Walk around the car before the storm is forgotten
The morning after a loud storm cell crosses Scarborough is when Wexford’s hail damage gets found — or missed. Round hail dents are shallow and nearly invisible when the sun is high, so inspect the way an estimator does: early or late in the day, crouched low so light rakes across the hood, roof, and trunk lid at a flat angle. Move around the car; a panel that looks clean from one side can show a dozen soft craters from the other. Photograph anything you find, and note the storm date while it is still easy to pin down — that documentation anchors the claim.
Carports write a signature on Wexford hail damage that we see nowhere else in the city: half a car. The sheltered end comes through untouched while the hood — or the trunk, depending which way the car was nosed in — takes the full drumming, along with whichever flank faced the open side. Partial coverage does not shrink the claim to pocket change, either. One hood, one front fender, and a windshield pushed past its limit add up fast, and mixed damage across a few panels still deserves a proper estimate rather than a shrug.
Comprehensive coverage, a deductible, and a race you can win
Hail involves no other driver and no fault, so it runs through the comprehensive portion of your policy — provided you carry it, which is worth confirming, since comprehensive is optional in Ontario. Your comprehensive deductible applies, and glass follows the same rule: a hail-cracked windshield is covered under comprehensive with your normal deductible, because Ontario has no special zero-deductible glass provision. Report the damage promptly; a hail claim does not involve the Fault Determination Rules at all, and filing it does not make you an at-fault driver.
Speed matters for a mundane reason: a single cell can pepper every open driveway from Victoria Park to Birchmount in ten minutes, and all of those owners call somewhere that same week. Getting your photos to us early puts your written estimate — and your parts order — ahead of the wave. We open the claim, walk the adjuster through panel-by-panel documentation, and if the car is older and the dent count high, we flag honestly when the numbers are drifting toward a total-loss conversation, so the possibility never ambushes you mid-file.
Reshaping what can be saved, replacing what cannot
A hailed car is really thirty small repairs wearing one claim number, and each panel gets its own verdict. Shallow dents in steel with access behind them can be worked back until the surface reads true. Dents that are deep, sharp-edged, or crowded together — and most modern aluminum hoods, which resent reshaping — often cost less to replace than to rescue, so we price both routes and recommend the cheaper correct one. Any dent that broke the paint moves to the front of the queue, because an open crack plus the coming winter’s salt equals rust by March.
Refinishing follows the same standard as our collision work: colour proven against your actual panels before the booth, blended so no transition line survives, and warranted for as long as you own the vehicle. Roof-and-hood hail jobs are not overnight work and we quote the real span up front rather than a cheerful guess. Drop-off runs Monday to Saturday, 8 AM to 7 PM, Sundays by arrangement — and the estimate starts from your driveway, with photos texted to (647) 594-3401.
