Had to watch helplessly last week while hail fell on my car. Didn't seem too bad at first, but when I really looked it over on the weekend...ouch!

Already started the claim process with insurance, so now I need to find a shop to fix it. Looks like the dentless repair path should work, the dents are not that deep (just too many of them).

Any recommendations for shops in the Dallas area from the Texas group? Anyone used Doc Hail in Carrollton?

 

Sorry about that!

Ask TexasDan about hail!

Paintless dent repair really works if done by a long term professional.

A lot of the franchise PDR people are guys that cannot find work elsewhere. They get minimum training, sold a set of tools and are released upon the public. If they are still in business after a year they MIGHT be acceptable.

The total number of dents, and where they are is the deciding factor. I had another car, not a Jaguar, absolutely destroyed by hail tennis ball sized. I would never have believed it if I had heard it on the evening news but some were oversized tennis *****.

A dent on an area not accessible from behind the panel or on a crease cannot be repaired.

Good luck with the claim . . . State Farm treated me very well.

 

Thanks for the reply & info. I am researching repair shops now.

 

Both of my cars were slaughtered by a hailstorm last June.

The 1999 xk8 was damaged so badly, AAA totaled the car. My Mitsubishi 3000GT was uninsured, so I sought out someone other than a big name dealer. I found a fellow that was excellent. He has been in business for 15-20 years. His name is Jeff Dietrich,
I think his company is called Extreme PDR. He came to my house and worked in the heat in my garage for half a day, and removed nearly 200 dings, some quite deep.

Dent repair guys have special lights to see all the dents on a panel. I counted about 26 dents on the top of my trunk lid. Under the lights in my garage, we found sixty.

I would assume you could use him through your insurance company, but I'm not sure.

In the Dallas area, due to the high incidence of hailstorms the PDR business is huge.
Almost all of the shops in the Dallas area use subcontracted PDR businesses.

I have heard very good things about Service King and Craig's collision, both in Grapevine. I used Craig's for damage incurred in a rear end accident. Excellent work. Both Craig's and Service king have strong guarantees on their work, and are extremely well versed in dealing with insurance companies.

The only other advice I would give you is to wait for a couple of months after the hail damage to approach any shop, given that the PDR guys are just swamped with thousands of cars with hail damage after a storm.

If you work with an insurance approved repair shop, usually an adjuster will come out
and make an estimate of your repair. You can take this to the shop, but, sometimes
they, too, are swamped and use inexperienced adjusters to look at your damage.

AAA of Texas sent out an estimator to look at my Jag a year ago. He gave me an estimate of $2300.00. When I came home from a vacation and saw the damage, it was obvious that this estimator didn't know diddly. I took the car to four different name brand repair shops, Park Place, 2 Service Kings, and Craig's Collision. The lowest quote I got was $9,800. The highest was $10,200. The insurance company wrote me a check for $9,200 which I felt was great, considering the condition and mileage of the car prior to the storm. Good luck. Ed.

 

Oops! Sorry, forgot to leave Jeff's phone number 972 /612-5000.

If you are closer to Plano, the Service King there is also very good. Three of my North Dallas friends took their cars there. John Linskey assisted me through the process of getting things worked out with AAA. An experienced Service Advisor there.

 

All good info edtexas. I am closer to Plano, so I will contact Service King and see what they say. I have filed the claim and the insurance company has been very cooperative so far.

Probably will wait some time to make sure of who I use and that the insurance is all sorted out.

Sorry about yours being totaled, but hopefully you used the money to replace it. They are great cars.