Hail damage in Chicago

[scal_air]

I've had several dings taken out of our two Lucids. It's true that aluminum is more challenging than steel, which I found surprising. However, with so many cars now being aluminum, "dent doctors" would soon be out of business if they didn't master techniques for working with it.

Regarding the hood, there are a couple of approaches that might work for the hood despite the honeycomb panel under it. If the hood has neither a PPF nor ceramic coating on it, some dings can be worked out using suction from above.

Alternatively, sometimes a small hole (or holes) can be drilled in the back layer to gain access to the rear of the dent. This happened with a door ding near the edge of our Lucid rear door where the sheet metal folded back to create a smooth rounded door edge. The "dent doctor" drilled a small hole through the folded flap to access the dent from behind and work it out. He then sealed the hole with silicon, and everything looks fine. That honeycomb under the hood should be able to accept a few small holes without compromising its purpose of stiffening the hood. If the dent is at a point where the hood is bonded to a honeycomb rib, that could be more problematic. But, then again, that's less likely a spot which would have gotten dinged in the first place due to the underlying bracing.

Every time I've had one of the five dings worked out on our two Lucids, the repairman started by telling me it would be difficult, if not impossible, to get a satisfactory repair in that location, either because of access problems or a complex configuration of the sheet metal in that area. Apparently, very little of a Lucid's sheet metal surface doesn't have something structural or electrical behind it. With effort and a bit of ingenuity, though, every repair has been done leaving no sign the ding was ever there.

I was going to respond the same but your response is perfect.
My wife had a small accident with a bicycle rider who didn't see/care about the stop sign and collided with the driver fender and rolled over the hood. Luckily the bicyclist wasn't hurt but there were three nice sized dents on the hood (fender and hood are one piece). Didn't want to go through my insurance and took it to a very good PDR shop. They were hesitant because of the double walls but they said they would try but couldn't guarantee the results would be perfect. Also warned me they might have to drill access holes for their tools but would use silicon plugs after and the result would be good. The were actually able to repair it almost perfectly without drilling holes but had to remove the PPF from the hood. The only noticeable thing was under direct sun, the infinite black reflects light slightly differently at the repair spots. After replacing the PPF film, the total was $2K - much better than expected. My insurance didn't go up, there is no accident recorded on the car, but everything was out of pocket.

 

[smyles09]

Wow. Lucid did replace my windshield. That was the easiest part of the process. They brought a GT loaner to my house, and I drove that for 3+ days, and they brought my car back to where I was working. I think it was in this thread where someone said only Lucid can replace the windshield, and they have to recalibrate the sensors. I haven't noticed too much of an issue. Sometimes, the auto wipers don't come on as quickly as I would like, but they do come on. Can Lucid just replace your whole windshield?

So it was a certified Lucid repair shop. i assume they ordered the windshield from Lucid as it has the proper insignia and i wouldn't have realized it was replaced other than the missing crack i'd been tracking. When picking up the car they kept delaying my picking it up because of "calibrating," which took a surprising about of time, about a week. Now i'm thinking they may have seen this issue but didn't say anything but, regardless of fault, i would like this function to work again.

 

[shredderc]

So it was a certified Lucid repair shop. i assume they ordered the windshield from Lucid as it has the proper insignia and i wouldn't have realized it was replaced other than the missing crack i'd been tracking. When picking up the car they kept delaying my picking it up because of "calibrating," which took a surprising about of time, about a week. Now i'm thinking they may have seen this issue but didn't say anything but, regardless of fault, i would like this function to work again.

Terrible. With my car, Lucid did the windshield, and the certified shop did body work at a later date, but then sent the car to Lucid for the calibration, which took a day. I think you should report your situation to Lucid and either they or the body shop cover the necessary work.

 

[audiojerry]

Every time I've had one of the five dings worked out on our two Lucids, the repairman started by telling me it would be difficult, if not impossible, to get a satisfactory repair in that location, either because of access problems or a complex configuration of the sheet metal in that area. Apparently, very little of a Lucid's sheet metal surface doesn't have something structural or electrical behind it. With effort and a bit of ingenuity, though, every repair has been done leaving no sign the ding was ever there.

Could you report the cost of these dent repairs?

 

[hmp10]

Could you report the cost of these dent repairs?

The four individual dent repairs have been $175 apiece, all done by the same guy who came to the house. The more complex longitudinal repair that was done above the rear wheel well when it was swiped by a car pulling out of the adjacent parking space was arranged by the PPF shop, and the dent fee was rolled into the bill for the PPF replacement. The total was just short of $1,100, but I don't recall the breakout.

 

[smyles09]

i'll look into it. Thanks!