Don't take your 8 for granted
 

Well it seemed to be an ordinary night, I was out with my friends enjoying some games of pool when out of nowhere the weather starts to look a bit shaky, we look outside and it is coming down by the truckload, so I don't give it much thought, go back to take my next shot and then the roof starts making noise and we realize that it has gone from truckloads of rain to truckloads of golfball sized hail (not the smooth round kind, but the jagged kind). My friends all drive older cars/make more money than me/have their stuff paid off so they are drunk and hootin' and hollerin' about the insurance money etc..while I'm sitting there petrified, staring helplessly at my car in the parking lot (which is now so full of water, my back tires are starting to disappear) and wondering if it is going to survive or am I in for a big time shock when I finally get to go out and look at it. So things finally calm down and I walk to my car barefoot with jeans rolled up (parking lot had turned into insta-wading pool, cold ass water too) and witness the horror. Every inch of my car now has small/meduim/large dents ALL over it, everywhere you look, the roof, the trunk, the hood got it real bad, looks like someone took a hammer to it, even the sides of the car are thrashed. When I got in it to drive home, both mirrors had been turned down. And to make things worse, it is a yellow (you know the yellows, first year color, can't get new ones anymore etc etc.) and just from looking at it, I have no idea how on earth it will get fixed w/o a ton of bondo etc.. So next time you're using your touch up paint for a little nick or something, just be thankful you're not in my predicament. ( I must have done something awful in a past life, first the divorce, then the puppy I get has cancer, then I almost lose my job, and now the one material thing I prize more than anything is in ruins, sure could use a break or some good news or winning the lottery or something..yeesh) :( I suppose it could always be worse, but ouch anyway.

Aw, man, that sucks. No recourse on that kind of damage. I'm so, so sorry that happened to you :(

so when you say no recourse, does that mean I may be looking at the car being declared a loss and having to go from there or?

Holy shit !


Got any pics ?

Where were you playing pool ?

A place called "slick willie's" up in in North austin, apparently we got hammered by some kind of mini-tornado, I just watched it on the news. I would take pics, but it really really hurts just to look at it right now so I'm not sure if I have the stomach to take/ post any right now.

Hill Country weather is a trip. Sorry, man, that really sucks.

yup, gotta' love this time of year...not! (at least weather wise it sucks)

my dad lives right down the street on Kinney Ave. I've been there several times.

I'll call him and see if he got pics of it happening....

damn that sucks man... do you have any pics of the state of the car?

Nevermind, the one I've been to is in south west Austin....



What has your insurance company said ?

Hail has always scared the s**t out of me with cars. Dodged a big bullet about '95 with my new MX-6 in Colorado when I beat a storm following me by about an hour down I-70 and up I-25 to Loveland when I got into the (thankfully) covered parking at the Super 8 and watched it come down like asteroids. I certainly hope you can get everything right with your 8. Can a good body shop do anything with hail damage? It would suck to have to chuck the whole thing in.

:eek: O...m...g... :eek:

That's terrible! Won't your insurance company pay for repairs for hail damage? I'm pretty sure it's covered under comprehensive under most policies.

That's horrible... sorry you had to witness something like that. I've seen paintless dent removal companies do wonders for hail damage, but for what you're describing it sounds like there's a lot to fix.

I agree, find a good dent removal Co. Not sure how Alum. dents are removed but still worth a try. And you didnt do anything bad in a past life, Bad things DO happen to GOOD people, ya just got to roll with it, things WILL get better...HAVE FAITH!!!

Spring time in Texas can suck. Our friends from across the country, save for the Oklahoma crowd, have no idea what hail is. It didn't take me long to learn that you must pay attention to the weather in this state. We had a hail storm 6 or 7 years ago that knocked out 80 jets sitting at DFW airport.


Sorry to hear about your 8. They may end up totalling the thing. Man, I would have probably cried if it were my car.

I feel for ya on this one.

Back in '88 bought a brand new Oldmobile Cutlass Calais with a Quad-4 engine and a five speed! Three weeks later I had to sit and whach my baby get pummeled in a Texas hailstorm. $3900 dammage to a $12000 car!

It too hurt to look at it and the helpless feeling of not being able to do anything about it!

omfg.... im sooo sorry. thats like watching your own kid get the shit beat out of him by punks and you cant do anything about it. omg i would have ran out there, turned it on, and ran it through a big glass window or somthing in a store. :D lol as long as ma baby is alright

Sorry your 8 was damaged. None of the windows were broken or cracked? It sounds as if there is a lot of damage, but to me (IMO) does not sound anywhere near what it would take to total it. If none of the windows broke out (leading to water damage inside) and none of the light assemblies were broken, then the total damage would most likely stay under $10K = no total.

When you get to feeling better take some pics...

So true...I was complaining to my wife yesterday about the miniscule chips in my paint. Then I read your post.

Sorry to hear about your prob. Good luck.

Paintless Dent Removal
 

I would try paintless dent removal. We had hundreds of dents from huge hailstones in the family Odyssey and the bodyshop thought the hood would need to be replaced (it looked hammered!).

We went to paintless dent removal and they pulled them all out. Discounts for hundreds of dents by the way. Left the van there for 3 days and they removed the dents between BMW repairs.

Still, don't know about aluminum... good luck!

I would be suprised over the car being totalled. That can be repaired wayyyy under cost of the car. Believe it or not, they CAN make your car look absolutely new again. I have had hail damage before all over my 240SX awhile back and that car has paper-thin skin and they made it like it was in showroom condition. "They" being any decent bodywork professional.

holy crap. i just created a thread about getting hailed on in austin last night as well

Holy crap, that sucks!

I have a friend that had a TON of hail damage two weeks after buying her brand new TSX last summer. The insurance company flew a guy out from Arizona (I think) to repair all of the hail damge claims from that storm. This guy was supposed to be the absolute best at paintless dent removal - and he was! He came out to her parking lot at work and fixed it like new. Don't despair man, hopefully your ins. company will take care of you like her's did.

Yeah-no worries! I feel your pain though-I live in Tulsa and look at the forecast especially now in Tornado season to see what the weather is like before ever taking the 8 outside of her comfy garage.

I feel your pain. When that storm came through here all the hail seems to have been on the south side of Houston. Hope they can repair it like new.

That sucks bigtime man...does comprehensive insurance cover it?

I'm glad that we don't get hail like that here in Jersey

ne word from your insurance dealer? i wish you the best of luck.

pics?

Well I am with state farm and I already had an appt. for Monday to take care of another deal so I won't know anything until Monday morning, today I got to look at it in the daylight and it was fugly, kinda' funny too because on the yellow from a distance you could hardly tell, then you get up close and it's like "ohhhhh crap!". I'm attaching pics below, I took them in my garage so please excuse the clarity, should at least give everyone an idea of how bad it is.

Again I apologize for the clarity, here we go:

1 more

OUCH... that sucks big time.

Good Lord...that looks like a range ball. Those pics are hard to look at....I think they disturb me more than seeing pics of a wrecked 8.

I hope they can take care of you, good luck.

I hear ya, just felt a bit overwhelmed last night, it'll take a heck of a lot more than hail damage to my car to break my spirit :)

Holy crap, sorry man :( I bet there are some car dealers in your area with a big mess on their hands...

funny, I felt the same way, I guess even mother nature is into the occasional bit of vandalism. From looking at it, I'm pretty sure they are going to have to replace/repair every single panel on my car, I'll be curious to see the total cost on Monday.

CanaryGuy....
 

Obviously my condolences about your 'CanaryMobile', but it's also sad to hear about your new puppy being ill.... I know he meant the world to you, helped you thru some bad days, hope he gets better! :(

S

Yowza!

Several years ago when the tornado hit town we got a LOT of huge hail. I was at work in my daily driver (Contour SVT at that time( and it got dented up pretty bad. At that time State Farm didn't use paintless dent removal (Dent Doctor, Dent Wizzard, etc) so they paid me for a traditional body shop fix. The local paintless dent removal guy did my car for about 1/2 of what SF paid me. He had a if I can't fix it, you don't pay policy and when I picked up my car it was just like new. I should have waited a couple of months until he was not so busy, since I would have paid a lot less (he jacked up prices since he was covered up and everyone had an insurance check). I took my M Miata in later for parking lot type dings and he fixed it up for a fraction of the cost of the hail damage :D

Up in Bowling Green, KY they had a tornado and thousands of cars got beat up. A lot of new cars were just discounted deep and sold to folks as is for TONS off of new price. Used to see some of them around here that folks purchased there cheap - looked like a golf ball.

If the car is like mine - a lot of panels damaged a lots of dents - but not covered up then a good paintless dent shop can fix it. If it is like some of the BG cars I saw - almost no non-dented metal on the top of the car at all, then I don't think so.

I also don't know how well this works with aluminum, either....


Dennis

OMG!! I actually cried while looking at the pix of your 8!!! Brutal!! :( As you know hail storms in Texas are very common. I'm confident the car is fixable. No bondo. There are places that specialize in hail damage dents. It's paintless dent removal. It won't be cheap!! But hey, that's why we all pay too much for car insurance.

Good luck and keep your chin up!!

- Irish :cool:

Oh boy! That's rough. Hope everything works out for you. Not to poke fun of you situation or insult you but it looks like your 8 has acne scars.

Looks kinda like Big Mac's neck, did your 8 have a roid problem?

thanks all for the kind words and advice, as is always the case, a lot of folks on this forum make it worth contributing too, have a happy easter all and I'll keep you posted on what happens with everything. (I'm actually looking at new cars as we speak, I think I've narrowed it down to another 8 in white, or maybe the z in their version of yellow, the only reason I'm even considering the z is I don't know how hard it would be to drive the white one and not be coonstantly reminded of the one I have now, maybe I'm over thinking it lol)

heh, that's why they couldn't get the Hp numbers right lol

Get the white RX-8, they're damn sexy! I have a feeling you're just going to get new panels all around though if insurance covers it, maybe you could get a custom color...

I think you're right on that one, I do like the white, but the yellow just steals the show and seems more like a "sports car color" etc.. A custom color would be cool too, maybe the yellow with a light pearl or something might be awesome

Top secret gold! :) Too bad it's almost impossible to get unless you're sponsored or know an insider.

I'd ask you to tell me more about that, but I'm assuming it's a secret :D

It's actually become sort of annoying, because it's so hard to get and everyone wants it it's become a ricer's wet dream.