Hailstorm Took Heavy Toll On Vehicles
More Than 3,000 Vehicles Damaged At Southeast Toyota
The damage from the March 15 hailstorm in Commerce appears to be far grater than widely known. In fact, some people may not realize that their vehicles were damaged.
“People need to check their vehicles,” advises Wayne Abbs, owner of Wayne Neal Chevrolet, where approximately 1,600 vehicles were damaged.
“A lot of people pulled into our dealership for service and said they had no damage,” Abbs added. “They just didn’t know. The grand opening at Ingles — there’s not a car over there that didn’t have any damage. We had golf-ball-size plus hail here. It really came down and it wasn’t a pretty sight.”
Bob Moore, vice president and general manager of Southeast Toyota, located on Hwy. 334 about a mile south of Wayne Neal Chevrolet, reports damage to more than 3,000 new Toyotas.
“Unfortunately, we had more vehicles than normal on the ground due to current economic circumstances,” he stated. But the good news, Moore said, is that the dents caused by the hail were not as severe as those caused in a 1996 hailstorm at the same place.
“I remember hail damage from that storm being obvious. You could tell it from a distance,” he said. “On this one, there is a lot of damage, but the dimples are smaller.”
Moore agreed with Abbs that the damage can be difficult for the untrained eye to spot.
“You have to walk up close to it, and if you have a good eye, you can find it,” he said. “On some of the cars, I couldn’t see the damage, but the experienced sheet metal people could. Then, if I stood sidewise, leaned and caught the sun just right, I could see the damage.”
Abbs estimated damage at Wayne Neal Chevrolet in the $120,000 to $130,000 range. Moore said he could not yet put a figure on damage at SET. Both businesses will recover some of their losses from insurance.
Wayne Neal and SET are each bringing in experts to repair the damage. Abbs said he will disclose the damage to potential buyers, some of whom may choose to have it repaired, while others will opt to take a discount on the price of the vehicle.
“I had a customer yesterday who said it was a work truck and it was going to get dented anyway,” he said. “Some of the vehicles have only one little dent, some have 20 dents. We can fix them if the customers want them fixed, or we can knock some off the price. I hope everybody (other dealers) discloses it. That’s the right thing to do.”
Southeast Toyota’s Moore said the company is bringing in outside technicians who will restore every affected vehicle to new-car standards.
“They’re coming in today,” he said Monday. “It will probably take them two or three days to go through them.”
For SET, one of the problems is keeping the storm-pounded Toyotas out of the way so SET can continue its production schedule.
“It’s going to crowd us up out there for awhile,” he pointed out. “If you see cars parked out on the grass, that’s the reason.”
