Advice Please - Car damaged by falling Guttering down pipe

[Anastie]

Hi all

After a bit of advice before contacting insurance. During last night's storm. The plastic gutter downpipe on the house was blown by the wind away from its fixings and hit the roof of my wife's Honda Jazz 2021 causing dents and scratches.

Fortunately, I have CCTV showing the guttering hitting the car roof.

I've attached a picture.

Is this a job for car insurance rather than house insurance? Does the damage look repairable and if so is it better to go through a bodyshop rather than the insurance (is it a cheap repair as the excess is £250)

[LuS1fer]

I bent a very small part of the tailgate surround out, on my car.

I had two quotes, one was over £400, the other over £500. I was about to roll over and get shafted when a mate introduced me to a fella on the local trading estate who did it for £120 and did a great job too.

It's not what you know, it's who you know.

[swisstoni]

I’d be looking for someone who does PDR (paintless dent repair).
It’s amazing what good practitioners can fix.

Obviously there’s some scratching but again, a good detailer ought to make that look invisible.

Maybe things have changed, but in my experience, the typical insurance bodyshops would make a much bigger production of the whole thing.in terms of bodywork and paint.

[Anastie]

Yeah, thanks for the replies. I will pop to a local repair shop for a quote

[Bestle]

PDR job if they can get access, wouldn't let a bodyshop anywhere near it with filler until the PDR route was ruled out.

[Anastie]

Yeah, thanks for the replies. I will pop to a local repair shop for a quote

edit: Local paintless dent repair.

Edited by Anastie on Sunday 15th January 14:30

[Wish]

Car insurance, your house insurance won’t pay for the damage to your car.

[ED209]

Car insurance as there’s no 3rd party to claim off. Had the same last year with my own trampoline blowing into my car and van.

[timrud]

How much is the excess on the policy?

I'd just pay out of my own pocket

[av185]

As others have said a dent expert should be able to remove most of the damage providing access is possible although drilling to allow access will probably be required if ypu gobdown this route.

Alternative and preferable option is to use a dent professional with adhesive pulling panel expertise which needs no invasive drilling.

Heavy cutting back and polishing of the panel after the repair will be required to reduce the scratches and whilst this may not get them out totally the end result shouldn't be too noticeable having regards to the curvature of the panel its location and silver colour and this will be infinitely better and substantially cheaper overall than an expensive bodyshop repair with filler and painting resulting in non originality and likely deterioration in the future.

[Anastie]

Thanks for all that have taken the time to reply. One guy (Paintless Dent Repair) has seen the photo and said he could not do the repair due to the damage seen in the photos. I will try someone else!

if the next one says the same its a Bodyshop job!

[swisstoni]

All I can say is that if you have a look on YouTube there are people
doing amazing things using pdr.

Maybe these really skilled people are few and far between, I don’t know.

[66HFM]

Anastie said:

Thanks for all that have taken the time to reply. One guy (Paintless Dent Repair) has seen the photo and said he could not do the repair due to the damage seen in the photos. I will try someone else!

if the next one says the same its a Bodyshop job!

I've got a mate who has a PDR business and he recently did a couple of big door pings for me.
He says the main obstacle is getting access to attack the dent from inside, that may be the main reason the person you contacted couldn't do it....

[GT03ROB]

There are a lot of different levels of skills in the PDR arena. Some are capable of some amazing repairs. Look around at a few others to get more opinions.