Any experience with hail damage repair?

Not a Miata but a 2001 Mitsubishi Magna (Diamante in your language :-) here in Oz. The car was Black and came back better than new. I still see it these days and it looks just as good. Sounds like the damage wasn't as severe as yours though....I suspect your Miata may well be written off. Good luck with it.

OzOne of the three twins

I welcome you to Crackerbox Palace.

Well, the adjuster didn't total it. The estimated repair total is a little over $5K. The private-sale value according to various web-sites was around $12K. If it was a few years older, I suspect that the resale value would have been low enough that it might have been totalled.

The hood, fuel door and trunk lid are going to be replaced, and they're going to fix the dents in the fenders, doors, above/around the windsheild, and in the piece between the frankenstein bolts.

The windshield is also going to be replaced, but since there was a pre-existing stone chip, the adjuster said that was a separate incident and I have to file a second claim for the glass damage. Whatever -- there's no deductible on glass damage, so it doesn't matter to me how they want the paperwork done.

Now I just need to decide where to have it fixed, and see if I can get the insurance company to cover OEM parts...

I guess I'll put off buying a used MazdaSpeed Miata for a while, even though a factory turbo sure sounds like fun.

If you have a Dent Wizard in your area, they can get hail dents and door dings out so you would never know it. They don't damage the paint in the process, either. I'm not sure just how they do it, and they won't let you watch, but it really works great. I have a very glossy Emerald Mica '99, and they've gotten several dents & dings out of it, and I swear you can't see even the slightest ripple reflected in the paint. Amazing!

Geary

The insurance adjuster said the dents were too deep to repair that way. You can see that the paint is damaged in a few places, so I don't think the "dent wizard" style repair is an option. They're going to replace the hood, trunk lid, and one of the fenders. The other dents are going to be repaired using traditional bodywork methods. They're going to repaint basically the entire car. If the car were a few years older, it would probably have been totalled.

It goes into the shop on Monday, and will probably take 2-3 weeks.

I had pretty serious hail damage to my '94 m-spec that was repaired by local shop (Calgary, Alberta, Canada - probably the hail capital of the world) for $2700 (no deductible) about 2 years ago. The aluminum hood was replaced. The trunk lid was subcontracted to a paintless repair shop but was later repainted due to an "error" in the repair shop. The fenders, fuel door, cowling, headlight covers, tops of doors, front bumper cover were all repaired traditionally. The largest single dent was a whopper right in front of the passenger side windshield wiper. The work was extremely well done and has a lifetime warranty. I do wonder "who's lifetime?" I did have to return to the shop once to have the hood alignment corrected.

Assuming the adjuster doesn't declare it totalled, should I get it "fixed" or just take the check, buy another Miata and sell the dimpled one to somebody who wants to practice body-work?

I've heard some unhappy stories about replacement hoods and trunk lids and about peeling paint after dent removal.

Anybody had badly hail-damaged Miata repaired?

My dad told me a good hail story today.

There's a guy across the street from him that has a bunch of old Lincoln Continentals. When our hailstorm arrived a couple weeks back it caught him with one car in the driveway, usually stored a mile or so away where he rents space. His garage of course was filled with others.

He intended to beat the storm to storage but didn't make it. So he pulled over and sprawled across the hood and protected it, gaining numerous bruises and welts from the hail. Apparently among all the sheet metal, the hood is "unobtainium" today. :)

miker

Of course, why is that unusual? Most people know the body will heal but repairs to vehicles cost money, that's why I threw myself under one of my motorcycles when it fell over in the carport, it's just normal thriftyness.

The older I get, the less I believe that. ;)

It always has for me, but then, I'm just a kid!

No lie, Grant. If you doubt the wisdom of your priorities, compare the cost of your auto insurance to that of your medical insurance. You know you're getting old when the disparity reaches a factor of ten.

Grant,

is your car back yet? I'm wondering how they did.

Pat

Nope, it's not done yet. I guess it took a while to get the new body parts. I'm expecting it sometime this week.