mtd
Member
You might say this is a continuation of some of my earlier posts here, where my Kona was at a dealer's for 66 days because it wouldn't charge.
As my luck would have it, while it was sitting on a dealer's lot waiting for parts, a major hailstorm came through central Ohio. I didn't notice anything wrong until a few days after bringing the car home, when I noticed a dent in the middle of the hood. Closer and careful inspection, eventually with an insurance adjuster, revealed about two dozen small dents on the hood, roof and right side of the car.
After a few complications, including the fact that everyone was booked up for hail damage repairs there and I couldn't get the work done before making my seasonal return to Maryland, I had another shop with a major collision repair chain take a look at it. Upon realizing that the Kona was electric, they told me that they couldn't do the repairs because it was likely they'd have to do some paint work, particularly on the roof (despite previous assumptions that the repair would be paintless) and their paint booth would run at a temperature that would damage the car's battery.
This was of course the first I'd heard of this, with no previous mention from the insurance company nor the first shop I took it to. I since did some looking around to find out that exposing an EV to temperatures higher than about 150 F / 60 C was not recommended.
Fortunately I did find one chain of body shops (CollisionRight) that makes it clear that they work on EV's and I have an appointment set up with them tomorrow.
I'm posting here both to let other drivers know that if they need body work for their EV this may be an issue, and to ask others what their experiences have been having collision or hail repairs done on their Kona Electric.
As my luck would have it, while it was sitting on a dealer's lot waiting for parts, a major hailstorm came through central Ohio. I didn't notice anything wrong until a few days after bringing the car home, when I noticed a dent in the middle of the hood. Closer and careful inspection, eventually with an insurance adjuster, revealed about two dozen small dents on the hood, roof and right side of the car.
After a few complications, including the fact that everyone was booked up for hail damage repairs there and I couldn't get the work done before making my seasonal return to Maryland, I had another shop with a major collision repair chain take a look at it. Upon realizing that the Kona was electric, they told me that they couldn't do the repairs because it was likely they'd have to do some paint work, particularly on the roof (despite previous assumptions that the repair would be paintless) and their paint booth would run at a temperature that would damage the car's battery.
This was of course the first I'd heard of this, with no previous mention from the insurance company nor the first shop I took it to. I since did some looking around to find out that exposing an EV to temperatures higher than about 150 F / 60 C was not recommended.
Fortunately I did find one chain of body shops (CollisionRight) that makes it clear that they work on EV's and I have an appointment set up with them tomorrow.
I'm posting here both to let other drivers know that if they need body work for their EV this may be an issue, and to ask others what their experiences have been having collision or hail repairs done on their Kona Electric.
