BOSSIER CITY, LA (KSLA) -
The body shop at Red River Chevrolet will likely be extra-busy for a while, after last week's storms brought golf ball-sized hail that hit half of the dealership's used car inventory.
Dealership owner George Fritze estimates the hail pounded about $2,000 worth of damage into at least 400 cars on both their new and used lots. "It's quite sizable."
"Last Friday night, we had a hail storm that 'centered' on our dealership here," Fritze says. The storm, which hit around 6:30 p.m., didn't last long, but it left behind hundreds of dents.
On Thursday, the cars were being washed and inspected by insurance adjusters. Fritze says the damaged cars will be available for sale at a discount.
"If a consumer doesn't care about a few hail dents, they can save that much money on a new Chevrolet, in addition to whatever other rebates there are. And if they want to get them fixed, we've got our body shop here and we also have a team from out of town that's in helping during this disaster to knock out the dents with paintless dent repair."
Some customers, he says, are opting for partial repairs that remove the dents only where they're visible. Repaired vehicles will also be returned to the lot for sale.
Several insurance companies are also sending their customers to Red River Chevrolet's body shop for repair.
"Being in this area of the country, we are susceptible to having hail storms from time to time. They seem to happen much more in the Dallas area and up in Oklahoma. The last big one that we had here at Red River was 11 years ago. But this is another big one. You could say disaster has struck again."
There was no damage to any of the vehicles on the dealership's Airline Drive location.
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Dealership owner George Fritze estimates the hail pounded about $2,000 worth of damage into at least 400 cars on both their new and used lots.
On Thursday, the cars were being washed and inspected by insurance adjusters.
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