Hi all,

Just after rough ideas if anyone has been through anything similiar before I go chasing joints or the insurance company for anything...

After the storms and hail in canberra last week my beast is sadly looking like a golf ball....its covered in small (5c coin size) dints.....all are very small and not too deep so id image can be sucked back out with the right suction cup from a panel beater.... and the car is smothered in em...so just wondering if anyones been through something similiar what sorta costs i'd have too look at.. Definently wont have her in the Summernats now ...

Bummer man.

I went through the same thing a year ago with my perfectly straight silver Camry. (Note - don't listen to your wife when she wants to go visiting family before a storm.)

It ended up with the same sort of damage you described. I had it insured so I only had to pay the excess (still $500 - expensive bloody 20min visit to my sisters house )

They sucked all the dings out and you would never know it had been damaged. I think the panel beater sent the car out Penrith way to have it done by a specialist.

I also had a windscreen replaced which to this day now causes a squeak near the passenger side. After pointing it out to them they said it was the moulding that had warped with age (yeah, right all of 4 years old!- pricks.) I gave up in the end and resolved myself to the fact the most panel beaters have no f*cking idea these days...

Well had 2 quotes over the phone so far....both being in the thousands...a reputible bloke who I know has done a few nats cars says he did a tarago quote yesterday for the same damage as mine and was 3K for the roof alone.....

too bad your not in Perth Yet, Gopt a mate here does paintless dent reapirs and if your throw in a carton or two he normally charges 50 bucks a panel cash.

but most paintless guys will go for about 120-180 panel.

Hey Big Kev first q is the car insured if so who with
2nd if you can wait until I am back at work on monday I can get you a number of a good paintless dent guy in your area
In hail times insurance companies work on light heavy & medium for eg
roof $600 heavy $500 medium & $400 light
bonnet 500 400 300
boot lid 400 300 200
and depending how many on the side panels as to what they charge for them
most paintless guys charge around 80 trade per dent but when talking hail they will charge per panel

If it was a big storm and the insurance companies have a lot to deal with many/most cars under 10k value will be written off with damage to all panels. When I was with Suncorp/GIO any car with an insured value of 10k or less would get no windscreens replaced or emergency repairs as they were being written off straight away. It was better for the company to write them off than to have customers waiting 6 months to a year for repairs to happen.

Also you need to consider that insurance wont do repairs that are greater than around 2/3's the insured value. Basically if it is a box car or an EF/L it would get written off, unless the damage was fairly light.

cheers
Scott

Which car is it Kev? Sounds like you may solved ur car problem... As Macgyver said, insurance companies don't usually bother with repairs for badly hail-damaged cars worth under $10,000.

My car has light hail dents in it, happened 3 years ago, havn't got it fixed yet waiting for something better to happen

can u buy another car the same and swap the engine, interior and all the s**t? it would probably be easier

This is why I asked if so which insurance company because not all insurance companies are like the one mentioned.I recently quoted on a 96 vw polo worth 4500-5000 and my quote was 4600 the insurance company then got a paintless quote for 3200 plus some conventional repairs and want the car repaired.The week before christmas I had a call from an owner of a car smashed real hard in the front {smashed the auto in a small suv}and I had the owner on the phone the ins co was going to repair the car worth 26000 because the owner wanted 29000 because of extras my quote was 20000 in parts alone no labour and no unseen damage
Unfortunatly for us MacGyver not all insurance companies are as good to deal with as the one you used to work for now days they save money which means not writing off everything even it only means they save 500





By the sounds of it Kev it is only light so easy fix if insured or not

Sorry guys the reply was slow...car is the EF XR6....the XR8 is fine.....thank god as its uninsured...

The XR6 however has a 25K policy with Shannons so shouldnt be too bad.

I pay $500 in excess the extra $400 age excess doesnt apply im told as age/inexperience had nothing to do with this.

So far ive had two quotes one at $4K the other was $4.5K but is now over $5K as small hail dents are over the fibreglass front bumber....

Turns out hes my best mates sisters ex lol....they split on good terms thankfully so hes gonna do something special for me....probably end up with me payig a couple grand and getting the paint job ive been hanging for done...so will see...

thanks for everyones input