The best way to remove hail damage is with paintless dent repair. It is cheaper and faster.
Dent repair has traditionally been done by bodywork experts who remove
the panel and hammer out the ding and then use filler to smooth out the
surface and then they repaint the damaged area to get it as close to the
way it originally was.
This usually costs several hundred dollars per ding and is not really a
good solution for a large amount of damage like that caused by hail or
gravel being spit up on the car. There is another solution and it is
called paintless dent repair. The results are as good or better than
with traditional methods and it comes at a fraction of the cost and
time. It is the perfect solution for hail damage.
Hail is one of the worst offenders to cars. There is no real way to
predict when it will come and when it does there is almost no way to
avoid it. It can break windows and windshields and frequently wreaks
havoc upon the bodywork of vehicles. With traditional dent repair you
would be looking at getting the whole car repainted essentially because
there would be so much and such widespread damage. Taking advantage of
the new paintless technique would save a significant amount of time and
money while preserving the resale value of the car by not altering the
original paint job.
After a hail storm a car can be covered in divots and dings in a way
that is totally unattractive. The results can be seriously disheartening
when you consider what is traditionally done to provide dent repair.
Usually a series of holes are drilled in the damaged area. Then the
metal would be bent out through the holes until it was back to its
original shape. Afterwards the sheet metal would be sanded and grinded
smooth again. Once it was relatively smooth filler would be applied to
the holes, sanded smooth again and then repainted. Unfortunately often
the holes would still be visible through the paint and the paint would
not entirely match. This is because a factory paint job looks phenomenal
and smooth and goes through a number of stages before being completed.
There is no way to replicate this in a body shop and so you undoubtedly
have a section of vehicle that does not match the rest.
With paintless dent repair none of the invasive techniques are
necessary. Instead the panel is removed and a series of rods are applied
to the back. Next the sheet metal is gently hammered back into shape to
massage the dent out. This requires no sanding, painting, or damage to
the structure. In cases of hail damage this is great because you can do a
bunch of areas in one felled swoop. Also because less hours are
necessary and the materials are limited you end up with a far smaller
invoice for what has been done.
