Many people have seen it. The dark clouds and winds roll through the area bringing hail stones up to an inch or more in diameter. Your car is parked on the street or uncovered in the driveway. When the storm departs, it leaves behind unwanted guests.
Your car is pocked with marks left from the hail stones. It looks like some one took a small hammer and put dents all over the upper surfaces of your car and a few on the sides. You know it is going to cost you to get those dents out.
If you could just find a way to get rid of most of them, perhaps you could live with the rest. However, you really do not have a clue how to start the process. Getting all of the dents from the hail removed from your car is quite difficult and will cost you many dollars. Here are some hints about how to make many or most of those dents disappear.
Dents from hail stones do not like the sun.
The first step to removing those ugly dents is to just park your car in the hot sun for a few days. If it is winter, you may want to just wait a couple of months and live with the dents until the heat comes.
Hot sun light will warm the metal on your car’s body. As the metal warms, it expands. The expanding metal will cause this type of dent to pop back out even and disappear. After about a week in the sun, most cars will lose 90% of these dents. Often, this is enough to make the car owner decide to live with the rest.
If the car has somewhat high mileage, a few hail dents will make almost no difference in the value. After examining the car, there is a good chance you will think they do not really matter to you either.
Using something to artificially heat the metal can cause additional dents to pop out.
A good hair dryer or heat gun blowing on the metal will have the same type of effect as sun light. The difference is that these device can be used to target the heat. Sometimes, they will even get hotter than the sun shining down on the car.
The problem with this approach is that you have to be careful not to get your paint too hot and cause it to discolor. If it does, stop the process at once. You may be able to use wax or rubbing compound to restore the surface of the paint. Fortunately, hair dryers are rarely able to damage the paint. A heat gun can get hundreds of degrees hotter and can cause problems. Go very slowly with this technique.
The remaining dents will require a professional or skilled body person to fix.
From this point on, the repairs will require that a person actually be able to do at least touch-up body work. If this is beyond you, a professional or a friend with these skills will be needed. The good news is that unless you are really unlucky, there will be less than 10 and maybe less than 5 dents left. For everyone else, call the insurance company and take your car to a body shop if you insist on these dents being repaired.
There are three primary ways to get the rest of the dents to leave.
First, remove anything that is in the way of reaching the back of the metal. Door panels, ceiling headliners, molding inside the wheel wells, etc., will all have to be removed. Now that you can reach the inside of the metal, use a piece soft wood like pine and cover the dent from the inside. Tap the wood, not the metal, with the hammer. This is not the time to prove that you are the world’s strongest human. The dent if it is smooth and not creased should pop out with just a few taps. If not, it is time for plan 2.
Using a small drill bit, drill into the center of the crease slide a nail or screw a screw into the hole. Use something to grip the screw or nail and pull the dent out. This will mess up your finish, but you should be able to get nearly all of the dent to leave.
The third way resembles the second way. Spot weld a nail head to the dent. You should be able to grip the nail with vice grips or strong channel locks and pull out the dent.
With these last three techniques, you will have to do some fill and sanding to make the dents totally go away. Repainting will be required after the dents are fixed.
If the dents are just too deep and bad to fix, you may have to replace the body part. A good body shop will be able to do this for you and restore it to like new condition. You may want to ask for used body parts to save money. If you file an insurance claim, be sure to follow their instructions for completing the work and collecting the money for the repairs.
