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Atlanta is getting heavy hail and a tornado; should be in Athens within a few hours. And my car is outside (can't wait to see how fucked up it is tomorrow).

Oh no! I had a car totaled in a hail storm.

It snowed last Saturday in New Mexico. [shrugs]

sounds like fun hope your car isnt too fugged up

Sounds like the shit that passed by us in N. Alabama. Seriously, that had to be the most lightning activity I've ever seen in this town. It was almost non stop for about thirty minutes. Dyamn!

Shit ... you mean you can lose cars to hail storms ?

aphexmonster wrote:Shit ... you mean you can lose cars to hail storms ?

Not quite LOSE, but they get smashed up bigtime, $$$$ to repair

aphexmonster wrote:Shit ... you mean you can lose cars to hail storms ? :(

Yes. There are parts of the country where it's possible to get golfball to softball-sized hail. Now imagine all of that, falling from an altitude of five miles up, impacting against a couple of millimeters of relatively soft sheet metal. It's very easy to total an automobile in a hailstorm.

You're right in the final analysis, but car sheet metal is by no means soft.

Sounds like the shit that passed by us in N. Alabama. Seriously, that had to be the most lightning activity I've ever seen in this town. It was almost non stop for about thirty minutes. Dyamn!

huh...i just thought your mom was raising her minions again...

Howedar wrote:You're right in the final analysis, but car sheet metal is by no means soft.

But given the mere amount of hail that falls in a storm, and the height it falls from, in April 99 we had a big hailstorm here, and they still haven't finished all the repairs and insurance stuff.

As I said, his final point is entirely correct. Sheet metal, however, is not soft.

Howedar wrote:You're right in the final analysis, but car sheet metal is by no means soft.

It is when you drop a softball-sized hunk of ice on it from the top of a thunderstorm.

And car sheet-metal, when compared to other steels, is soft. A relatively gentle tap (from say, an errant shopping cart, or the door of the inconsiderate asshole who parked next to you,) that hardly disturbs the steel comprising the vehicle's chassis will deform sheet metal. A car gets virtually no structural integrity from it's sheet-metal exterior. All the structural integrity is provided by the chassis/frame.

That has nothing to do with hardness. It has to do with the fact that the metal is thin and goes for some distance between support members. It has little to do with the hardness of the metal.

If anything, if the body metal was harder, it would be far more expensive to replace--the metal would have large cracks in it instead of large dents.

Durran Korr wrote:Atlanta is getting heavy hail and a tornado; should be in Athens within a few hours. And my car is outside (can't wait to see how fucked up it is tomorrow).

Wow. And to think that here in Buffalo, it's finally warming up...