My 1 month old BRZ got hammered with hail yesterday.

[KevinBRZ]

The hood and roof are riddled with dents, probably in the hundreds, and there's some on other parts of the car. It's a mess. Does anyone have experience getting a hail damaged car written off? I know it is different depending on where you live. It will be thousands of dollars to fix this and I don't want crazy amounts of body work done to a new car because it will never be the same and resale value will tank.

[#87]

break your windows and throw water in the interior

But you didn't hear it from me

[go2brz]

+1

You need to try your best to make sure this car is totaled by the insurance company. It will never be the same, especially in the long term if you have all the surfaces repaired and re-painted. No paint job holds up as well as the factory paint. I have rebuilt and painted several vintage sports cars for concours shows, and the I can assure you that even the best repaint is not nearly as good as the original factory paint that was electro-melded to your car in a dip during assembly.

[executivekoala]

get totaled, buy it back........fulll carbon......

[SliverBrz]

paintless dent removal, lol hes going to charge thousands and will probably quit his job after your car

[Euro]

Happened to me with my Mini here in Germany, almost $4000 in repairs. Good news was that my insurance covered it, and I even got a rental car while it was in the shop. Hope you're as lucky. (Maybe because I'm American I didn't expect the insurance to cover it, but I was at the dealer for something else and he told me it was covered.)

But they didn't have to re-paint, they have specialists for hail damage here. It didn't see it done, but I'm guessing suction. Anyway, looks perfect, you'd never know anything happened.

[jeffchap]

I had a Honda Fit that got totaled in a hailstorm in April. The insurance money is what I used to buy my FR-S. The insurance company originally deemed it repairable (they had their own adjuster), but they wanted to do paintless dent repair on most of it. Once I got it into the shop, they said several places couldn't be done properly with PDR, so they filed a supplemental claim that pushed it over the limit. So if you can find a bodyshop that will work with you, they can help you to get it totaled if that's what you want. The insurance company's initial estimate is always going to be low, hoping that you'll just take it and go away. They know that the true cost of repair may be more. My Fit ended up with $9000 damage. But after being totaled, they paid me $14,400 for it. Not bad for a car I drove for 3 1/2 years and only paid $16,700 for brand new.

Good luck to you!

[KevinBRZ]

Thanks everyone for the insight. The local PDR guy here says that the aluminum hood might not be doable if it's too bad and I don't want a replacement hood with crappy paint. The hail we got were tiny so I have so many small dents it might not be worth it for them to fix the pieces.

I noticed Seibon has dry carbon parts so I might go that route since the insurance company will take the cheapest route. I'm just a bit iffy on replacing the roof though.

[TurboBrett]

I had $10K in repairs done to my legacy from hail (even cracked the windshield) and they had to do a mix of PDR and replacement.
The insurance adjusters original guesstimate was 5K, just under the amount they can give you a check for right on the spot - felt like a scam to get me to not have it fixed properly.
PM me if you have any questions and good luck.

[sbxjap]

Originally Posted by go2brz

+1

You need to try your best to make sure this car is totaled by the insurance company. It will never be the same, especially in the long term if you have all the surfaces repaired and re-painted. No paint job holds up as well as the factory paint. I have rebuilt and painted several vintage sports cars for concours shows, and the I can assure you that even the best repaint is not nearly as good as the original factory paint that was electro-melded to your car in a dip during assembly.

I work at a body shop.... Totally agree. Even if the paint looks better than factory at first, it doesn't last as long as factory.

Paintless dent removal we use would charge a lot for hundreds of dents....

[go2brz]

Good luck to you. Keep fighting until the bitter end.

[Pvt AJ]

I had major hail damage done on mine to the value of $7000AUD and the car was not totaled. with that in mind the bonnet will be replaced if the damage is enough because paintless dent removal cannot do aluminum. the roof should be ok depending on if there is scratches or not and same goes for the trunk. All the side panels should generally be ok for paintless dent removal but it will take time. Mine took about 9 days in the repair shop once they got the bonnet from toyota. good luck with it and if you do get it repaired look for a really good paintless dent revivalists which is not always the cheapest

[kuhlka]

Looks like Toyobaru cheaped out on the sheet metal this time. My 05 STI has been through multiple hail storms, some of it the size of golf balls and I don't have a single dent. I'll keep this in mind for the BRZ.

[King Tut]

1. Please don't recommend insurance fraud on this forum.
2. An OEM hood painted by a professional body shop will be better than the hood your car came from the factory with.
3. The whole idea of this car is light weight, that means that the roof, hood, and fenders use thiner lighter weight metals.

Call your insurance, get the car fixed, return to driving it and loving it. There is no way the car will be totaled, and your "new" car was never the same the day you drove it off the lot.