Buying a car that had hail damage?

[stealth]

So I am looking at buying a Mercedes that shows a CarProof claim of $3500 in hail damage repairs all over.

The car is at a good price point.

Just wondering if it is worth buying. Not sure if it was PDR repaired or other methods.

Would you guys consider a car with hail damage in the report?

[ExtraSlow]

Absolutely. Hail damage is such a minor deal. And as long as it's been repaired, you can make a new claim when it inevitably get hit again! Win win.

[redblack]

I'd rather buy a hail damage car than one with a collision.

[Twin_Cam_Turbo]

$3500 in hail is fairly minor and pretty common these days in Alberta. If it's been repaired well then it's worth it I'd say.

[lilmira]

Yeah, that's pretty minor. That's like what, 1-2 days of work may be. I have more issue with paint job and panel replacement.

[Mitsu3000gt]

Personally I wouldn't touch it. It's easy enough to find one with out, and you will have to deal with the same difficulty when you go to sell it down the road.

[revelations]

Personally I wouldn't touch it. It's easy enough to find one with out, and you will have to deal with the same difficulty when you go to sell it down the road.

Not necessarily - OP said it was a good deal compared to others' . Also, most people dont do carproof checks and even less so as the vehicle ages.

[schocker]

Personally I wouldn't touch it. It's easy enough to find one with out, and you will have to deal with the same difficulty when you go to sell it down the road.
$3500 is small beans though for hail, at that price, probably just some PDR. My TSX had $15k in hail repairs and you would have no idea from looking at or driving it that anything was done.

[stealth]

Thanks for the feedback guys.

The dealer confirmed that it was PDR repair that it went through.

[dirtsniffer]

On surprised on how important a no claim history is to some people. $3500 is about as minor as it gets. No concerns.

[ExtraSlow]

DJ Mar would never buy a car with previous hail damage.

[max_boost]

Cosmetic. no problem. would hit it.

[FixedGear]

$3500 is nothing for hail damage, I had $17k damage in the big storm of 2010 or 2011 or whatever.

[schocker]

DJ Mar would never buy a car with previous hail damage.

He would if the general consensus was to not buy it.

[TYMSMNY]

Cosmetic. no problem. would hit it.

It's like saying a girl didn't had acne when she was 15 and she's all damn fine at 20. Would you still hit it. Exactly.

[TomcoPDR]

It's like saying a girl didn't had acne when she was 15 and she's all damn fine at 20. Would you still hit it. Exactly.

Does bolt-on's count as well?

[94boosted]

$3500 is small beans though for hail, at that price, probably just some PDR. My TSX had $15k in hail repairs and you would have no idea from looking at or driving it that anything was done.

If you can tell that a vehicle has had hail damage by driving the car it probably wasn't hail but rather a meteor shower :rofl: JK

Yah as others have said $3.5K for hail is nothing to worry about especially if the price is right.

[zhao]

depends. will you be able to see an issue? probably not. But here is how hail claims work for 3500ish.

for 3500 it was likely all PDR (paintless dent), however, who did it is important. Paintless dent guys get paint for popping out dents, and they can be greedy as fuck. Also, how they pop out a lot of dents are by over pushing them, and then tapping them down, and hiding the dent in the orange peel to not be so obvious. Can I tell? yes, on the big dents I can. Can you tell? maybe, maybe not. Probably not if it was a 'good' pdr tech.

Also, roofs often only get the obvious ones done. I inspected a truck last year after it was done for an insurance claim and probably only 2/3rds of the hail on the roof was done. There was probably about 100 tiny little dents; the guy who PDR'ed it just popped out the bigger stuff.

The PDR tech also gets paid to Remove and install as needed to PDR. He's getting paid a flat fee of $300 to remove everything on the car needed to get access, when a bodyshop would charge over $300 just to drop the headliner to get access to the roof. What this means is you can potentially have the PDR guy firing wedges in to the doors instead of removing the belt mouldings and causing buckles in them. not so obvious to some people, but i've seen hail clinic guys butcher even brand new cars by wedging the top of the door too much to get access. They'll also potentially break one time use items, because it is designed to break, and then glue it. I rarely see parts on a hail clinic's estimate. Pry marks under the hood can be pretty common with the hacks too. I've seen missing paint and bent metal all over under hoods before. $3500 also means that there probably was a lot of hail on the hood and roof as well, but probably nothign on teh sides.

Another problem with PDR is if you have $700-900 to PDR a hood, its worth it right up until you have to paint it, so if they can't do one dent, really that hood should be replaced... but if the hood gets replaced they dont make their 700 or 900 off that panel, so they'll try to push everything and pass everything off as great when it may or may not be.

I'd say be cautious with buying a car with a hail claim, as with any used car. Too many people only look at the mechanical of a car only and ignore obvious evidence the car has been botch/half ass repaired from an accident. last week I got to tell a 18-20 year old girl the 2014 corolla she just bought was in a horrible accident and was repaired horribly. The trunk above the frame rail was all rusty already meaning they did not fix the frame right, and the back end behind the bumper was still crushed in all the way to the center of the floor in the trunk. they basically painted the entire back panel in seam sealer probably to cover up how crumpled that was. nothing fit anywhere also, and there was rust starting everywhere. THe front end was basically the same story. nothing fit up there and the reason I was looking at it was because her entire grille flew off on the highway and a toyota dealership sent her to me to take a look. her headlights were busted and glued together. They also painted it in shitty single stage paint, probably the cheapest stuff they could find, because it was already flat. I told her her 2014 corolla wasn't worth fixing it was so badly repaired.

[dirtsniffer]

My truck got about 5k in hail damage. When I picked it up I asked them to show me the truck with the lights the appraisers use. No dents found.

[J-hop]

My truck got about 5k in hail damage. When I picked it up I asked them to show me the truck with the lights the appraisers use. No dents found.

Yea if you are concerned you could do as DS suggests and ask for or pick up a dent repair lightboard to see if they did a good job but unless you're paying top dollar I'm kind of the mindset that if I can't see it I don't care

[spike98]

As long as it was repaired right, Hail damaged cars are the money maker if you are a buyer. Mechanically sound but a discount for the claim.

[Shlade]

That's a small claim.

I was looking at an srt8 charger a while back and when I was shown the car proof it had 18k in hail damage. It was at the "total loss" phase but to not have it written off insurance settled at $17600 in claims to keep it active.

That and a 6k collision clame made me walk.

[C4S]

Under $10K hail damage claim is nothing ...got hailed 2 year ago I could barely see the hail damage on my car ... and it was $3K ish claim!

Good money to fix hail!