Hail dents

[OMG]

Are there any successful ways to pop them out?

[superhawk996]

I used a small pencil torch on a car decades ago, it did a pretty good job.  Swirl the heat around the dent, carefully to not burn the paint, and it'll magically lift.  I've read that using a can of compressed air held upside down so it sprays the super cold liquid, you can spray the center of the dent immediately after heating and it works even better.

[SwampNut]

[blackhawkxx]

How long have you been waiting to use that?

[XXBirdSlapper]

From your bike or car?

[OMG]

The reason I'm asking, local salvage auction.

Billings Mt got hit with hail, currently 400+ vehicles will be up for auction, probably more than 2,000 total.

[superhawk996]

Speed dents, like on a golf ball, let them be.

[paul99xx]

I'd buy it for the right price regardless of whether they can be fixed. But pretty sure theres some tech available to uses a suction cup to pop them out. No doubt amazon will have them.

 

[paul99xx]

Oops it's glue, plenty on youtube if you search hail damage repair.

 

 

[RXX]

“Beauty is only skin deep, but ugly goes all the way to the bone”

[Furbird]

You need to check the salvage laws in your state.  What requirements it takes to bid and purchase the vehicle, how the titles are branded, whether you can have them inspected as an individual or have to have a license, what the state requirements are to pass inspection, etc.

As one of the salvage inspectors in Alabama, I can tell you that here an individual cannot buy a car from the auction with a salvage title, they cannot have it inspected if purchased from an auction outside of Alabama (as it has to go through a licensed rebuilder), and on a hail car ALL hail damage has to be repaired.  Of all the hail cars ever submitted to me, only two passed.  One was a cop, and one was a rebuilder who said "never again."

[XXitanium]

11 hours ago, Furbird said:

Of all the hail cars ever submitted to me, only two passed.  One was a cop, and one was a rebuilder who said "never again."

 

Weird, so if I have a car in the driveway that gets hail damage its OK to sell it to someone though? 

[superhawk996]

Salvage cars in Ca. are simple.  Anyone can buy them and if it passes a basic safety inspection you're good to go.  It's fuckin retarded that cosmetics will keep a car from being registerable.

[SwampNut]

I keep reading the title as Hail, Dents!

 

[tomek]

Courious why hail damage has to pass state inspection in Alabama. Other then obvious things like windshield, lights etc. it is just cosmetic damage.

[SwampNut]

Cooter needs to get paid, yo.

 

[Furbird]

It has to do with the branding and the way the law is written.  Alabama doesn't do safety inspections (annual inspections, insert your state's gestapo-level taxation term here).  When a vehicle has been determined to be totaled and a salvage title is issued, the only way to get a rebuilt title is to return the vehicle to the condition that existed prior to the salvage event.  Hail means the hail damage was the reason for salvage, so all the hail damage has to be repaired.  With Michael they invented this new term called storm damage, because they were a combination of water and flying debris, so we had vehicles that weren't dented, but the glass and body panels looked like somebody had drug shingles across them at 150mph (because that is basically what happened) so we were inspecting them as a hail vehicle.  Some people got lucky and could buff everything out and touchup paint, others were all-over paint jobs.  You also have a junk car, which can be branded as certificate of destruction/crush/junk/parts only/bill of sale only/etc. and those can never be title in Alabama.  I've seen cars that were run and drive that needed a fender and a headlight, yet had certificates of destruction so they are parts cars.

You can sell a salvage title car to anybody, but you have to disclose separately that the vehicle has a salvage/rebuilt branded title as part of it.  However, the salvage title itself will remain in the name printed on the front until it is either rebuilt or crushed.  Clean title has no such disclosure.  So if you own a car and do not have full coverage, you never have to worry about a salvage brand.  It's only when an insurance company has paid a total loss settlement on a vehicle that it gets branded.

Believe me, I get the question a lot as people drive some pure junk on the roads here, but they are clean title.  That is at the discretion of the patrol officers to determine roadworthiness of a vehicle and if it is outside of DOT and NHTSA compliance, which is extremely rare and would require just an absolute dangerous level of hazard for them to down a vehicle for that.  That is usually only used when somebody is driving without a wheel or tire, parts of the car are dragging on the ground, parts are falling off causing a hazard to other motorists (aka "Harley Davidson"), etc.

[OMG]

Really easy in Montana, I had two cars inspected yesterday, one is a 2014 Fit that has some major dings in it and the other is a 2006 Chrysler 300, when the inspector came back in she asked about other damage as she couldn't see but a very few minor dents. Both passed. Salvage title indicating hail are issued.

I'll be watching to see what the mustang goes for.

And there is this. 2011 Camero 2SS 6.2L

[TFT]

I feel for ya. When I was stationed in Oklahoma we got caught in a severe hailstorm. Just as the hail began falling we pulled into a Dog & Suds under the canopy. We had no damage. The hail was the size of golf balls. After it was all over we saw the damage to the cars, it looked like someone took a ball peen hammer to the bodywork. We were very fortunate.

I had a 1969 Chevelle Supersport, SS396, 375 HP, 4-SPD, 3.73 gears. It was a beast!!