Would you buy a new car with repaired hail damage?

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soupcxan

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I'm on the market for a car again, prefer to buy new, and some bad hail storms just came through Dallas last week. The dealers' cars definitely have hail damage.

Would you buy a "new" car from a dealer that had some moderate hail damage, but been repaired (to the point where you couldn't see it anymore)? How much of a discount would you want (say the car costs $30k)/

Unfortunately I don't have the luxury of waiting 6 months for the hail damaged inventory to clear out. But if the hail cars are bad news, I can try to find a dealer that wasn't affected (though I might have less leverage).
 
Would I? Well, when I buy a car I intend to drive it until its only next good move is as a donation to the local trade school for at-risk youth.

In light of that, if I were in the market for a "new" car, I'd view this hail storm as an excellent opportunity to help that dealer move damaged inventory and expect to be compensated for my help accordingly ;) I'd start way, way under inventory price and go from there. I assume hail damage is now part of the car's history report and would be a significant hit on a nicer ($30k is nice around here!) car.
 
soupcxan said:
I'm on the market for a car again, prefer to buy new, and some bad hail storms just came through Dallas last week. The dealers' cars definitely have hail damage.

Would you buy a "new" car from a dealer that had some moderate hail damage, but been repaired (to the point where you couldn't see it anymore)? How much of a discount would you want (say the car costs $30k)/

Unfortunately I don't have the luxury of waiting 6 months for the hail damaged inventory to clear out. But if the hail cars are bad news, I can try to find a dealer that wasn't affected (though I might have less leverage).
Click to expand...

If you couldn't see the hail damage, how do you know it was damaged? Was the dealer advertizing the car as having been damaged? If they advertize it as having been damaged and repaired and you couldn't see the damaged areas, I'd still want 20% off and a warranty that covered the repaint. I wouldn't buy a car that had not been repaired unless you know someone that would do that kind of work and would give you a good repair at a good price. I've had a few dents repaired in the past by companies like "Dent Wizzard" that do paintless dent repair. They are very good.
 
I would go for it if I intended to drive the car for a long time.
DH's car got hit by a hailstorm 2 years ago. It was a total loss acc. to the insurance. They offered to refund the value of the car and we could keep the car.
We never bothered to repair more than the windows.
It still looks like a golf ball and now we drive this car for free...

My company car was 7 months old when it was in the same hailstorm - up to 6 month they would have declared it a total loss. The insurance insisted on repair. It was like new when it came back. These repair guys can do miracles.
 
Just about every car on the lot had some hail damage, so I'd assume if I bought a car there in the next week, it would have had some damage (they were repairing them when I was there last night). And I would definitely ask them even if the car looked new - I think there's a law in TX that requires disclosure of damage above a certain threshold.

To be clear, I don't want to buy one that looks like a golf ball and drive it like that for the next 10 years and I'm not looking to repair it myself. I'd only want one that had already been repaired - but I don't know how well that holds up, if there could be other problems down the road (resale would suffer, but hopefully that's not for >8 years) , etc. And what is a fair discount for one that's been repaired - $500? $1000?
 
Repaired hail damage is permanently repaired. The repair doesn't wear out and revert back to little dings again, if that's what you're asking.

Having said that, I live in Dallas also and I'm sure there are dealers with non hail damaged cars if that's what you want. My brand new Maxima was sitting out front of my house and has no damage. The hail in my area was pretty small.
 
utrecht said:
Having said that, I live in Dallas also and I'm sure there are dealers with non hail damaged cars if that's what you want.
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Apparently hail can be very local. We had grape-size hail last week at home, three miles away it was golf-ball size and did damage to cars. Six miles further south they didn't even get rain.
 
Presumably hail damage is superficial. It doesn't affect the chassis, the engine, etc. Therefore if the car that I wanted had been properly repaired I would certainly make an offer based on a 30% discount. After all, they can either say no, or negotiate.
 
Walt34 said:
Apparently hail can be very local. We had grape-size hail last week at home, three miles away it was golf-ball size and did damage to cars. Six miles further south they didn't even get rain.
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There was hail the size of hens' eggs 25 miles north of me last week. I have no garage or carport, so I am really lucky that there was none here.

On the OP's question, I would jump at the chance to get a discount for repaired hail damage if one was offered on a new car that I would have purchased anyway (had there been no hail).

As for the amount of discount, you will be negotiating the price down anyway so I would just be a more hard-bitten, merciless negotiator. Get the price you want. :D
 
Last edited:
Meadbh said:
Presumably hail damage is superficial. It doesn't affect the chassis, the engine, etc. Therefore if the car that I wanted had been properly repaired I would certainly make an offer based on a 30% discount. After all, they can either say no, or negotiate.
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soupcxan, this 30% figure is certainly a good place to start. As stated above, it's all negotiable. Car dealers accountants and the insurance companies accountants are of the same ilk and you know the dealer is not going to be screwed out of any money. If the car is a very popular make and/or model, negotiating might be tougher. You want to buy one of these cars? I'll guarantee that you will have a hard time getting off the lot. They will want to deal.
 
Just another data point. Many years ago when living in Colorado, my nearly new car sat through a hailstorm and looked like a golf ball the next day. I took it to the insurance guy, and he suggested waiting a few weeks and if I still wanted to file a claim he would guarantee fast action.

Sure enough, within a couple of weeks the normal expansion/contraction of cold nights and hot days worked out all the dents and you simply couldn't see any of the hail damage.
 
Hail that's bad enough to seriously damage cars is usually pretty localized. Some dealers may have a lot of damage and a few miles away there's nothing. (My new car once got caught in hail because my daughter had it five miles from home. We didn't have any damage to the cars on our street.)

So I'd be sure to comparison shop. The "big discount" for the advertized hail damage may be the normal discount off MSRP that the dealer would give anyway.
 
If you intend to keep the car and drive it to the junk yard then absolutely. It's a great opportunity to get a good discount. Not sure what I'd expect off but it better be a good chunk. If the car looks fine I doubt they'll give that much off and I' prefer a car with dents for a better deal. If you saw the car I drive a hail damaged car would not be such a big deal! Hail doesn't effect the car other than cosmetically and I couldn't care less about that but maybe you do.
 
I would for a reasonable discount. Price would be based on damaged and level of repairs.
 
I had some hail damage on my cars and while some dents can be repaired (paintless dent repair), the hoods which exceeded the allowed number of "hits" were replaced. From my experience, everytime something is replaced, it never comes out as good as before (wind noise, rattles, etc).
 
Soup,

I would just do some comparitive shopping (even look at other brands) to see how much extra discount the various dealers in the area are offering for hail damaged vehicles. Could be a good opportunity for you and see no reason not to consider it. Just make sure you are getting a decent cut off what ever the typical market value price is for a non-damaged car.
 
soupcxan said:
To be clear, I don't want to buy one that looks like a golf ball and drive it like that for the next 10 years and I'm not looking to repair it myself.
Click to expand...
We're talking dinged sheet metal & plastic, right? The car still has windshields & windows and no water's getting in through cracks, right? Will the metal rust from the hail damage?

Heck, I'd drive a car that looks like a golf ball. In fact we're doing pretty much that same thing now with a 14-year-old Altima. I can appreciate preventing corrosion, but otherwise the idea of spending money to fix a car's cosmetic appearance makes as much sense to me as waxing a hammer. They're both tools and they'll both get the job done for years no matter what they look like.

I used to get teased for not driving a proper "officer's car". I'd explain to the teasers that the car reflected my values and my net worth, although perhaps not in a way that was obvious to the teaser.

I've never spent much time in areas subject to hail, let alone to hail damage. But in a few years our daughter's going to be in the market for a cheap used car. Should she look at hail-damaged goods? Are there any material or operational drawbacks?
 
I got caught in the riots in Miami in 1980 and my car was hit with rocks, bottles about 40 or 50 times. Mostly little dents probably similar to what hale would cause.
We had it fixed but it was never the same as the car developed rust problems. We ended trading it in early.

I was driving and was just happy to get out alive.
 
I guess the real question boils down to cost of ownership. If a new car is discounted, so will a used car be discounted. After a few years it will be obvious whether the repairs are holding up. Worst case, you will get a 30% discount on your depreciation, and maybe even do better than that?

(I bought a used BMW convertible. It had had the top replaced because it was slashed. They could not even steal the radio. So they stole all four wheels. Fixed up like new and discounted. Great car! Sold on craigslist 3 years later. No extra discount.)
 
Dimples make a golf ball fly faster. I'm just saying...
 
Do you live in an area where rust is a problem? My mom's car had hail-damage and eventually started rusting around the spots that hadn't been de-dinged.

Just try to get a warranty on the paint job if you can.
 
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