Hail Damage on wife's DD - how do they repair it?

[dave 911]

My wife's car sustained a lot of hail damage from a storm that came through here last Tuesday - all over the top, the hood, and the upper surfaces of doors and rear quarter panels. Bummer.

I've started the claim process with USAA, but I'm curious as to how this type of damage is repaired. Do they use paintless-dent-repair techniques, or do they have to do traditional body-work & repaint? I bet there are over 50 small dents all over the car.

[creaturecat]

bondo, me thinks.

[Hard-Deck]

I think PDR process

[motion]

They'll try to cheap out and do PDR, but from what I understand, this can lead to paint problems down the road. Insist on traditional panel repair and repaint.

[pcarhiway]

I was caught in a nasty hail storm one afternoon in Denver. Paintless dent repair technician tallied up 420 dents on the roof, hood, trunk and door panels. He worked on it for a solid week. It all came out fine. The color was a dark metallic blue, it would have shown up badly if the PDR had not worked well. The body shop's comment is the car would have been totalled if PDR had not been used.

[stomachmonkey]

PDR, had it done on my DD Mazda3. Looks great, you'd never know the car had any damage.

I personally think it's easier to get a good result from PDR than repaint.

The nature of the process allows for it to be worked until it's right. Get paint wrong and it's harder to fix.

[porsche4life]

Yup, PDR.... A friend of mine is very very good at it, and I took one car to him that was dark green and 150+ dents in the hood alone. When he got done you couldnt tell it had ever seen jail. PDR is definitely the way to go...

[dave 911]

Originally Posted by motion

They'll try to cheap out and do PDR, but from what I understand, this can lead to paint problems down the road. Insist on traditional panel repair and repaint.

What kind of paint problems down the road? I had some dings taken out of my 911 ~15 years ago, and to this day I think that was the best investment I've made in the car.

Now granted it was a few door dings and such, not the 100's dents we're looking at here. But with a car that's 3 years old, my inclination would be to not want a repaint considering the factory paint is in great condition.

[motion]

No first hand experience.... I've just heard of paint stretching and fading over time. I had 2 trucks totaled by hail a couple years ago and did my research. Decided against PDR.

[Steve Carlton]

The quality of the PDR depends on the skill of the technician, which can vary a lot. Paint can crack if it's an old car or the ding is big. Being able to get at the ding determines if it can be fixed as well.

[McLovin]

Have her bring those DDs to me, I'll fix em real nice.