Hail is Fail.

[dmention7]

Drove up to my dad's place in Lino Lakes for a Memorial Day barbeque this afternoon. This is what blew through right as we were sitting down to eat:



And yep, my car was out on the street After everything calmed down we went out to inspect the damage




Hard to see anything on the crappy cellphone pics, but my hood, roof, and trunklid are pretty thoroughly dented




My car actually escaped pretty well compared to the other 4 cars in the driveway... they all had cracked windshields and some even worse dents than me.

I'm keeping positive and hoping that the insurance payment will cover a CF hood and maybe even a wingless trunklid to round things out. Blargh...

 

[ij1889]

man tha really sucks, im so sorry to see that, hope you get everything fixed, if not you can always upgrade to a rx8

 

[AJ]

Damn Jay, that sucks. Hope it works out in your favor somehow.

 

[2BAR4WS]

The only real damage to worry about is the roof. Thats the only part that can't be replaced with aftermarket goodies (Paid for with lovely insurance money )

 

[LASERBLUE135]

Oh poor blue, that makes me tear up a little...good luck with the fixin', this is such bad luck. That hail is huge though.

 

[mazdamn02]

Suck

 

[Slim]

My parents live in Lino as well. They were out of town though thankfully. Too bad about the hail damage, but at least everyone's ok.

 

[WhiteSpy9]

Do you have to pay your deductible for that?

 

[dmention7]

Yeah. But my comp. is only $250, so it's all good.

 

[spek1098]

Suxs, but my buddy at the bodyshop would be jellous, he's always hoping for hail, he says he gets it done on the cheap, and would walk away with a wad in his pocket.

 

[dmention7]

Well, if anyone has suggestions on where to go, I'd take them. Probably not going to be looking at a straight up replace/repair, but more than likely there will be aftermarket bits involved....

 

[mndsm]

Westside Collision in Eden Prairie. If anyone can fix it, they can. Best paint matching i've ever seen too.

 

[Z-licious]

dentkraftpdr.com

best pdr around. They don't do paint though, so you're going to have a find another place for that if you need it.

 

[dmention7]

Well, my adjuster wrote up an estimate yesterday. In a nutshell, here's what it calls for:

-Complete replacement of hood, roof panel, and trunklid
-Repair/repaint the majority of the passenger side body panels (with necessary blending of fenders/qtr panels)
-PDR for miscellaneous dents on the driver side
-Replacement of various other small items (side mirror, some plastic trim, etc)

Right now what I'm leaning towards is definitely replacing the roof panel and trunklid (I won't have them drill holes for the wing or any badges though). I'm inclined to go with a CF hood (possibly with the sides painted body color and the middle left bare) since that will cost roughly the same or less than a fully-painted OEM hood.

Where I'm a little torn is how to proceed with the passenger side. I'm a bit nervous about having that much bondo and paintwork done on the side of my car and if I could get 95% of the repair quality at a lower cost through PDR, I might go that route.

Of course the other option is just to dump the check into paying down the loan (and/or building the motor) and resign myself to driving a golfball. Honestly, that option would pain me since I take a fair amount of pride in the way my cars are maintained. But dumping the check into the loan would put me that much closer to being able to get a new car... which I don't especially want, since I really like the car.

 

[JustROLLIN]

Cant you work on some sort of combination of the two? For example, take the money for the repairs and you do your own trunk and hood replacement. Then go to a body shop and have them handle the majority of the body work? I would think there would still be money left over to pay off part of the loan then.

 

[dmention7]

I could do the hood no problem. Trunklid would still need to be painted unless I went with the carbon fiber piece, which I'm iffy about leaving bare...

But likely yeah, I'd do the repairs kind of piecemeal especially if I could get a hookup on the PDR.

 

[Workdawg]

Get your CF bits, get things fixed, paint the CF later. Maybe the CF would look good and you'll decide not to paint it.

 

[spek1098]

Yea, honestly, I don't see the point of CF if your just going to paint it. Unless your getting serious about weight savings, I'd go with the cheapest body panels (weather CF or Steel) if you are going to paint it.

 

[Slim]

My brother has had his 6 worked on twice for body damage. He went to a family acquaintance who owns Hamline Auto Body off of 280 & Broadway. Newer building right next to 280.

They did great work and when he wasn't happy about the fitment of the rear bumper they fixed it when he raised a concern. You can pm him about it if you want he's MN6.

As far a bondo, I would think you can ask around and find out what methods a shop will use to repair hail damage, especially if PDR is not an option for the size of dent.

 

[ZoomZoom Diva]

Cant you work on some sort of combination of the two? For example, take the money for the repairs and you do your own trunk and hood replacement. Then go to a body shop and have them handle the majority of the body work? I would think there would still be money left over to pay off part of the loan then.

Not to mention time value of money. Throw the check into an interest-bearing account and collect interest as you determine the parts and items you want or until the credit card bill comes due (float is a win for you). The interest money could then go to the car loan or to offset additional part costs.