Cars damaged in hailstorms are tempting to buy, as they often come with deep discounts. Plus, hail damage tends to be superficial, affecting only the body panels and glass, leaving the vehicle’s key functions intact. If you just need a way to get to work every day, a dimpled roof, trunk and hood may not matter. Before you seek out hail damaged cars for sale, though, you should take the following risks and drawbacks into account.
Why Dealerships Sell Hail-Damaged Cars
This is a great place to search for a new car. Dealers opt for fixing any damage they can. Fixing the damage helps the car find a new home. Paintless Dent Repair (PDR) specialists often fix hail damage at wholesale rates for dealers. Sometimes the figure to buy a car the salespeople may give you can be exaggeratedly low since they want you to buy the vehicle. This number should tip you off as to how bad the damage really is. Make repairing the car a condition to buying it. This is generally a good idea. Dealers may have a PDR specialist on site to make the repairs but these specialists don’t always have the necessary experience to fix dozens of hail dents.
Does it come with a Warranty
A warranty or money back guarantee should be given. If there is no warranty it may suggest the damage is worse than it looks. Additionally if you get a vehicle with a salvage title be sure that is has a “hail” designation to distinguish it from more severe damage such as floods or accidents.
What’s the Likely Resale Value
Resale value will be impacted if you buy a hail-damaged car. Buying a low cost damaged car initially may cost you the same as buying an undamaged new car. Make sure lenders cover hail-damaged cars if you plan to finance your purchase.
Inspect the car carefully before making a purchase. Taking care to avoid unwanted surprises. Get a background check to look for undisclosed damage as well. Sometimes a car may be already repaired before you see it, hiding the extend of the original damage. Using the vehicle identification number, plug it into Carfax, AutoCheck or similar site.
How Will Affect Your Insurance
Ask your insurance agent if the hail damage puts your comprehensive insurance at risk. If you don’t have the initial damage repaired, you won’t get the future damages covered or your insurance my deduct the damage from any claims. For example, you have a fender bender. It results in a $1000 claim, you might only receive $500 if you have $1500 in unreported damage.
Before Buying, Ask Yourself…
Never drop hard-earned money for a hail-damaged car before asking yourself: Who does this benefit the most, the dealer or you? Once a dealership suffers a hailstorm they have little or no choice but to sell their inventory at deeply reduced rates. Now you’re in a position to haggle more than ever. By the same token, could you sell that damaged car to someone in the future? Try to see through sales techniques to get the real value of the car.
A Good Option for Your First Car
For your first car, a hail-damaged one may be a good option. Basic transportation, students, folks who don’t drive much and tight budgets might benefit from hail sales.
Whats the Actual Cost of Fixing The Car
The average cost to repair hail-damage to a car is $2500. This cost can vary widely from shop to shop. Take the car to an independent shop for an estimate before you purchase. But remember, with every dealership discount there is usually a trade off. And that trade is…dealers are able to get their inventory repaired cheap because they have so many cars to repair. Often times it’s around 1/4 of the actual repair cost. And when you have someone who is repairing cars for 1/4 of the normal repair cost you will get a job that it reflects.
Summary
You can never do to much research when buying a hail-damaged car whether is new or used. If you don’t fix it you’ll probably always be upside down in it. Never sign on the dotted line before you thoroughly inspect it yourself and maybe by another PDR expert. An expert will spot missed dents. Check for “broken paint” along the edges. How they will repair the paint? Will they use a traditional body-shop or a “paint touch up vendor”? The difference is huge. So leave no stone turned. Your due diligence is mandatory.
We are here to meet all your PDR needs here in Texarkana. Let’s answer a few questions you may have:
What is PDR?
PDR, or Paintless Dent Removal, is a procedure in which a technician removes dents, dings, and creases from a body panel by gently massaging the damaged area back into its original shape. This process requires specialized tools and training and should be left to certified individuals.
Is PDR covered by my insurance?
Absolutely! In fact, this method is often the preferred repair route for dents, dings, and creases in most cases.
What are some of the benefits of PDR?
There are many benefits to PDR, but by far, the greatest benefits are its low cost and quick repair turnaround. Because PDR is not as invasive as traditional repairs, it’s cheaper to do it; most repairs will cost you less than your insurance deductible. Likewise, it’s much faster to do, with most repairs taking a couple of hours to complete.
Does PDR damage the paint on my car?
NO! PDR is the only method of repairing dents on your car without damaging the factory paint on your vehicle.
Can you perform PDR on aluminum body panels?
Absolutely! Although PDR on aluminum requires more skill and further specialized tools, a good PDR technician will perform repairs on aluminum panels without any problem.
How do I find a good quality PDR technician in my area?
One way is to look for a NAPDRT member technician. NAPDRT is a not-for-profit organization that is at the forefront of setting nationally accepted standards for our industry. NAPDRT technicians agree to a set of standards and are bound by a CSI (Consumer Satisfaction Index ). In addition, many NAPDRT members are Vale National Certified. This is the only nationally recognized independent certification available to PDR technicians.
Can all dents be fixed?
No. The most important factors in determining whether or not PDR can repair a dent are depth and location. Dents the size of a dinner plate or larger can be fixed successfully as long as they are not too deep. On the other hand, some dents that are as small as a dime but very deep cannot be fixed using PDR because the metal is too stretched. Cracked paint can also be an indication that a dent is too deep. The best case is not to assume yes or no, and swing by for an estimate.
The most common dents fixed are the size of a golf ball and under. Most (about 95%) minor dents can be repaired. About 5% of minor dents can’t be fixed due to depth or location. Areas such as some quarter panel opening lips, some forward areas of heavily braced hoods, or the very edges of some panels are examples of bad locations.
If you have questions we didn’t answer here, door dings, dents, creases, or damage to your vehicle, please reach out to us at the shop. We would love to help clear anything up and understand how you want to proceed with your car’s repair. We are here to make your repair easy, seamless, and we are here to help. We want to get you back on the road with a car restored to its factory condition. Please give us a call or stop by the shop to estimate the damage. We want to explain the dent removal process to make things seamless and easy and get you back on the road and cruising. Call Us Today at 903-280-8190 or fill out our contact form here!
Carfax is a useful tool for buying a used car, but will it show up if I use Paintless Dent Removal to repair my car? The quick answer is maybe. Read on, we will explain.
First, How does Carfax work and protect me? A Carfax report is your window into a vehicle past! CarFax gets its data from insurance companies, the DMVs, and even the police to tell you about a car’s background. They piece together a history on nearly every car out there, whether you want them to or not! Their data-gathering team in Virginia adds about 3.5 million records a day, with a compiled total of about 15 billion records. (That’s a lot of data!)
Second, When you go to a Paintless Dent Repair shop, we are NOT required to turn in any repair information to CARFAX.
CARFAX is great because, in extreme cases, it can save you from buying a lemon, something that was in an extreme accident, or just a tiny one to the car collector. It is important to know. We have even seen cars that have been involved in crime sprees, and it can show up on the report.
Here are some of the things you SHOULD see on a CARFAX.
Odometer readings and repair history
Number of past owners
Any accidents reported by DMVs, insurance companies, or police departments
Whether the car’s a lemon or been salvaged or junked
Whether a car was ever used as a fleet vehicle, autos used by businesses and often subject to lots of abuse
Lien and repossession history
Emission inspection statuses
Manufacturer recalls and buybacks
When does paintless dent removal show up on a carfax? Usually, we see this happen with hail damage or a large dent that you go through your insurance to repair. We are not mandated reporters, meaning there is no law to tell or report any damage to Carfax. The beauty of Paintless Dent Removal is that there really is no trace of repair or damage since the paint is intact, and we are just manipulating the metal back to its original shape.
You can fight hail damage repair on a CARFAX because, as of 2021, we haven’t seen the category of “Hail Damage or PDR” on a report. Usually, it is reported as structural damage on the report. This is why it’s important to pull and watch your CARFAX, so you can file a grievance if this does happen to you.
If you have questions about CARFAX Reports, door dings, dents, or damage to your vehicle, please reach out to us at the shop. We would love to help clear anything up and understand how you want to proceed with your car’s repair. We are here to make your repair easy, seamless, and we are here to help. We want to get you back on the road with a car restored to its factory condition. Please give us a call or stop by the shop to estimate the damage. We want to explain the dent removal process to make things seamless and easy and get you back on the road and cruising. Call Us Today at 903-280-8190 or fill out our contact form here!
Paintless Dent Removal or PDR is the art of manipulating metal back into its shape before the damage happened. We use metal tools, hammers, and specialized pulling tools to get the metal back to the original factory shape. Texarkana Dent Repair is your one-stop-shop for PDR.
Common accidents, like door dings, tools falling on a car, dents caused by deer hitting the car, the garage door closing on a roof, all of these things can be fixed with paintless dent removal if there are a couple of factors.
Paint. The paint is still intact. Some tiny paint scratches and cracks can be worked with, but most of the time, the paint needs to be intact, so when we do pull or push on the dent, the paint does not come off and is continued to be damaged. Please swing by or send us some photos to get our professional opinion if this is a questionable situation with your vehicle.
Access. We can repair MOST areas of vehicles, but some areas can not be repaired. Usually, we can get behind that metal and push/massage the dent out from the back to get it back to factory form.
PDR is superior for multiple reasons.
Keeping factory paint. When you use paintless dent removal instead of a body shop, you can keep your factory paint. While there are great traditional body shops, no one can recreate the paint and color that come off the factory floor. Paint can devalue your vehicle and make it less desirable for resale.
No Carfax Report. We all look at a CARFAX when we buy a used car, and PDR is not usually on the report if you don’t use your insurance. We are not mandated reporters of accidents.
No Filler Bondo. We can fix your car with no fillers, or Bondo, which can ultimately fail and requires weeks in a body shop and new paint.
Quick turn around– Instead of weeks in a traditional body shop, we can usually get your car repaired in a day or two instead of weeks. This saves you money on filing a claim with your insurance, renting a car, and inconveniencing when you need to get your car worked on. Sometimes you can sit and wait while we repair your vehicle in our shop, or at your home or work! Talk about making your life easy, and we are all about it.
If you have questions about door dings, dents, or damage to your vehicle, please reach out to us at the shop. We would love to help clear anything up and understand how you want to proceed with your car’s repair. We are here to make your repair easy, seamless, and we are here to help. We want to get you back on the road with a car restored to its factory condition. Please give us a call or stop by the shop to estimate the damage. We want to explain the dent removal process to make things seamless and easy and get you back on the road and cruising. Call Us Today at 903-280-8190 or fill out our contact form here!
What is Paintless Dent Repair (PDR), why you need it & how do you get it?
Texarkana Paintless Dent Repair (PDR) can remove a variety of dents from any body panel. This is done by manipulating or massaging the dents from the backside. We do this by using different tools ranging from oddly shaped rods to hot glue tabs. Anything from the most extreme to the smallest of dents including hail damage can be repaired. Traditional dent repair fills in auto body dents with paint or body filler. In today’s world manufactures are making exterior body panels thinner and thinner. Thus making it easier to put dents and dings in our vehicles. In most cases we’ll never know how they got there. Shopping carts, kids or a weekend trip to the mall is all it takes. When life happens you will want the best dent removal possible.
Why would you need PDR Services?
The fastest and most affordable way for repairing dents & dings is Paintless Dent Repair. It will restore your vehicle to it’s like new condition. Furthermore repairs are typically done at your location for no extra cost. However, based on size, location and severity of the dents repair times may vary. Dent repair is no longer limited to only cars. For instance, we have repaired boats, lamps, planes for Cessna, semi-trucks, trailers, refrigerator doors etc. If we can get a tool to it and leverage on it, its probably removable.
So how do you get Texarkana PDR services?
PDR has never been easier to take advantage of. In fact, just call Preferred Paintless Services at 903-280-8190 or text us pictures of your damage. Then we’ll arrange to come and provide you a free assessment of your damage. At that time if you decide to make the repair, we’ll make the repair. If your damage is non-repairable using PDR, we will recommend other alternatives.
So what about hail damage removal? Follow these simple steps and you’ll be worry free. First, if you have hail damage, call your Paintless Dent Removal or body shop to explain what happened. Make an appointment for repairs. Next, call your insurance company. At that time explain the arrangements you’ve made with the PDR or body shop. Next, request a rental car reservation. Finally drop your vehicle at the repair shop on your repair date. That’s it! As a result, by following these steps you will save time and frustration. Leave the stress and worry to us.
In conclusion, as long as there are cars, kids, shopping carts, & mother nature there will be dents. We pay a lot for our cars. Don’t let minor dents and dings rob you of that new car feeling. For more info check out some of our other blog articles. You can also find us on Facebook. We regularly post amazing before and after videos there.
Recent Comments