Springtime is upon us and most of us are eager to see the sun and flowers blooming, feel the warm air returning, and saying goodbye to cold snowy weather. For those of us in the auto space and even more so in the paintless dent repair business, we know that spring also brings heavy storms, 
and the threat of a hail event that can cause a lot of damage to your property, home, and vehicles. While we never like 
to see anyone have the bad luck of being hit by a nasty hailstorm, you can rest assured that when it happens, Dent Repair Now is ready on day 1 to help you in any way that we can. We are here to answer questions, and we can guide you through the daunting process of insurance claims, estimates, repairs, and who pays for what.
First, for those of you unfamiliar with paintless dent repair, let me explain. Traditional body shops will use bondo or filler to “fill” a dent, then sand it and the surrounding area to smooth it out, then paint the “repaired” panel and the surrounding panels to blend the paint color.
For instance, if they have to repair your fender, they will paint both the fender and the hood, and the door. This prevents the fender from standing out as a slightly different shade. What paintless dent repair does, is moves and manipulates the moved metal back to its original space therefore eliminating the dent all together.
This is no easy task and our 
technicians have trained for years to hone their skill and become experts in the field of paintless dent repair.
When a hailstorm hits, it can be sporadic in location. This last round of storms we’ve had in Southwestern Pennsylvania were spotty with hail, and nothing like the hail that hit Claysville, Pa in 2023. So, we have had a few inquiries about our services and hail estimates these last few weeks and I have condensed some information that we think is important for our customers.
- The first thing you need to do is file a claim with your insurance company. Most repairs for hail damage will run into the thousands. If you owe the bank for your car, they will require that you have it repaired.
- Once you’ve opened a claim, your insurance company will let you know what the next step is. Whether they are going to send an appraiser to you, or start an estimate through pictures provided by you, they will email a preliminary estimate to you. Then you can forward that to us.
- Many customers think they need to get estimates from multiple places, however, unless your insurance company tells you to, you do not need to do that. At this point, all we need is to schedule your repair. In our assessment, which we do as soon as you drop your car off, if the repairs are going to cost more than your insurance company’s estimate, we file a supplement with them. (Full disclosure, we need to file a supplement more than 95% of the time.)
- You Are Not Responsible For Supplemental Charges!! We do not begin repairing your vehicle until your insurance company has given us approval on our cost of repairs. We will never surprise you with a bill we did not previously go over with you. When you file an insurance claim, you are responsible for your deductible.
***If you call for a hail estimate, here is what you need to know: ***
- Hail estimates are tedious and time consuming. They can take at least an hour.
- If you are not planning on having your vehicle repaired, you do not need an additional estimate from us.
- Please run your car or truck through a car wash or wash it at home. 90% of our job is being able to see the surface of your vehicle.
Nolan and his wife Stacy came to see us with their 2023 Hyundai Sonata. They already had the estimate from their insurance company GEICO, and they wanted to know what their options were. We went over the estimate with them, answered questions, and explained a few things. They had written the estimate for conventional repair and wanted to replace the hood. We knew we could save the hood and prevent the front end from needing painted. In the end, they left their Hyundai with us, and because they had rental car coverage, they were able to pick up a car at the Enterprise just down the road. We filed the supplement with GEICO. they sent and adjuster to us and we went over the car together, specifically the hood. They approved our repair cost and we got to work.
****Choosing PDR to repair hail damage is more cost effective, faster and helps to keep the value of your vehicle up as versus a conventional repair. In extreme cases we will utilize PDR to repair all of the panels that we can and then your car will be repaired the rest of the way by a conventional body shop. (We work with many local body shops) **** You can check out a list of trusted body shops we work with here.
We also have a great, informative series that goes into detail about the hail/insurance/repair process for all our bookworms out there.
Part 1: https://dentrepairnow.com/?p=3681&preview=true
Part 2: https://dentrepairnow.com/?p=3683&preview=true
Part 3: https://dentrepairnow.com/?p=3693&preview=true
Part 4: https://dentrepairnow.com/?p=3712&preview=true
Part 5: https://dentrepairnow.com/?p=3740&preview=true
As always, we are here to help you, and fix damage, dings, and dents your car, truck, or SUV. You can call us at 724-607-8980, you can text us there as well! If email is more your thing, you can email us at info@dentrepairnow.com and we monitor that all day. Our hours of operation are Monday through Friday 9:00am-to 5pm. You are welcome to stop in the shop for a free assessment. **We do schedule hail estimates because of the time needed** We are currently located at 2603 Washington Rd, Unit 3, Canonsburg, PA 15317 **We will be relocating in the next few months so keep an eye out for that!!!** You can find us on the web at dentrepairnow.com and fill out a form with your information and upload pictures of your damaged panels, and we will be happy to put together an estimate and give you a call.