A storm cell does not need long over Vaughan
The thunderstorms that build over the GTA on humid July afternoons occasionally carry hail, and when a cell tracks across Vaughan it finds Maple’s vehicles exactly where daily life leaves them: on open driveways, in the uncovered rows at Maple GO, and — on the wrong Saturday — spread across the Wonderland parking fields with nowhere to hide. Ten minutes of pea-to-toonie-sized ice is enough to pepper every horizontal surface on a car.
Check the vehicle in low-angle light, early morning or evening, because overhead sun hides shallow dents. Run your eye along the hood, roof and deck lid from a shallow angle and the dimples show as shadows. Look too at the trailing edges of the roof rails and the top surfaces of the doors, and check whether any dent has cracked the paint — that distinction, dented versus dented-and-broken, is what separates a cosmetic annoyance from future rust, and it changes how the repair is written.
Hail is a comprehensive claim, not a fault claim
Hail damage falls under the comprehensive portion of your policy — no fault is assigned, no collision coverage is touched, and your deductible is the comprehensive one, which for many drivers is lower than they assume. You do not need anyone’s permission to choose the shop; in Ontario that decision is always yours. Report the damage to your insurance company promptly — the standard policy expects notice within seven days — and let us take the file from there.
After a widespread storm, insurance companies often bring in catastrophe teams and the claim queue gets long. Booking your assessment early matters, and this is where the photo-first process earns its keep: text pictures of the worst panels to (647) 594-3401 the day of the storm, and we document the damage, open the claim, and hold your place in the schedule while your neighbours are still waiting for a call back.
Counting every dent before fixing any of them
A hail estimate is an exercise in patience. Under the shop lights, each panel is examined and the dents are counted and mapped — because an insurance estimate that says “hood, roof, deck lid” without a count is an estimate that gets supplemented later, with your car stuck in the middle of the argument. We do the counting up front so the number your insurance company approves is the number the repair actually needs.
The repair itself depends on what the ice did. Shallow dents in accessible metal can be worked back without disturbing the factory finish; deeper strikes, creased edges and cracked paint call for conventional repair and refinishing, blended so the repaired panels match the untouched ones. Where a roof skin has taken too many hits to save, replacement is the honest answer and we say so. Every refinished surface leaves under our lifetime paint warranty, and the car leaves inspected in the same low-angle light we told you to check it in.
