Clean Out Your Garage
Many people with garages aren’t using them to keep their car safe, which is a shame, because there’s nothing better for protecting your car from hail than keeping it in the garage.
Clean out the storage space in the garage, move your workshop, even get your hubby to move out his neglected hobby car. Just do what you can to fit your car in the garage through the hail season.
Build a Carport
Don’t have a garage, can’t clean it out, or have more cars than you have space in the garage? Try building a carport.
These days, there are many easy-to-build solutions, from prefab car ports to YouTube videos that give you step-by-step instructions. Just make sure that the carport is hail proof and it’s big enough to overhang on all sides. Hail can come at such angles that you might not be able to guarantee your carport will protect the car, but do what you can to protect from angled hail.
Pay for Parking
If you live in an apartment or if you don’t have the resources to build a carport, consider paying for covered parking through hail season. This will not only protect your car from hail, but it might also provide extra security against theft.
You might find you like it so much you decide to pay all year long.
Buy a Car Cover
If your car is going to be outside all summer, you can try to protect it with a car cover. Make sure the cover you get is designed for hail protection. Get in the habit of covering your car most of the time. This not only protects you from surprise hailstorms, but it also helps you get good at covering the car.
Being able to put the car cover on quickly is important because you likely won’t have much warning for an impending hailstorm. If hail is already falling, however, think of your personal safety first, and don’t go out to cover your car if it could put you at risk.
Improvise Cover
If you must, consider improvising cover for your car. One popular improvisation is moving blankets. These are heavy and thickly padded, so if you have them, they’re worth trying. Just make sure to secure them. Though they’re heavy, the kind of wind that accompanies hailstorms can pick up even heavy blankets.
Another good improvised cover is bags of potting soil or mulch. These are easy to spread out on your car, they’re unlikely to blow away, and they provide good protection.
Some people also recommend cardboard sheets to protect your car, but these can be hard to spread out, and they’re likely to blow away. Not to mention that it doesn’t take much rain to turn them to mush. Not only does that reduce their protective value, but it also makes them hard to clean off your car.
Get to Shelter
If the forecast shows imminent hailstorms, especially if you’ve seen them on the radar heading your way, seek shelter for your car. If you’re downtown or in Cherry Creek North, there are plenty of options. Shopping centers, paid garages, even some RTD Park & Rides have covered lots where you can shelter your car.
Pull Over
If you’re driving when the hailstorm hits, don’t try to outrun the storm. Instead, pull over. The speed you’re driving adds to the speed of the falling hail, making impacts worse.
If you see cover, use it, but try to avoid pulling over at underpasses. These can get crowded, and there’s often less shoulder room to pull fully out of the traffic lanes. With poor sight in hailstorms, you’re more likely to get hit, which can cause worse damage to your car than hail. In addition, some underpasses are at risk of flooding during large storms, and that can also cause worse damage to your car.
Why Choose Accurate Auto Body for Hail Repairs in Denver
Despite all these steps, you might find that your car suffered hail damage anyway. If that’s the case, let Accurate Auto Body help. We can repair most hail damage with our paintless dent repair, helping your car look good as new.
At Accurate Auto Body, our exclusive Focus on You Service System™ helps you have the best auto repair experience. We start by listening to your repair goals, so we know what you’re looking for from repairs. We work around your schedule, with guaranteed completion date and a guaranteed quote so there’s no surprise charges. Check on the state of your repairs any time on our website. Plus, we utilize the latest repair technology to ensure your repairs are done right the first time, including your advanced safety systems. We can work with your insurance company to make the repair experience easier, too.
Find out how we can help your hail damaged car. Please call 303-344-2212 or contact us for a free estimate by making an appointment at Accurate Auto Body in the Sunny Vale neighborhood of Aurora.
Thank you for explaining that you can use blankets to reduce the chance of impact on your car. We recently had some hail damage to our car, so I was wondering how to prevent that in the future. I’ll be sure to try this out next time and see how it works.
I noticed that there are dents on my car’s roof, and I think they might have come from the recent hailstorm. It makes sense that I might want to get this repaired properly. I’ll see if I can get a carport built to protect my roof in the long run.