might have been totalled.
>
>The hood, fuel door and trunk lid are going to be replaced, and
>they're going to fix the dents in the fenders, doors,
>above/around the windsheild, and in the piece between the
>frankenstein bolts.
>
>The windshield is also going to be replaced, but since there
>was a pre-existing stone chip, the adjuster said that was a
>separate incident and I have to file a second claim for the
>glass damage. Whatever -- there's no deductible on glass
>damage, so it doesn't matter to me how they want the paperwork
>done.
>
>Now I just need to decide where to have it fixed, and see if I
>can get the insurance company to cover OEM parts...
>
>I guess I'll put off buying a used MazdaSpeed Miata for a
>while, even though a factory turbo sure sounds like fun.

I guess there are some advantage to not having a tin roof to repair
:-)

Over here now most insurers nominate a repairer unless you've paid a
premium to allow selection.
If you pick a good one you'll be very happy I'm sure.

BTW, I own a Black 2005NC Limited Edition.
My wife night before last managed to gutter scrape 2 of those lovely
LE 17" wheels to nearly half way up the spoke...I'm now trying to
arrange replacement under insurance at a cost of $AU 650.00/ wheel
plus removal and refit of tyres.
They say they can be repaired!?




OzOne of the three twins

I welcome you to Crackerbox Palace.

On 2008-06-04, OzOne <OzOne> wrote:

> I guess there are some advantage to not having a tin roof to repair
> :-)

That would have probably added another $1K to the tab.

> Over here now most insurers nominate a repairer unless you've
> paid a premium to allow selection.

The insurance companies do steer you towards shops with which
the have agreements, but there are laws that require them to
allow to go to any shop (and they're required to tell you
that). Some insurance companies used to try to force you to go
to certain shops, but they got caught abusing that so much that
they're no longer allowed to do anything other than "suggest"
an affiliated shop after telling you that you can go anywhere
you want.

> If you pick a good one you'll be very happy I'm sure.

I'm asking around for recommendations. There've been two nasty
hailstorms in the past week, so I imagine there'll be a bit of
a wait.

> BTW, I own a Black 2005NC Limited Edition. My wife night
> before last managed to gutter scrape 2 of those lovely LE 17"
> wheels to nearly half way up the spoke...

Ouch. IMO, 17" wheels on a Miata are just too fragile. I'm
even a bit skeptical about 16" wheels on Miatas. I think the
15" rotary-forged aluminum "winter" wheels I put on my '03 look
better and and perform just as well as the stock 16" wheels.

And 15" 50 aspect tires are _way_ cheaper (and there's a wider
selection) than the 16" 45 aspect size. I don't want to even
think about shopping for 17" 40 aspect tires.

> I'm now trying to arrange replacement under insurance at a
> cost of $AU 650.00/ wheel plus removal and refit of tyres.
> They say they can be repaired!?

I bent a couple of the OEM rims on my 96 M-Edition. Buying
replacement OEM wheels was completely out of the question. For
the price of one OEM wheel, you could get a set of 4 very nice
aftermarket wheels. I took them to a local wheel repair shop,
and for about $120 per wheel, they trued them and re-finished
them. They looked brand-new and are still going strong 7 years
and about 80K miles later.

--
Grant Edwards grante Yow! Where's my SOCIAL
at WORKER?
visi.com

If you have a Dent Wizard in your area, they can get hail dents and door
dings out so you would never know it. They don't damage the paint in
the process, either. I'm not sure just how they do it, and they won't
let you watch, but it really works great. I have a very glossy Emerald
Mica '99, and they've gotten several dents & dings out of it, and I
swear you can't see even the slightest ripple reflected in the paint.
Amazing!

Geary

In article >,
Grant Edwards > wrote:

> My 2003 Shinsen got pummelled by golfball+ sized hail on
> Saturday and it's pretty dented up. Obviously the hood and
> trunk lid took the brunt of the damange, but there are pretty
> good sized dents in all of the fenders and the tops of the
> doors. To get an idea of the density of the damage, There are
> two good sized dents on the gas filler lid. There are even
> dents in the "forhead" panel above the windsheild, and the
> paint is visibly cracked in a couple spots. The windshield
> also has a 3ft crack, but that's not what I'm worried about at
> this point.
>
> [It's a rather sickening feeling to stand 15 feet away from your
> car and watch hail like that beat down on it for 10 minutes.]
>
> Assuming the adjuster doesn't declare it totalled, should I get
> it "fixed" or just take the check, buy another Miata and sell
> the dimpled one to somebody who wants to practice body-work?
>
> I've heard some unhappy stories about replacement hoods and
> trunk lids and about peeling paint after dent removal.
>
> Anybody had badly hail-damaged Miata repaired?

On 2008-06-06, Geary Morton > wrote:

> If you have a Dent Wizard in your area, they can get hail dents and door
> dings out so you would never know it. They don't damage the paint in
> the process, either. I'm not sure just how they do it, and they won't
> let you watch, but it really works great. I have a very glossy Emerald
> Mica '99, and they've gotten several dents & dings out of it, and I
> swear you can't see even the slightest ripple reflected in the paint.

The insurance adjuster said the dents were too deep to repair
that way. You can see that the paint is damaged in a few
places, so I don't think the "dent wizard" style repair is an
option. They're going to replace the hood, trunk lid, and one
of the fenders. The other dents are going to be repaired using
traditional bodywork methods. They're going to repaint
basically the entire car. If the car were a few years older,
it would probably have been totalled.

It goes into the shop on Monday, and will probably take 2-3
weeks.

--
Grant

I had pretty serious hail damage to my '94 m-spec that was repaired by local
shop (Calgary, Alberta, Canada - probably the hail capital of the world)
for $2700 (no deductible) about 2 years ago. The aluminum hood was replaced.
The trunk lid was subcontracted to a paintless repair shop but was later
repainted due to an "error" in the repair shop. The fenders, fuel door,
cowling, headlight covers, tops of doors, front bumper cover were all
repaired traditionally. The largest single dent was a whopper right in front
of the passenger side windshield wiper. The work was extremely well done and
has a lifetime warranty. I do wonder "who's lifetime?" I did have to return
to the shop once to have the hood alignment corrected.



"Grant Edwards" > wrote in message
. ..
My 2003 Shinsen got pummelled by golfball+ sized hail on
Saturday and it's pretty dented up. Obviously the hood and
trunk lid took the brunt of the damange, but there are pretty
good sized dents in all of the fenders and the tops of the
doors. To get an idea of the density of the damage, There are
two good sized dents on the gas filler lid. There are even
dents in the "forhead" panel above the windsheild, and the
paint is visibly cracked in a couple spots. The windshield
also has a 3ft crack, but that's not what I'm worried about at
this point.

[It's a rather sickening feeling to stand 15 feet away from your
car and watch hail like that beat down on it for 10 minutes.]

Assuming the adjuster doesn't declare it totalled, should I get
it "fixed" or just take the check, buy another Miata and sell
the dimpled one to somebody who wants to practice body-work?

I've heard some unhappy stories about replacement hoods and
trunk lids and about peeling paint after dent removal.

Anybody had badly hail-damaged Miata repaired?

--
Grant Edwards grante Yow! I hope the
at ``Eurythmics'' practice
visi.com birth control ...

My dad told me a good hail story today.

There's a guy across the street from him that has a bunch of old Lincoln
Continentals. When our hailstorm arrived a couple weeks back it caught him
with one car in the driveway, usually stored a mile or so away where he
rents space. His garage of course was filled with others.

He intended to beat the storm to storage but didn't make it. So he pulled
over and sprawled across the hood and protected it, gaining numerous bruises
and welts from the hail. Apparently among all the sheet metal, the hood is
"unobtainium" today.

miker

"miker" > wrote:

> He intended to beat the storm to storage but didn't make it. So he
> pulled over and sprawled across the hood and protected it, gaining
> numerous bruises and welts from the hail. Apparently among all the
> sheet metal, the hood is "unobtainium" today.

Of course, why is that unusual? Most people know the body will heal
but repairs to vehicles cost money, that's why I threw myself under one
of my motorcycles when it fell over in the carport, it's just normal
thriftyness.





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