Repairs to hail damage

[nicandlance]

Not totally sure if I'm in the right section here, but my 1 month old Golf 118 tsi was damaged during the recent hailstorm in Melbourne.
I am hoping that someone can steer me towards a reputable repairer - someone I can totally trust with my battered baby .....

It has damage to about 7 panels (in varying degrees) with the roof and bonnet being worst hit. (and smashed windscreen which was supposed to be replaced today...)

I am in Rowville and needing someone I can trust to bring my car back to what it was before Saturdays nightmare.

I'd really prefer it to be written off (as AAMI love to advertise that they will replace the car if written off within the first 2 years), but I'm being told that this probably won't happen.....
Someone help!!!!

[tooch]

Did it get water inside the car? If a fair bit of water got into it, it would probably be written off as connectors and PCB's and things tend to corrode over time after water exposure.

[gavs]

If any of the following, the car should be written off:

A pillars
B Pillars
roof seams
seam above windscreen

These are all areas that cannot actuall be repaired without substantial body work, generally most "panel beaters" (I use that term very loosly) will do what they normally do and fill the dents with bog.

There is a guy we use at work who charges $50 per dent for paintless dent removal if that gives you an idea of cost...

[silvershadow]

Some experience from the past - who else remembers the the dramatic increase in the number of vehicles with vinyl roofs on the road after the hail storms of the 1970/1980 decades?

We had a similar storm in Sydney back in the mid 1980's when a huge number of cars in western Sydney were hail damaged including a large number of undelivered new cars stored in the open by importers and local car makers. As a consquence of this storm, car distributors and car yards were required to store their vehicles under suitable cover if they wanted insurance coverage. The later 1999 storm with hail as big as tennis balls that hit the eastern suburbs resulted in similar levels of claims for registered vehicles but limited claims for new/used vehicles in storage or in caryards. It is timely to review what happened after these storms to help you negotiate with your insurers:

1. The market value of ALL hail damaged cars that had been repaired was sustantially less than that of an equivalent undamaged car - no matter how well the cars were repaired, used car valuers were able to easily identify hail-damaged cars and mark-down their valuation. This mark-down must be included as part of the claim cost alongside the actual cost of the repairs - I suggest you engage an independent assessor to assess your vehicle with instructions to appraise the market value of the vehicle as a repaired "hail-damaged" vehicle. The reason for this is to increase the claim cost to a level which will force the insurance company to "write-off" the vehicle thus invoking the "replacement new vehicle clause".
The independent assessors report will be of great benefit especially if you subsequently lodge a compensation claim if you do not receive fair treatment from your insurer. The independent assessor will include work and repair techniques which will not be included by the insurance company's assessor [this practice is to ensure the cost used by the insurer to negotiate with the repairer is less than what the job should cost if undertaken in accordance with best industry practice]

2. Some buyers of second-hand cars with hail damage repairs encountered problems in receiving full compensation when these vehicles were involved in accidents later in their life and had to be repaired - certain insurance companies took a very hard line and reduced the payouts on the basis that:

• pre-existing damage also had to be repaired during the subsequent repair
• that the pre-existing damage contributed to increasing the extent of damage in the subsequent accident
• that the owner had not disclosed past damage under their duty of disclosure

The owner was then made liable for the insurer's assessment of these costs.

I hope you are able to get a fair and reasonable outcome from your insurer.

[Preen59]

Silver Shadow, thanks for that info. Clear and very well structured. I don't need to make a claim but it's very good to know.