Body panels and hail damage.

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BMWTurboDzl

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Wife's two day old new car was hit by hail this afternoon. She has ~15 dings between the hood and trunk.

Q: When it comes to replacing body panels do they still bake the entire car when curing the paint or just the panel itself?
 
That depends entirely on the model and mfg, your best bet would be to contact BMW N/A (based on ur sig) and inquire with someone who will for sure know the correct answer.
 
It's a flat black SLK. I'm hoping worst case that a new hood and trunk would be painted / cured without the rest of the car going in the oven.

Ovens completely wreck havoc on interiors.
 
Shop for Paintless Dent Removal, which may work out to your favour (if you trust the original factory paint to be way superior than aftermarket applied ones, esp. on aqua-based paint).

I had some of my minor door and quarter panel dents fixed locally, and the result was specticular (cost less than a fill-and-repaint job)

Q.
 
See who the current MB Certified shop is in Atlanta (It was and may still be Sports and Imports) and discuss it with them. It should not be a problem to cure them off the car. Typically waterborne paints are cured with motion of air vs heat is my understanding though.

Flat/Matte paint will present its own issues with PDR, but if the paint is not damaged I'd take a not quite perfect PDR over replacing panels myself.

Is the hood and/or truck AL?

(edit: I HIGHLY DOUBT that anyone is going to approve replacing panels for 15 hail dents - but you could have a PDR guy "push to paint" even if he can't work with the matte/flat paint)
 
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Originally Posted By: DuckRyder
See who the current MB Certified shop is in Atlanta (It was and may still be Sports and Imports) and discuss it with them. It should not be a problem to cure them off the car. Typically waterborne paints are cured with motion of air vs heat is my understanding though.

Flat/Matte paint will present its own issues with PDR, but if the paint is not damaged I'd take a not quite perfect PDR over replacing panels myself.

Is the hood and/or truck AL?

(edit: I HIGHLY DOUBT that anyone is going to approve replacing panels for 15 hail dents - but you could have a PDR guy "push to paint" even if he can't work with the matte/flat paint)


I'd rather not paint if I can help it. I don't know if the hood and trunk are Aluminum. I'm trying to get in touch with a shop but with the storm they're busy.
 
Originally Posted By: BMWTurboDzl
It's a flat black SLK. I'm hoping worst case that a new hood and trunk would be painted / cured

No repainting is required. There's a modern miracle called "paintless dent-removal". It's a miracle on the level of windshield-chip repair that doesn't involve replacing the glass.

Call your local new-car dealer and ask who they use for paintless dent-removal. He'll be busy, but you can afford to wait for him to have time: those dents will come out even years later.

New-car dealers use those paintless dent-removal services all the time.
 
How big are the dents (dime, nickel, quarter, half dollar, larger than half dollar)?

What paint is this specifically I'm not finding "flat black" as an option on a 15SLK.

If it is truly matte/flat the issue is that tapping down the dents may leave a rub mark on the paint. It is usually necessary to over push the dent slightly then tap it down.

As a general rule you do not want the dealership door ding route guy fixing hail, you want a "Hail Tech".

Doesn't Dent Wizard have a permanent store up on Peachtree Ind Blvd just down form Jim Ellis? Might be worth stopping by.
 
No paint is baked to cure it, unless it's powder coat.
The body is exposed to heat in production merely to speed the process, not to improve it.
Too bad that this happened to a new car.
I'd contact some good PDR guys and see what they have to say.
If actual paint work is required, color match should be easy on a new car and flat should also be easy to make look right.
After all, it's the gloss that makes all of the imperfections stand out and you won't have that problem.
I don't think that an SLK has aluminum panels anywhere.
Your friend Mr. Magnet will tell you if it does.
 
Originally Posted By: DuckRyder
How big are the dents (dime, nickel, quarter, half dollar, larger than half dollar)?

What paint is this specifically I'm not finding "flat black" as an option on a 15SLK.

If it is truly matte/flat the issue is that tapping down the dents may leave a rub mark on the paint. It is usually necessary to over push the dent slightly then tap it down.

As a general rule you do not want the dealership door ding route guy fixing hail, you want a "Hail Tech".

Doesn't Dent Wizard have a permanent store up on Peachtree Ind Blvd just down form Jim Ellis? Might be worth stopping by.


The dents are shallow and no bigger than a nickel or quarter. The color is black (non-metallic). I call it flat black (BMW name). Our insurance agent (a friend of ours) was in the area and has expedited a claim. Right now it's about getting an appointment set with Classic Collison in Buckhead.


Personally I've only experienced hail damage once. It was a Jetta and required a full repaint. The car was never the same after that.
 
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Originally Posted By: BMWTurboDzl
...
The dents are shallow and no bigger than a nickel or quarter. The color is black (non-metallic). ...


That should be a cakewalk for a good Hail PDR guy.
 
Originally Posted By: DuckRyder
Originally Posted By: BMWTurboDzl
...
The dents are shallow and no bigger than a nickel or quarter. The color is black (non-metallic). ...


That should be a cakewalk for a good Hail PDR guy.


Thanks for the input.
 
Yup the PDR guys are good and 15 dents is nothing. I've seen cars that have crators that look like the moon and it looks like brand new afterwards.
 
I agree with the "never the same" after a rework, my Bmw was in a minor accident in 01, the paint under a halogen light shows all, even though the naked eye makes it look acceptable anyone with a really sharp eye can see the minor differences, photo editing under certain light shows major changes in light reflection and color tone.
 
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Leave it alone until Summer sets in and let it sit out in the hot sun for a few days, see what happens. They may pop out on their own if they're not very big.

If it was a large swath of hail, the body shops and PDR people will be busy for months, anyway. You don't want them working on your car when they're in a hurry to get to the next one.

My wife's '04 Jaguar got caught out in tennis to baseball sized hail. Wrecked everything around it, just beat stuff to a pulp, broken windows, etc. Dimpled the Jag. Hot sun fixed it. The Jaguar is aluminum.
 
Originally Posted By: Win
Leave it alone until Summer sets in and let it sit out in the hot sun for a few days, see what happens.


What happens is your insurance company declines to pay the claim because you took too long to make it.

This is a brand new car we're talking about.
 
Make the claim and take their check. Who said anything to the contrary? It could be free money.
 
I had some dents on the hood of my Civic, the PDR guy said the hood dent wasn't repairable because he couldn't get clean access to the dent the underside of the panel. And another one wasn't repairable because it was along a sheet metal. I don't know much about how they do this, but it sounded like there were a lot of cases where it isn't applicable. Funny, because I always thought it could almost always be done, but I have yet to come to tone of these guys and they said they could do the repair.

Hail SUCKS!
 
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