Best Solutions to Paint Your Car After Hail Damage

We are in the height of hail season in Colorado. Depending on where you live in the Denver Metro Area, you’ve probably already seen a hailstorm or two, possibly one that’s bad enough to damage your car and its paint.

If that’s the case, you might be looking for advice on how to restore your car’s appearance after hail damage. Here are the best solutions for car painting after hail damage.

Maybe You Don’t Need to Paint

Are you sure you need to paint the car after hail damage? Just because the car is badly dented, it doesn’t mean that you’re necessarily going to need to paint it. Instead, most hail damage can be restored with paintless dent repair (sometimes called PDR). In paintless dent repair, dents are pulled out in a way that doesn’t require painting the car.

The advantage of paintless dent repair is that it leaves your car’s factory paint job alone. Even after damage, your car’s factory installed paint job is probably sturdier than a paint job you’d get at home, possibly even than you’d get at an auto collision shop.

Let a Pro Do It

However, if you’re convinced that your car needs or would benefit from painting, take it to an auto collision shop for repainting. The process of repainting a car after hail damage is difficult (see below), with a lot of room for error. It’s also time-consuming if you don’t have the time, tools, or assistance to get it done quickly. A pro can get your car repainted quickly which means that you won’t be without a vehicle and won’t be driving your car while it’s in various stages of repair.

You’ll also get a better quality job. The results from a professional paint job will last much longer than the paint job you apply yourself.

Do It Yourself

If you’re insistent on repainting your own car after hail damage, here’s the step-by-step guide to getting it done.

Sand

First, you have to sand the damaged area to remove old paint, smooth the area, and prepare for dent repair. Sand the surface of the entire panel, trying to get it as smooth as possible. Start with an 80 grit and keep working finer. Once you’ve smoothed with a 220 grit paper, you’re ready for filling, though you should get to 400, 600, or even 1000 grit before painting.

Fill

Once you’ve roughed off the old paint, hopefully not reaching bare metal in very many places, it’s time to apply the fill. Mix the body filler according to directions, then apply it smoothly and evenly across the surface using a wide applicator knife. Try to avoid creating bubbles and make the surface as smooth as possible.

Repeat

Once you apply the body filler, it’s time to sand again. You’re trying to make the surface smooth enough for painting, but don’t be surprised if you have to go back and add filler again. Sanding will likely reveal air pockets in the filler, and it can be hard to create a smooth transition between fill and metal.

Find the Proper Paint Color

As you’re getting close to achieving the smooth surface you can paint, it’s time to figure out the proper color for your car. Most cars these days have a paint code from the factory on them. But where it is depends on the car. It might be in the driver’s side door jamb, on the driver’s sun visor, under the driver’s seat, in the glove compartment, near the radiator or someplace else in the engine compartment, in the well for the spare tire, or other places. If you’re lucky, it’ll also be in the owner’s manual.

Once you find the code, you can order matching paint.

Mix Until It Really Matches

However, it’s unlikely that the paint you ordered will actually match the paint of your car. That’s largely because of variations in paint batches, so you’ll have to mix the paint color until it actually matches the rest of the car.

Be Prepared to Do It Again

As we mentioned above, repainting your car at home is unlikely to give you a quality, durable paint job. So you have to be prepared to repaint the damaged panel in a few years. Keep track of any information and tools you used to do the job the first time.

Why Choose Accurate Auto Body for Your Hail Damage

If your car has hail damage, an auto collision shop will give you much better repairs than you can do at home and might not even require painting the car.

At Accurate Auto Body, our Focus on You™ Service System means that we will give you an accurate estimate of what it will cost to fix your car, both in time and money. We can work around your schedule so you can have a minimum disruption to your life. We work with your insurance company so you don’t have to.

For a free estimate on your car’s hail damage, please contact Accurate Auto Body in Denver.