I know it’s hard to pass up what seems like a good sale or bargain, especially on big ticket items like cars. In light of the recent storms, many car dealerships either are now, or soon will be offering hail damaged vehicles at deep discounts to any and all suckers, I mean consumers, who want to buy them. I made this mistake once, and would like share with you some facts to consider so you don’t go into the decision blindly.
First, let’s take a pre-owned car that would sell for $12000 without hail damage. With the hail damage though, a dealer is selling the same car for just south of $7000. Good deal, right? Not necessarily. It’s a winner for the car dealer. He has already collected payment from his insurance company for the car, so anything over and above that is pure profit. Theoretically, with insurance figured into the mix, a dealer can make more profit on hail car than he could pristine, unblemished new car. I’m not saying there is anything wrong with that, just wanted you to know how it works.
The problem comes when you drive your half-price hail car home and say two months later get into what under normal circumstances would be a very minor fender bender. So now you car has a bent fender, a broken headlight, and a slightly bent hood. Thus damage, plus re-packing the air bags comes to about $3500 in damage at today’s prices. No problem, right? After all, it’s a car with a market value of $12000. Not so fast. The insurance company actually assigned a value to the car of somewhere between $4000-4500. That means that the $3500 repair estimate puts the car over the threshold and the insurance company totals it. An otherwise perfectly good car totaled for a bent fender, hood, and broken taillight. What a waste. Not to mention the hassle of having to once again look for yet another car.
For those who think I’m exaggerating or just making this up, think again. This happened to me. What I described in the paragraph above is exactly what happened to me almost 4 years ago except I used arbitrary values for this piece.
I fell into this trap and I want to try my best to help you avoid it. I’m not necessarily saying do not under any circumstances buy a hail damaged car or truck, even though I certainly never will. I am saying just go into the decision making process armed with all the information and with your eyes wide open. Had I known then, what I had to learn the hard way, I would have never bought that car. Hopefully I can keep you from making the same mistake.
Jim Chitty
Writer/Columnist/Blogger
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