Hail damage: spotting, repairing, pricing it in

Hail leaves round, shallow dents without a sharp crease, often a great many of them, of similar size and usually without paint damage. They sit mainly on the horizontal surfaces: roof, bonnet, tailgate or boot lid, the top edges of the wings and rear quarters, the roof pillars and rails. Depending on where the wind came from, one side is hit harder than the other.

The side issues are harder to spot. Trim strips and roof rails pick up nicks, plastic parts such as mirror caps or lamp lenses can crack, and the windscreen can take chips, as can a glass roof or sunroof. With large hailstones the paint is broken too; then it is a different kind of repair.

A listing rarely says hail damage in so many words. It hides behind phrases like “minor dents”, “cosmetic flaws” or “signs of use”, and in photos taken from the front or side it is practically invisible. Pictures of the roof are the exception in listings.

You do not see a dent directly; you see how it distorts the light. So you do not look at a panel head-on but low across it, positioned so that a straight line is reflected in it: a strip light in a hall, a window frame, the edge of a roof, a torch held by someone on the other side. Wherever the reflection kinks or curls, there is a dent.

It works best under an overcast sky or in a hall with a single light source; bright sunshine and many lights mask everything. The car should be clean and dry — dust and water droplets scatter the light and hide exactly what you are looking for. If the car is shown only freshly washed and wet, ask to wait until it has dried.

For the roof you need some height: a stepladder, a wall, a ramp. From the ground nobody can see the roof of an ordinary car. The flat of your hand helps too: stroked lightly across the panel, it feels hollows the eye misses. Photograph whatever you find with the reflection in it — the picture will be useful later in the price negotiation and with the insurer.

A paint thickness gauge also shows whether the car was repainted after hail. If the roof and bonnet read clearly higher than the sides, hail damage was probably repaired the conventional way. That is no reason to walk away, but it answers a question the listing left open.

Most hail damage today is repaired without repainting. The technician pushes the dent out from behind with long rods — the headlining, trim panels and sometimes lamps come out for this — or pulls it from the outside with glued-on tabs. The original paint stays, and with it the factory corrosion protection. Done well, the result is invisible in normal light and at most hinted at in raking light.

The method has limits. If the paint is cracked or chipped, the panel has to be painted. Dents on edges, folds and swage lines are hard or impossible to push out, as are very large or deep dents where the metal has stretched. Aluminium behaves differently from steel and demands more experience. And where there is a brace behind the panel, no rod can reach.

Whatever cannot be pushed out is filled and painted, or the part is replaced. With a badly damaged roof that can mean cutting out the roof skin and fitting a new one. That is a recognised repair, but a major one, and it belongs in the records.

For you as a buyer, that means asking how it was repaired, not just whether it was. Paintless repair, repainting and panel replacement are three different stories with three different effects on value.

Many insurers will pay out on hail damage without it being repaired. The basis is then the assessor's report or estimate, and the keeper decides what to do with the money. The exact terms are in the policy and differ between insurers and countries; some pay less without a repair than with one.

For the keeper that is a legitimate choice. For the next buyer it has consequences. The damage is on record with the insurer, and in some countries in a shared insurers' database as well. If a second hailstorm comes, the old damage will not be paid for again: the assessor has to separate old dents from new ones, and whatever was already settled is deducted. Without documents, that separation is hard for you as the new keeper to prove.

If you buy a car with known, unrepaired hail damage, document it at the time of purchase: photos in raking light, the old assessment if you can get it, and a line in the purchase contract. Tell your own insurer about the damage when you take out cover. That way it is clear later which dents were already there — and which were not.

Hail damage has a repair value and a market value, and the two are not the same. The repair value is in an estimate: hail repairs are usually calculated from the number of dents per panel and their size class, plus removal and refitting of parts. A dent repair specialist can produce such an estimate after inspecting the car, and it is the strongest document in the negotiation.

The buyer's sum is simple. Start from the price of a comparable car without damage. If you intend to repair, deduct the repair plus the days without a car. If you do not, deduct what the damage will cost you when you sell — because your buyer will do the same sum. Unrepaired damage does not go away; it travels from keeper to keeper.

For the seller the same logic works in reverse. A paintless repair before the sale is often cheaper than the discount buyers demand, because buyers price in uncertainty more heavily than the damage itself. Not always: on an older, low-value car the discount can be smaller than the repair. An estimate beforehand settles the question.

And not every buyer minds equally. If you drive a car to the end and care little about looks, a hail-damaged car can be a cheap way to motor. If you plan to sell again in a few years, today's discount comes with you as tomorrow's.

On Carvexia, the seller's statements include the question “Is any hail or water damage known?”, with the answers Yes, No and Don't know. It appears on the car's page as the seller's statement, not checked. Carvexia does not verify the answer, and there is no assessment behind it.

Three things help when reading it. First, the question lumps two very different kinds of damage together: a “Yes” does not say whether hail or water is meant, nor whether it was repaired or merely paid out — you have to ask. Second, “No” means the seller knows of nothing, not that there is nothing. A dealer who took the car in part-exchange, or a keeper who bought it used, often knows nothing about the time before. Third, “Don't know” is an honest answer rather than evasion; it tells you that you will have to look for yourself.

The statements carry a date, and changes remain visible in the history. If an answer has changed from “Don't know” to “No”, it is fair to ask what changed in between. If the statement is missing altogether, you can send the question along with your enquiry; whether and when the seller answers is up to them.

Whatever it says: the answer does not replace a look in raking light, and whatever you are told verbally belongs in the purchase contract. A sentence such as “hail damage known, not repaired, estimate enclosed” protects both sides. If you believe a statement is wrong, you can report it on the car's page.