Should You Buy a Hail-Damaged Car in Kansas City?

Buying a hail-damaged car can make sense if three things check out: the title is clean, the paint is intact, and the discount is bigger than the repair. In Kansas and Missouri, hail dents alone do not make a car salvage, because neither state counts them toward the salvage percentage. Read the title anyway: an earlier total or other damage can still brand it. A car an insurer totaled and took in Kansas, or declared salvage in Missouri, is a different purchase, with a title brand that follows it. So check the title, check the paint, and get the car scanned before you sign.

The three checks before you buy a hail car

After a big storm, some dealers sell hail-hit cars at a discount, and private sellers list them too. The discount is the hook. Whether it is a deal comes down to three checks:

• The title. Is it clean, or does it carry a salvage, rebuilt salvage or prior salvage brand? This is the one thing a repair cannot change.
• The paint. Paintless dent repair works when the paint is intact. Cracked or chipped paint, old body filler or a repainted panel moves that part of the car into paint work.
• The math. The repair has a price. If the discount does not cover it with room to spare, you are paying full price for a car with a job still to do.

Miss any one and the deal turns. Start with the title, because it is the one you cannot fix later.

Hail alone does not brand a title in Kansas or Missouri

Both states set a repair-cost test for salvage, and both carve hail out of it.

Kansas. A late-model car is a salvage vehicle when the repair cost is 75% or more of its fair market value just before the damage. But K.S.A. 8-197(b)(2)(B) says the test does not apply when the condition was merely exterior cosmetic damage from windstorm or hail. Late model means the model year of the damage or any of the six years before it.

Missouri. A car damaged within six years of its model year is a salvage vehicle when repairs exceed 80% of its fair market value. But under RSMo 301.010(55), the repair total shall not include damage as a result of hail.

Missouri law even has its own definition of a hail-damaged vehicle, separate from its salvage definition: any vehicle whose body has been dented as the result of the impact of hail.

So a large hail estimate does not, on its own, turn a car into salvage in either state. But read the title itself: an earlier total or other damage can still brand it.

The brand comes in through a different door: the insurer's decision.

When a hail car does carry a brand

In both states, the insurer's handling of a total loss can make a hail car salvage, whatever the percentage says.

In Kansas:

• Total and take title. Under K.S.A. 8-197(b)(2)(C), a car the insurer determines is a total loss and takes title to is a salvage vehicle, whatever the cause.
• Rebuilt salvage. Once repaired, it gets a rebuilt salvage title.
• A notice on the door frame. Before that title is issued, the car is inspected, and the Kansas Highway Patrol attaches a notice to the left door frame stating it is a rebuilt salvage vehicle.

In Missouri:

• Declared salvage. Under RSMo 301.010(55)(c), a car declared salvage by an insurance company in settling a claim is a salvage vehicle.
• Prior salvage. After a Missouri State Highway Patrol vehicle examination, the repaired car gets a title marked prior salvage motor vehicle.
• It stays. That designation carries onto every later Missouri title issued for the car.

When you look at a hail car, ask for the title, read it for those words, and on a Kansas car check the left door frame. A car titled in another state follows that state's rules, which this post does not cover. If the seller mentions a total loss, read what happens when hail totals a car first.

A clean title still says nothing about the paint.

Check the paint, the filler and the old repairs

Walk the car in daylight and look along each panel, not straight at it. A dent bends the reflection of a straight line.

• Cracked or chipped paint. Look at the center of the dents, especially on the hood and roof. The roof usually takes the most hits and is the hardest panel to see from the ground.
• Filler and old repairs. Paintless repair stops at panels with previous body filler. A panel that looks smooth but sits next to a dented one may have been repaired already.
• Repainted panels. A color or texture that does not quite match the next panel is a sign of paint work.
• Glass and lights. Look for chips and cracks in the windshield, mirrors and lamps.

How a paintless repair compares with a body shop repair is on our PDR vs body shop page.

Then put a number on what you found.

Price the repair before you price the car

The discount only works if you know the repair cost. For a guide, most Kansas City hail repairs land between $1,500 and $7,000. Light damage on one or two panels sits near $1,500 to $3,000, moderate damage across the hood, roof and several panels near $3,000 to $7,000, and severe damage runs $7,000 to $15,000 and up. Those ranges, and what moves a car between them, are in hail damage repair cost in Kansas City.

A range is not your car, though. Compare the discount to the repair on the car in front of you.

• Ask the seller what was done. Has any of the hail been repaired? Was there a claim?
• Talk to your agent before you buy. Tell them about the existing damage and ask how it affects coverage and a future hail claim.
• Plan the repair. A typical paintless repair takes 5-7 days once the car is in the bay.

The scan is how you get the number for the car you are about to buy.

Get it scanned before you sign

A free 3D scan at our Leavenworth shop takes about 10 minutes and documents every panel, with dent counts, sizes and depths. Bring the car before you sign, and you will know what the storm did to it, panel by panel, so the price you agree to reflects the repair it needs.

What you get from that visit:

• A dent count for every panel, with sizes and depths, instead of a guess from the lot.
• A repair number to set against the discount, before the paperwork is signed. More on how it works is on the 3D hail scan page.