Will Hail Dents Rust If You Leave Them?

A hail dent will not rust as long as the paint over it is intact. The dent bends the metal, but unbroken paint still covers it, so there is no bare metal for moisture to reach. Rust becomes possible where hail chipped or cracked the paint, because at those spots moisture can get to the metal underneath. So the real question is not whether you have dents. It is whether any of them broke the paint.

Here is how to tell, and what it means for how soon you should act.

Why intact paint keeps a dent from rusting

Rust starts when moisture reaches bare metal. Paint is the layer that keeps it out. In a hail dent, the metal is pushed in and the paint usually moves with it, still in one piece.

• Intact paint over a dent does not expose bare metal. That dent is a repair question, not a rust question.
• Chipped or cracked paint at a dent can let moisture reach the metal. That spot can rust.
• Each spot is its own case. A chip on the hood does not change the dents with intact paint on the roof.

Factory paint is several layers: a primer, a color coat and a clear top coat. A hairline crack may sit only in the top layer or go deeper, and you cannot tell which from the driveway. Treat any crack as broken paint until it has been looked at under proper light.

How quickly a chipped spot starts to rust depends on too many things to put a number on. What matters is knowing whether you have one. So the job in your driveway is to find any place where the paint broke.

How to check your car in the driveway

You can do a first check yourself with nothing but good light and a little patience.

• Wash it first if you can. Dirt and pollen hide fine cracks. A clean, dry panel shows them.
• Use good daylight. Small dents disappear in flat or overcast light, and harsh glare hides fine cracks. Bright, even light is what you want.
• Start with the largest dents. Bigger, deeper dents are the ones that break paint. Look at the hood, roof and trunk first.
• Get low and close. Look across the panel at a shallow angle to find the dents, then look straight down into each large one.
• Look for three things: a chip where the color is missing, fine cracks in or around the dent, and any spot where a different color shows underneath.
• Check edges and rails. Panel edges, roof rails and pillars are easy to skip.
• Take photos. Note which panels have broken paint, so you can point them out later.

The roof is hard to see from the ground. A step stool helps. Do not climb on the car.

This check tells you about the paint. It does not tell you how many dents there are or how deep they go. Before that, decide what your result means.

If the paint is intact

If you found no broken paint, rust is less urgent, but a driveway check can miss fine cracks, so have it looked at before winter.

You still have dents, and people fix them anyway for reasons that have nothing to do with rust:

• A claim or a check that is still open. If you took an insurance check and did not fix the car, read what to do with an unused insurance check.
• A lease return. If the car goes back to a leasing company, read hail damage at lease turn-in before the date gets close.
• A second storm. New dents on top of old ones make it harder to tell which storm did what, and harder to sort out with an insurer.
• You just want it gone. That is reason enough.

If you are weighing whether light damage is worth the money, read is minor hail damage worth fixing. If timing is up to you, winter is typically a quieter time to book. Fixing hail damage in winter explains why.

If you found broken paint, the timing changes.

If the paint is chipped or cracked

Broken paint changes two things.

• Rust becomes possible. Moisture can reach the metal at that spot, so it is worth having it looked at soon rather than leaving it open to the weather.
• That spot needs more than PDR. Paintless repair only fixes metal with intact paint. A chipped or cracked spot needs paint work.

The rest of the car does not follow that spot. Dents with intact paint can still be repaired paintlessly, and only the broken spots go to conventional repair. It may be a handful of dents on the hood or roof, not the whole car. PDR vs a body shop explains how the two kinds of repair split up.

Winter makes broken paint matter more

Road salt and slush speed up rust wherever metal is bare. If you found broken paint going into winter, that is a reason to get it looked at sooner rather than later. In the meantime, rinse the car after driving on salted roads, and keep it under cover if you can. Neither fixes the chip, but both keep the spot cleaner until it is repaired.

If you are paying for the repair yourself, you can also choose which panels to fix first. Hail repair without insurance shows how that is priced.

Either way, the next step is the same: find out exactly what you have.

Why a scan beats a guess

A driveway check finds the obvious chips. It misses the shallow dents you cannot see in daylight, and most of the roof.

The free 3D scan at our Leavenworth shop documents every panel in about 10 minutes with the Argus scanner, recording dent counts, sizes and depths. You leave knowing:

• How many dents there are, panel by panel.
• Where they are, including the roof and rails you could not see.
• What the repair involves for each dent it found.

It also gives you a documented record of the damage, which is useful if you talk to your insurer later or another storm hits before you repair. Read what the 3D hail scan documents for more on how it works.

Book the scan

If you have been wondering whether you can leave your hail dents, get the answer from the car itself. Bring it to our shop at 426 Miami St in Leavenworth for a free 3D scan. It takes about 10 minutes, every panel is documented, and you will know what the repair involves and how soon it makes sense to act.