I found a beautiful roadster, its the color I want and everything. Only has 14,000 miles. However there are two things. While on the car lot, the car suffered quite a bit of hail damage. Both rear taillight lenses have holes in them and there are various dents on the hood, passenger quarter panels, passenger door, and trunk. The other thing is that it was a rental car. How big of a discount should I be looking at here, as I have no idea how much it would cost me to fix the hail damage?

Here is an auto check report on it.
Welcome to AutoCheck

 

The rental history would seem the least of your concerns here. But, valid.

Hail damage, enough to break tailight lenses suggests fairly large hail. Seeing no pictures it is hard to tell how bad the sheet metal looks. I once had every vehicle I owned (5) get hammered by hail. Took the check from Allstate and lived on it for a year. Some of the cars got better on their own. Others held on to their scars 'til I sold 'em.

Many small dents will actually heal themselves overtime, but lots of time, years. Depending on where they are. Door posts and windshield surrounds, curved surfaces don't respond well to solar energy repairs. Flat areas get better but never perfect.
Larger ones require profesional removal and can get costly, even on a small body. And the hood strakes will double the price for Dent Wizard work.

Given my presumed degree of the damage, I would have to wonder why the care wasn't a total, salvage title. While the title may be intact, this car is salvage value. $6,500 to $7,500. Assuming the soft top is OK

These aren't MB Gull Wings. Your car's value will not go up, at least in your lifetime so this isn't and investment car. If you can buy it right, and not worry about the dings, maybe it is worth it. Just remember, it is easier to make payments on a car you love than one you settled for.



roadster with a stick

 

Dealers won't budge on rental car history.

But take the car to a body shop and get an estimate on how much it would cost to fix the damage.

Take that to the dealer and try to negotiate a discount.

There are plenty of roadsters in your neck of the woods. If you don't find exactly what you want, keep on looking

But if you're going to put on carbon fiber body parts, a body kit, or extensively modify the car, a hail-damaged one might work.

Good luck in your search

 

Would say NO.
If the hail was as large as it sounds - dentless repair is unlikely.
Car + repair & paint will run more than a car in good shape.
Only way it is a bargin is if you buy it and drive with dents.
I would keep looking. IMO

 

Paint alone will run you 6-7K. Paintless can work but over time the paint will have issues. There are so many out there I would keep looking. I bought my 93RX7 hail damaged in 92. Just had it repainted this year and the body shop said they could see the paint damage caused by the hail.

 

I don't know about anybody else, but I'm going to try and find one of those "self healing" cars that Franc spoke about.

 

RUN AWAY!!!! FROM THAT CAR!!!

 

I had five of them. You missed your chance 'cause the Dodge one ton ain't for sale. The LHS is in CT and Cathy won't give up her minivan.

In truth, they never really"heal" they just get better. Or else one just gets used to them. I'm sure if I bothered to wash and wax the ole' truck it would show the dents.

roadster with a stick

 

Oh, OK Franc, that explains it. I thought you must have discovered a "fleet" of vehicles that were covered with the same type of material that Pontiac applied to its 1968 GTO's with the "Endura" bumper option.

 

So how come the AutoCheck states "No Hail Damage"?????

By the way, what are they asking for the car?

 

The autocheck says "no hail damage" because it happened on their lot and they have not reported it. The salesman told me the dealership had not planed on getting it fixed. They are asking $12,800.

 

NOT even close on price. Would have to be <$8000 to even think about it.

 

Hard to say without pics. If it is really dented, they have big cojones IMHO to ask $12,800.

 

I agree, WAY too much money!

 

Offer them $6,000 + TTL and tell them they are lucky that you will take that POS off their hands.

 

I'm a big believer in purchasing hail damaged cars when the purpose is point A to point B and you drive it until the wheels come off. Over a life time a car is a major expense and this is a great way to control costs.

In fact, I drive a hail damage 2004 Chevy Tracker right now that had a $21K List Price that I purchased for $10,000. Not that these cars were ever worth $21K. The trick is to not repair them which would cost $6,000K for the hail damage I had. Yes, people think you are crazy and you have to have thick skin but you significantly lower your transportation costs. It's not a keep up with the Jones game-plan. At 60 MPH you really cannot tell.

In fact you can afford a SRT for the weekends.

After 60K miles in a few months I'll give this car to my college kid and I have more than got my money's worth. She will get a car to use through college. Yes, her friends will make fun of her but she too will learn the value of a dollar.

A Crossfire you would actually want to fix so the whole hail damage strategy does not work.

I might just buy another hail damaged car. New hail damaged cars still have full warranty and it's not like there is functional damage such as flood-damage - it's only cosmetic. But there are a lot of bargins out there and maybe I'll go buy a Pontiac the latest market casualty. The weekend comes it's back to the SRT.

 

You could buy that car on Ebay without the damage for $12,800.

Just watch and wait.

Just bid on any you like and stop at $12,800. Get to $15,000 and I'm betting you'll be picking one up sooner than you think. But $2,200 won't paint the one with hail damage.

There are plenty of members who will run over and check one out for you if you just post a request. Just say, "Hey guys i'm looking at this one, what do you think?" You will get plenty of advice.

From friends you can count on. Well, sorta.

Picking up cars all over the country is fun. I've done it six times. Each time was an adventure.

However, if you insist on painting something, this ain't a bad idea.
http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/Chrys...spagenameZWDVW


roadster with a stick

 

Thanks for all of the advice, this forum is fantastic. I'm not really looking for something to get me from point A to point B. If I bought the car I planned on having it fixed, it seems though it is not worth my time to do so. Here are some pics of the car for those who would like to see.

HPIM1603.jpg
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We've had hard hail last year in germany. So there were 2 Crossfires that had to be repaired. I don't know about the US repair prices but we had a SRT coupe with some identical damage and the repair costs (paid by the insurance) were about 7.000 Euro's - that means approx. 9.450 USD.

 

Poor car.Sad