Dents from storm damage, bummer

velobard · 07-24-06, 09:17

I live in the suburbs of St Louis and was hit by the surprise storms that hit last Wednesday evening. The storms pretty much came out of nowhere, no one predicted we'd have anything nearly like what hit us. The "gust front" on the storm made the winds go crazy for several minutes or more before the storm itself reached us, and the wind shifted direction a few different times.

I noticed a good-sized tree limb against the side of my car, I think it came from the neighbor's house 2 doors down but with the way the wind shifted I can't be positive. It was only this evening when I went out to clean up my car and do another round with Swirlbuster polish that I noticed the dents above the window on the RR door. Two dents on the door frame and one on the edge of the roof, plus a couple of scrapes in the paint. I can't believe I missed them when I did a fast ONR wash last Friday, but I was in a hurry and it was nearly dark. I tried to take a couple of pictures, but I had a hard time getting a good shot that showed the damage. Thankfully they look pretty minor. Does this look like a good candidate for paintless dent repair? I'll check, but I imagine the damage is going to be less than my $250 deductible. I'm really missing not having a garage anymore.

A couple of the scrapes on the paint at the back corner of the roof. Haven't tried to buff them out yet. There's a few other scrapes elsewhere that aren't as bad.

Dents looking toward back.

Dents looking toward front.

I wish I could find a way to get better shots of the dents.

Here's where it was parked when it got hit. If it had been in the driveway in the backyard it would have been directly under an oak, but nothing fell back there. The offending branch came from about 30' up in the large tree in the middle of the picture, in front of the second house down.

The good news is my efforts at polishing are coming out fairly well. Here's a close-up of the hood. Still a few noticeable scratches from when it was buffed out by the shop after a repaint this spring, but I'm working on it.

I do realize I'm dang lucky, some folks had their cars or houses crushed by falling trees. Our power was out until about 10am the next day, right after my wife found a store that actually still had ice in stock to help keep the food cold in our freezer. My ex lives across the river in Illinois and still doesn't have power....Awwwwww.

Five Star · 07-24-06, 09:29

nothing a good PDR guy cant fix. I imagine they are busy now

velobard · 07-25-06, 06:44

It could have been a lot worse.

The funny part is this car belongs to an insurance agent who was visiting someone's house to try to sell them more coverage. I don't think that's gonna buff out.

velobard · 07-25-06, 11:59

Dang! Just took the car for a couple estimates over lunch. $1335 for a conventional repair shop, PDR shop said they didn't think they could handle it because of the location. Definitely more than I would have guessed.

natebood · 07-25-06, 02:45

Sucks to hear that, but at least you're ok. I've still got two dents in my roof from those hail storms we had a few months back. The hail was HUGE and I don't know how I only managed to get two fairly small dents. Did you get any of the hail before? Here's a pic of a piece of hail found in our front yard:

velobard · 07-25-06, 06:24

Quote:

Originally Posted by natebood

Sucks to hear that, but at least you're ok. I've still got two dents in my roof from those hail storms we had a few months back. The hail was HUGE and I don't know how I only managed to get two fairly small dents. Did you get any of the hail before? Here's a pic of a piece of hail found in our front yard:

That's definitely some good sized hail. I just moved up to St Louis from your neck of the woods. I spent the past year in Lebanon, but before that for 10 years I lived in the middle of Springfield, just a block down the street from SMS (excuse me, Mo State). I need to get back down there sometime soon to visit my folks.

The whole area got off pretty lucky when it came to injuries. Sad news today about an electric co worker who was killed trying to restore power, but overall we've been pretty lucky. My wife works at a hospital that's been on disaster status because the VA and I think another hospital evacuated because of electrical problems. Their building was full and they had folks in the hallways. Overall, the heat's caused more health problems than the storms themselves.

We didn't get any hail here and there weren't any tornadoes, just storm winds. It was weird because I was just relaxing, reading in the living room when shadows started moving across the front window and I looked out to see trees across the street doing the limbo. The winds were moving 70-80 mph and the storm was only moving at 40, so there was a "gust front" of wind that hit us 15 minutes before the storm itself. Electric company says it's the worst storm damage they've had in 100+ years. And just last year they had a major dam break at a hydro-electric plant at Taum Sauk. Their stockholders aren't likely to be happy this year. And now today Al Sharpton came to town to demand the electric company reduce their rates 10% to help out all the poor folks impacted by the storm. Anything for a photo op, I guess.

Yeah, I'm sure they're gonna do that after hiring extra help, paying all that overtime, all the repair costs, and losing several days of revenue. You bet. Even before this hit they were calling for a rate increase.

drew.haynes · 07-25-06, 06:31

I had some hail damage last year. Lasted five minutes in a small area of town. Came out of class and the ground was covered in LITERALLY baseball-sized hailstones... even shattered one of my fiberglass fenders!