COMMERCE CITY, Colo. — At All Auto Hail in Commerce City, the phone started ringing off the hook Friday morning.
By 2 p.m., owner Rose Ruiz said more than 50 people had called to make appointments to fix hail damage after a major storm rolled through the metro area on Thursday night that produced hail up to baseball size.
“As soon as I got up, I had like 20 messages,” Ruiz said. “Right now, my phone’s vibrating as we speak, so yes, very busy.”
In the garage next door, her brother Carlos spent the morning gently hammering out dents on the hood of a Toyota SUV. Their shop uses paintless dent repair (PDR), with the goal of returning cars to their original look.
“It takes quite a while,” Carlos Ruiz said. “It’s not something you can do quickly. You’ve got to take your time and do it right.”
That means drivers whose vehicles sustained hail damage in Thursday's storm may have to wait weeks, if not months, to book an appointment for repairs, Carlos Ruiz said.
“Those people that are calling right now and making their claims, their cars will get fixed in two weeks, three weeks,” Carlos Ruiz said. “If you call in the next five days or next week, your car’s going to be looking at months until it gets repaired.”
His personal truck and business van were also damaged by hail, and said those will be pushed to the back of the line.
“We’ll get to them here in about eight months, so it’s fine,” he said. “It’s part of nature, we can’t do anything about it.”
Rose Ruiz said the average cost for minimal damage after a storm like this is around $4,500.
She said insurance will almost always cover those costs for drivers with full insurance, but she recommended taking the car to a reputable repair shop to make sure you get everything documented and covered.
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