A monsoon cell can put a hundred dents in a car in four minutes. The good news is that hail damage is close to the ideal case for paintless dent repair. The important qualifier is that it only works where the paint is unbroken.
Why hail suits paintless repair
Hail dents are usually shallow, round and spread widely across horizontal panels. The metal has stretched but not torn, and the finish has flexed with it rather than cracking. That is exactly the condition paintless dent repair is designed for.
The dent is reached from behind the panel and worked out with rods against a reflected light board. Nothing is filled and nothing is sprayed, so the panel keeps the paint it was built with. On a car you intend to sell, that matters more than most people realize.
When it will not work
Where a stone or a large stone of ice has actually cracked or chipped the finish, paintless repair cannot help. Pulling the metal straight does not restore a broken paint film, and any shop that tells you otherwise is planning to fill and spray it anyway.
Dents on a panel edge, or on a double-skinned section with no access behind it, also usually need conventional bodywork. A car can easily need both methods, and the split is decided panel by panel.
Check it before you claim
Hail is normally a comprehensive claim rather than collision, which often means a different deductible. It is worth knowing roughly what the repair costs before you decide whether claiming is worth it at all.
Look at each horizontal panel in raking light — early morning or late afternoon, not overhead sun. Run a fingernail lightly across a dent. If it catches on anything, the paint is broken there.
Or bring it in and we will go over it with you panel by panel, and put the split between paintless and conventional work in writing before anything starts. We work with every insurer, and the choice of shop is yours regardless of what a claims line suggests.