Most hail damage dent repairs can be made in just a few days. Smaller and lighter hail damage repairs can be made in 1-3 business days. More extreme hail damage repairs are often made in 3-5 days. When parts are damaged from hail we must order new ones to be replaced. All parts are ordered once a final insurance approval is made. Often times parts can be delivered in 1-3 business days unless on back order. If this is the case you will be notified right away of any potential delays. We will update you daily on all hail damage repair claims unless otherwise discussed ahead of time.
Most often we schedule hail damage repairs to be dropped off on Monday. Most customers have their vehicles back by that Friday. This allows them to have their vehicle back DENT FREE for the week!
I Already Have an Insurance Hail Damage Estimate
Be sure to bring any copies of your insurance paperwork with you to better speed up the repair process. We will look the vehicle over for damage using our specialized lighting prior to doing any repairs. This lighting will almost every time find more damage than a person or Insurance adjuster will see in normal outside lighting or shop lighting. All additional damage that we find and added parts that need to be replaced will be added to our estimate and submitted to your insurance company.
This is called a supplement, a supplement is a request from a repair facility for the additional damage to be paid for by the insurance company to repair the additional damages found. Almost every single vehicle has additional damage that will be found by a Paintless Dent Repair Facility, the insurance companies are well aware of this and very aware of this whole process.
How Do You Submit A Supplement?
We contact your insurance company and inform them of additional damage or parts are needed to do your repair. From there it depends on what your specific insurance companies needs.
Some insurance companies will have one of their personal adjusters come to the repair shop and look at the vehicle in person, from there they take pictures of additional damage for documentation. They then update their estimate to match the repair facility and we can begin repairs. Often times this will take 1-3 business days for one of their own adjusters to come to the repair shop and then we can start repairs.
Other insurance companies hire independent adjusters to work for them. These adjusters are subcontracted by the insurance company when they need them, this is common in a catastrophic hail storm, where there is a huge need for adjusters and they hire on more for a short time to handle the influx of claims and damage.
Another option is an insurance company will contract an independent adjuster company. This company hires out multiple forms of adjusters for automotive, RV’s, home and commercial policies.
Every Claim Is Different
This is just a general overview of the options an insurance company uses. Some adjusters will come and look at the vehicle in person, some want just photos of the damage circled then submitted via email and all approvals are made online. Every company and claim is different. One may do it one way for one claim, then next week the same company may go through an entirely different process.
After an agreement is made with the insurance company about your vehicles damage most hail damage repairs can be made within just a few business days. If any parts are in need of replacement they will be ordered once the final insurance approval has been made.
Want to learn more about how long small and large non hail damage take to repair? Click Here To Learn More!
Do you have more questions about hail damage repairs or your insurance?
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?
Will my dented area rust after paintless dent repairs are performed?
We have been asked this question multiple times from customers of ours. First off, does the damaged area have any paint damage, broken paint, a scratch of some kinda or cracked paint? If the answer is NO to those questions that’s great news! That means your damage is a perfect candidate for Paintless Dent Repair and your damage will not have any paint issues and no rust issues down the road.
What if my damaged area DOES have some paint damage?
One thing to clear up is often damaged areas may have minor paint damage, anything from a smaller light scuff to maybe even cracked or a chip in the paint. Now the dented areas can often still be repaired and smoothed out BUT the paint damage may remain if its severe.
Can you fix my paint damage?
Depending on the severity of the damage, YES. If your paint damage consists of a minor scuff or scrape we will wet sand, buff and polish the area to remove the paint damage. This paint damage will not be noticable at all after our repairs are done and the paint will look as if nothing ever happend.
What if I have a crack, chip or deep scratch in my paint?
We can do things like apply some touch up paint to the paint damaged areas or do some wet standing, buffing and polishing to removed scuffs and scrapes, but if the paint damage can not be removed with buffing. The paint damage WILL remain. Some people are ok with having us do touch up paint, others are not, that is strictly up to you, the customer. Everyone’s needs are different for each repair and we are willing to work with you on your needs. The best way to describe how touch up paint will look after applied is it will look like a black button up shirt WITH a black button. The button(paint damage) will be visible, you will be able to see it to a certain degree and really looking for it. You yourself, know EXACTLY where it is, others like friends, family members or the general public may not pick out the damage unless it is specifically pointed out. This is the best case scenario, touch up paint is often best suited for solid colors, black and white being the best. Colors with a high metallic paint, pearl colors and specialized colors may not look the best when touch up paint is applied. We would be happy to discuss all of these items, your needs and our personal suggestions for your situation. We have even suggestion people with severe paint damage that we are NOT the best course of action for their damage, we can then happily get you fixed up with a recommended body shop in the area
Want to see what a repair looks like when the paint IS DAMAGED? Here is an example of a repair we did on a vehicle that had a minor crack in the paint prior to our repairs: CLICK HERE
What is corrosion protection?
Often times people do not know that there has to be some kind of protection sprayed onto the backside of there dented area after we repair it. If we have to use any types of dent repair tools we are taking sometimes sharp metal tipped tools and pushing on the backside of the dented area. This pushing can cause small scratches in the coatings on the back side of your damaged area. Now these are very minimal but something needs to be done to protect this area. After a repair is made with dent tools we apply a corrosion protection spray like a 3m Cavity Wax spray. This is a very runny liquid that will run into all of the areas it is sprayed in. This spray stays soft and gooey like honey for instance. This spray will not harden and crack like some other products on the market. Now with glue pulling for example no harm is caused to the backside of the panel because we are gluing glue tabs to the OUTSIDE of the panel and pulling the damage out, no pushing on the dent is done so there is no need for the application of cavity wax.
Here is a video of us explaining the use of 3M Cavity Wax spray when performing dent repairs.
Hopefully this clears up any questions you may have had about rust and paintless dent repair.
If you are still curious about the paintless dent repair process or maybe you have some more questions on our methods of preventing rusting, feel free to call, text or email us!
Hail Damage Repair Access: How do we access the back side of hail damage dents to push them out with our tools?
Jack Bucknell with Sioux Falls Dent Repair shows you how we access areas on this 2010 Subaru for us to make hail damage repairs.We already took the door panels off, as well as the glass assemblies and all the necessary trim has been removed in order to gain access to this area of the tops of the door assemblies on the left passenger side.
This vehicle had hail damage and we had to access the damage from the backside in order to push this damage out. Even though access on this damage is not terrible we still do have to use the glue pull method in order to remove all of these dents. We use an Elmident Glue Gun fitted with a Dewalt battery for our glue supply. We use Hawg Glue from Anson PDR to glue our tabs to the vehicle to remove dents. We then use a combination of glue tabs from Black Plague PDR and Keco to do the pulling. To pull the tabs once they are glued on we use a slide hammer or a mini lifter available from multiple PDR suppliers, the ones we use are available from A-1 PDR Tools.
We then talk about access to other areas of the vehicle. Subaru’s are well known for having a high safety crash test ratings. How they go about doing this especially in the doors and side impact areas is those areas are heavily braced with internal bracing that you won’t see until you take the vehicle apart and inspect the structure. We show you a good example of how this bracing looks and how it can effect the dent repair process.
The 2019 Jeep Wrangler features some big changes from the existing models.
First off it has for the first time ever has aluminum doors, a plastic cowl, aluminum windshield post and aluminum hood. Now while these may not seem like big issues for the new Jeep Wrangler but it does create new challenges.
The added use of multiple aluminum panels makes repairing dents much more difficult. Many folks think that aluminum is very weak and easily dented. This is probably from the common thought of a pop or soda can being so easy to simply squeeze and crush. The aluminum on vehicles is much thicker and ranges in strengths. A study done by NAPDRT, short for the National Association of Paintless Dent Repair Technicians and multiple Insurance Companies found that aluminum easily takes double the amount of force to dent as appose to traditional Mild Steel. Repairing the same damage takes over twice as much force as well as a different selection of tools to push specifically on aluminum.
JEEP Wrangler Hail Damage
The plastic cowl is the biggest noted change. These vehicles specifically use to suffer from a very notorious “Jeep” dent. See an example of a Jeep Cowl Dent we repaired: CLICK HERE
With this panel now being plastic they will no longer be dented like the previous models!
The Jeep Wrangler challenges to dent repair technicians is nothing new, these types of metal changes and moving to plastic will only continue. With standards in the automotive industry raising the bar in safety as well as fuel efficiency, aluminum and plastic will only continue to grow in its usage in the automotive industry.
