Winter Weather and Vehicle Dents:
What you Should Know
Cold winds, snow and ice can take their toll on your vehicle, which will cause scratches, cracks and scratches. To help you avoid the excessive wear and tear of winter, we break down what often causes your car to malfunction in that season.
Here are some common causes of winter dents:
Hailstorms: If you are taking a trip during your winter vacation, you may end up hitting one of these popcorn sized hailstones, which can do quite a bit of damage to your car body. The roof, hood or trunk of your car are easy targets for all manner of hailstones — from tiny pebbles or giant golf balls. This kind of damage can be prevented by parking your car in a covered area, or even using a car cover before a storm hits.
Slippery Roads : Ice and snow-covered roads are often the cause of fender benders and minor collisions. You can even slip on ice when driving slowly, and hit someone else’s car, curb or other objects. A lot of these small collisions end up causing dents that are purely cosmetic and can certainly make your car look awful.
Ice And Snow Accumulations: Sheets of ice and snow from a variety of outdoor sources, such as trees that hang over driveways or ice forming on the roof or the vehicle. If you need to park your car, do not park near trees; snowplows could knock down dangerous limbs and ice formations.
Busy Parking lots: Winter causes shopping centers to be overpacked, so drivers tend to get as close as possible next to other cars in order to not walk far in the cold. Thus, doors are more likely to open into adjacent parking spaces and lots of the shallow but irritating door dings occur.
Shoveling Mishaps: Using the wrong tools or techniques to shovel snow away from your car can cause denting. Careful with those hard shovels or ice scrapers that can do some serious damage if not used correctly on your car’s body.
Ways of Protecting your automobile from Winter season Dents
If you can, park under a carport or in a garage to protect against hail and snow or ice that may accumulate on top of your car. If you do not have a garage, then park outside using a protective car cover. Remember to drive slowly as roads can be icy and making driving more dangerous, so avoid fast speeds to have full control of your vehicle.
Before heading out of the house, you should always check the weather reports so you can be prepared and know what the road conditions are like. You should also ensure that your car tires are maintained well, especially during winter so that they can have a good grasp on icy roads.
Why Opt for PDR in for Winter Dents?
If your vehicle does get dents this winter, Paintless Dent Repair (PDR) is a great option. PDR repairs dents without repainting, leaving your auto with its original coat. That’s why we at Sioux Falls Dent Repair are experienced certified PDR technicians and allow them to remove large dents promptly, delivering a full body repair job that looks great without the high costs or lead times of traditional repair methods.
It does not matter if you have hail damage, minor collision dents or some falling debris dent- PDR is a quick and inexpensive way to get your car back in its original shape. Being informed of winter hazards and precautions you can take to avoid them, should assist in preventing your car from suffering unsightly dents.
Comprehensive auto insurance, also known as “full coverage” insurance, is an important type of insurance that provides coverage for a wide range of incidents beyond just collisions. If you’re in the market for auto insurance, it’s important to understand what comprehensive auto insurance is and how it can protect you in the event of an accident or other covered event.
What is Comprehensive Auto Insurance?
Comprehensive auto insurance is a type of insurance coverage that provides protection for your vehicle in the event of incidents that are not caused by a collision, such as theft, fire, vandalism, or natural disasters. Comprehensive insurance can also provide coverage for damage caused by falling objects, floods, or other environmental incidents.
Comprehensive auto insurance is often combined with collision coverage to provide full coverage for your vehicle. While collision insurance covers damage caused by collisions with other vehicles or objects, comprehensive insurance covers damage caused by incidents beyond collisions.
Why Do You Need Comprehensive Auto Insurance?
While collision coverage is required by law in many states, comprehensive coverage is optional. However, comprehensive insurance can be an important investment for anyone who wants to protect their vehicle from a wide range of risks.
For example, if your car is stolen, comprehensive insurance can help you recover the cost of the vehicle. Similarly, if your car is damaged in a fire or natural disaster, comprehensive insurance can help you pay for repairs or replacement.
Even if you have collision coverage, it may not cover all incidents that can damage your vehicle. For example, if a tree falls on your car, collision insurance may not cover the damage. Comprehensive insurance can provide coverage for these types of incidents.
What Does Comprehensive Auto Insurance Cover?
Comprehensive auto insurance typically covers a wide range of incidents beyond collisions, including:
Theft: If your car is stolen, comprehensive insurance can help you recover the cost of the vehicle.
Vandalism: If your car is vandalized, comprehensive insurance can help you pay for repairs.
Fire damage: If your car is damaged in a fire, comprehensive insurance can help you pay for repairs or replacement.
Natural disasters: If your car is damaged in a flood, hurricane, or other natural disaster, comprehensive insurance can help you pay for repairs or replacement.
Falling objects: If a tree or other object falls on your car, comprehensive insurance can help you pay for repairs or replacement.
Animal damage: If your car is damaged by an animal, such as a deer, comprehensive insurance can help you pay for repairs.
Glass damage: If your car’s windows or windshield are damaged, comprehensive insurance can help you pay for repairs or replacement.
Conclusion
Comprehensive auto insurance is an important investment for anyone who wants to protect their vehicle from a wide range of risks beyond collisions. While collision insurance is required by law in many states, comprehensive insurance is optional but highly recommended. If you’re in the market for auto insurance, it’s important to consider comprehensive insurance as part of your coverage.
We get calls for dent repairs with paint damage. Dents of all sizes can get paint damage, from a small door ding, to bigger damage even hail damage dents can cause paint damage. Yes we can fix this type of damage but before we do there are some things you should know.
We do not do any painting with our repair process, but we do offer touch up paint services.
We are happy to refer you to some local body shops for your repair needs if needed.
Often times we can remove the dent even if there is paint damage BUT if you are then looking at having your vehicle repainted afterwords it is sometimes not the most cost effective to have paintless dent repair performed AND have the area repainted.
This can be determined with an in person estimate.
Types of Paint Damage
Multiple types of paint damage can happen. Some of the types of damage are:
A crack
A chip
Scratch
All of these types of damages range from just minor surface or clear coat damage, all the way to deep damage down to the metal.
Cracked Paint Damage
Here is a short video showing some damage that we repaired using the paintless dent repair method. This damage had just a very small crack in the paint and just some minor clear coat could be applied to seal up the area, which is what the customer choose to do themselves. This is the least noticeable type of paint damage and soemtimes the customer doesnt even know there was a minor crack until we point it out to them when doing an estimate.
We often see hail storm damage crack paint when it hits in certain areas, like edges of panels. When hail stones hit right on the edge of a panel and forces the exterior panel to hit an inner edge structure of a panel it can often crack the exterior panels paint. This damage shown below was caused from a hail storm. This hail stone hit the top frame of a door on this 2o19 all aluminum Ford F150. The impact push the exterior metal inwards and into the inner structure bracing, causing the paint crack.
In this case a body shop is needed to complete this repair. We helped minimize work for the body shop in this repair by using our glue pulling method to pull this damage out for the body shop so they do not have to use any body fillers or bondo to fill this damaged area. After we pulled out the damaged area all the body shop needs to do now is sand the area down flat to remove the damaged paint area then apply primer to smooth the area out then paint the panel.
Paintless Dent Repair Aluminum Ford F150 – Sioux Falls South Dakota
Deep Scratches
Sometimes when damage is caused in a vehicle the paint is scratched. Sometimes the impact item can scratch all the way through the layers of paint all the way down the to bare metal! In this video example this customer was about to turn his leased Infiniti back into the dealership. We discussed with him his damage and brought up that he should do some research on what type of damage is ok to be in his vehicle when it is turned in. Lease agreements often have certain things the dealership will NOT charge you for.
Do you have similar damage on your vehicle or have other questions?
Damage can happen in all forms and shapes and can come from almost anything when it comes to your vehicle. You can always be prepared for any unforeseen and unfortunate accumulation of damage to truck or car, from broken windows to scratches dreaded dings, dents, and flat tires. You will want to repair all damages that can be seen on the exterior of your vehicle if you’re going to keep your car in good looking form or presentable to the public.
We all hate to see dents on our cars, whatever the reason may be. While there are ways to prevent the damage, vehicles inevitably get dented throughout their lifespan.
Depending on what caused them to begin with, dents come in all shapes and sizes. Your local automotive retailer could sell a DIY dent repair kit that can repair those pesky minor dents for you if you’re handy with tools. However, you may want to hire a professional dent repair specialist like Sioux Fall Dent Repair that has the know-how and tools to repair the dent properly if you are faced with significant eyesore dents.
You will get help as to which way to go when you ultimately know what type of dent you will have to tackle.
Dent Types
Crease Type Dents – this type of dents tears and bends the metal of the car. The car has its metal memory formed when they heat the metal and shape it to the required design when it is being produced. There is a possibility of losing the metal memory and thus, making it quite challenging to repair the car back to its original shape when it acquires a crease type dent.
Round Dents – round dents happen through hailstone or a similarly round object such as basketball, baseball, football, and so on, hits the car and cause a dimple on the hood, roof, bumper, or door.
Car Dings – car dings types of dents are caused by pokes or smaller objects that are usually easy to repair as far as the paint of the vehicle has no damage. These types of dents are quite common.
Paintless Dent Repair Removes All Dents
Professionals can repair most non-collision dents such as round dents and ding with the use of paintless dent repair, PDR. Also, with PDR, experts can remove common dents that are caused by other car doors and storms which produce hailstones. Most of the clients at Sioux Fall Dent Repair are amazed by how the professionals at the company transform their vehicles or motorcycles back to its original conditions and wish they would have known about this repair service before.
You can contact a certified technician at Sioux Fall Dent Repair today if you want to know more about the company’s paintless dent repair services, want a free quote, or you have a dent and would like to know how PDR can help you. While you can call the company, book an appointment, or text them, you can also go to their website to see how they perform paintless dent repair on vehicles and how they can also help you. See other repairs here!
Do you have any other questions that we did not answer in this article?
Almost all of our repairs can be completed within one day. Some of our customers arrange with us to drop their vehicles off the night before for their own convenience. This allows the vehicle to sit in our climate controlled shop throughout the night. In the winter this is especially important, the vehicles metals are all warm, as well as any snow or water is dried off of the vehicle allowing us the start the repair process right away. No need to clean the vehicle off of dirt, snow and rain.
How Long Does It Take To Remove A Small Dent From My Vehicle?
Most smaller dents, say for instance a door ding can be completed within an hour. Some customers will wait and watch us actually perform their repairs in front of their own eyes. Often times customers have no idea how damage is repaired and we are happy to discuss with them while we do the repairs. Anything from tool selection and why we choose those specific tools, to how we gain access and watching us remove simple items such as trim panels, door panels, tail lights, head lights and bumpers. Most that are willing to watch find it very intriguing.
How Long Does It Take To Remove A Big Dent From My Vehicle?
Bigger damage is still often repaired within one day. Often times depending on the damage, why try and schedule the customer to drop their vehicle off the night before repairs. This as stated above allows the vehicle to be dried off and clear of dirt, water and snow when we start the repairs. Often times we will start the repair process that night they drop their vehicle off just to get a good head start. We are more than willing to work around peoples schedule to accommodate them and their needs.
How Long Do Hail Damage Repairs On A Vehicle Take?
There are many factors that come into play when giving a time frame for hail damage repairs. Often times insurance companies get involved and are the biggest factor for the turn around time. When parts are damaged they need to be ordered and most times are available and sent to our shop withing 1 to 3 business days, parts on back order are all on a case by case basis. All work and parts (some exclusions apply) are not started or ordered until AFTER the final insurance approval.
After we have the final approval from your insurance company we will start the repairs and order all of the necessary parts required for your repairs. The severity of the vehicles damage will greatly affect the time that is needed to repair your vehicle, lighter damaged vehicles can take just a day or 2. Bigger damaged vehicles may take 3-5 days.
Most hail damage claims start to finish, including the time needed to work with your insurance company can be completed in just one week. We often have customers schedule with us to drop their vehicle off Monday morning and make arrangements with their vehicle rental if they have one. Most repairs are then completed by that Friday, allowing the customers to have their vehicle for the weekend!
Do you want to learn more about the hail damage repair process and time frames? Learn More Here!
Do you have more questions about your repair time frame?
