Hail storm damage

[Graybags]

I hope everyone here survived unscathed from the freaky weather lately. We were trapped in Brunswick out in the open when they hit. Our car with 400km on the dial has hail damage mostly on the roof. Now have to work out if it is worth an insurance claim. But considering what others have been through were lucky.

[K1W1]

Often cars are written off as a result of hail damage.

Our S3 copped it in the city somewhere, broken windscreen and dents on every panel. All the neighbours cars parked in the open have roof damage ant least and I know of one other friend whose windscreen was smashed so I suspect that she will have quite a bit of panel damage.

[BeigeJet]

I hope everyone here survived unscathed from the freaky weather lately. We were trapped in Brunswick out in the open when they hit. Our car with 400km on the dial has hail damage mostly on the roof. Now have to work out if it is worth an insurance claim. But considering what others have been through were lucky.

Graybags,

You should see to damage here in Rowville. We were at eldest daughters when it hit. The Jetta is unscathed and so is Camry but the old Falcon is not too flash. Now has the aerodynamics of a golf ball. Oh and needs a new front windscreen and a LHD indicator.

Our house roof has about forty cracked tiles. We were lucky. We are the only house in the court (out of 22) that does not have broken house windows. There are a least 35 cars damaged in our court alone. Some where the hailstones have gone completely through.

A neighbour showed me one of the hailsones they put in their freezer. It is bigger than tennis ball.
The garden is completely stripped and I have about 5 cubic metres of leaves and branches to get rid of. I've replaced 11 broken pots and hanging baskets along with two watering cans and garden hose hanger. Even the down pipes and external heater have dents in them.

The wife's friends sister has to replace 15 solar panels on her roof.

Anyway I've finished my 2nd morning coffee and going back outside to continue cleaning up and 'trying to stop' the leaks in the tiles before anymor rain.

keep your chin up chin with your car,

see ya,

Neil

[bobski]

Sorry to hear that

My mate is in moonee ponds and his 2 year old subaru impreza now has cellulite

[Graybags]

That's terrible about the damage. I feel sorry for any animals that were outside and couldn't find shelter. On close inspection our car roof only has five dents but most are barely noticeable. The roof on the Octavia is very flimsy and might have helped by giving a little.

[seangti]

car damage sounds a bit irrelevant to some of the other damage that the storms has caused you melbournians. Phenominal power by the sound of it.

Chin up.

[Mk6 Golf]

Another sad story here as well...

See also http://www.vwwatercooled.org.au/newf...ad.php?t=42002

[VRS-Vic]

I work for a car insurance company and we have been absolutely smashed with calls from people's cars which were damaged in the hail storm. We've been working overtime and we have extended our hours to compensate for all the calls. Most of them will be written off , especially if they have damage to the roof.

[Tezzwokka]

My daughter-in-law's car suffered hail damage, just 6 days after picking it up. She was philosophic about it after all the trials and tribulations getting it.

Anyway, got it assessed today and its repairable - still about $15k damage though, and must be close to write-off. Its being done by a company that specialises in hail damage who reckon they will make it as good as new.

[bobski]

Anyway, got it assessed today and its repairable - still about $15k damage though, and must be close to write-off. Its being done by a company that specialises in hail damage who reckon they will make it as good as new.

Yeah my melbournian friend is waiting on his claim to be looked at. He is concerned it won't be a write off (Esp because it's agreed value is much more than it's worth to fix it). I did encourage him to try to find someone with a good rep and not who the insurance wants). My thinking is that if they take all the panels off and don't know what they are doing, he'll end up wih a very loose feeling, ratty car. With so much business on their hands, I can see Manu shortcuts being taken and unskilled hands used to do the shortcutting.

Intersted in anyones opinion if they've been there done that though...

[K1W1]

They don't usually take panels off for hail damage.
If the car is repairable it's done by special machines (I believe that there are three in Melbourne) that just suck the dent back out, no painting, no replacement of panels and supposedly a perfect result. I don't know how the machines in Australia work but a friend in the US tells me their machines use Freon gas to freeze the area around the dent then super hot steam to instantly heat it to cause the panel to pop back into it's original shape.

[bobski]

They don't usually take panels off for hail damage.

Well thats a relief I suppose. However, 3 machines and many thousands of damaged cars... Could be a long wait!

[gerhard]

Both my cars are being repaired by the paintless method.

The Jackaroo has bigger dents then the GTI, the bonnet of which has hundreds of small dents.

I quizzed the repairer guys several times about the GTI bonnet especially, but they seemed overwhelmingly confident in their technology.

I'll know by the end of April, if it's a perfect result. There's a lifetime warranty on the repairs, so I'll be keeping a keen eye out for missed marks and "relapses".

I'm very interested in how they achieve the repair, my rudimentary understanding of sheet metal is that to achieve a dent, it must stretch, and it gains a new "memory". Therefore to reverse the dent, the stretch must be reversed and the memory reset to original values.

[Transporter]

Both my cars are being repaired by the paintless method.

The Jackaroo has bigger dents then the GTI, the bonnet of which has hundreds of small dents.

I quizzed the repairer guys several times about the GTI bonnet especially, but they seemed overwhelmingly confident in their technology.

I'll know by the end of April, if it's a perfect result. There's a lifetime warranty on the repairs, so I'll be keeping a keen eye out for missed marks and "relapses".
I'm very interested in how they achieve the repair, my rudimentary understanding of sheet metal is that to achieve a dent, it must stretch, and it gains a new "memory". Therefore to reverse the dent, the stretch must be reversed and the memory reset to original values.

Just make sure that they can't say "oh sorry sir, that's a new damage".

[gerhard]

Just make sure that they can't say "oh sorry sir, that's a new damage".

Yes, for sure on that point.

Hail damage is apparently easy for them to spot vs say damage from a stone or car park dent.

As a matter of interest, the assessors were right on the ball for damage patterns relative to vehicle location. They hadn't repaired a single Rowville/Lysterfield vehicle, whereas my cars were in North Dandenong and Wheelers Hill.

Dandenong had endless marble sized hailstones with the odd one a bit bigger, Wheelers Hill had bigger stones but not so many, resulting in fewer but bigger dents.

Rowville/Lysterfield had monsters, many with spikes, looking like the ball of a mace.