My worst fears were almost realized just the other evening. I was at work, head down, hands on the keyboard coding furiously, not really paying attention so I didn't notice there was a storm approaching until the lights flashed and the building's UPS kicked in.

At that moment, I heard the hail hitting the windows nearby and all I could think about was the tissue-thin hood of my S2K parked out in the open in the lot behind the building.

Fortunately, we only got "dime and quarter sized" hail, as the news put it later that night. Normally, if I know a storm is coming, I'll drive the car over to another building that has a parking deck and sit it out, but this one caught me by surprise.

What's the worst storm an S2K has survived with no damage? Do I need to worry about every thunderstorm? I know Virginia doesn't get them as bad as the mid-west, but I'd hate to see my wonderful toy get pock-marked.

 

This is one of my major fears also. Texas has a number of hail storms each year. Some have even caused fatalities. I dread being caught in one. The size of the hailstones are usually expressed in terms of golf ball-size to soft ball-size. The horror!

 

I was caught in a hailstorm with relatively small hailstones about 2 months ago (less than dime sized) and my Accord got a few dimples out of it. Since then, I watch the sky before I'll take my S2000 out anywhere...

 

Hail?

Let me tell you about hail. St. Louis had a hail storm a couple months ago that totaled thousands of cars. It ruined people's roofs and siding and must have caused millions of dollars in property damage in "North" county.

The hail was so hard that it broke out aircraft windows at Lambert. How would you like to get hit in the head with a iceball the size of a grapefruit that happens to be traveling at 150mph? No thax.

Lucky for me the worst of the storm missed my area, and my car was hidden in the garage.










[Edited by Roceye on 06-08-2001 at 09:52 PM]

 

I outran a hail storm last week here in Raleigh. I saw red all over the radar and then heard the reports of a hail storm moving through. It turned out to be a funnel cloud as well :-0 . I was driving all over Raleigh watching this wall cloud chase after me. Pretty damn scary, and stupid, but there was no way I was going to let a hail storm hit my 1000 mile 01 S2k. I bought another car (beater) 2 days ago to avoid this in the future. I don't drive the S2k if there is severe weather in the forecast anymore. Now I have to hope that I don't get caught by suprise.

 

Man I would have freaked. Glad there was no damage

 

Colorado has bad hail storms. I have my car cover in the trunk at all times. I just hope I will never have to go through what I went through in my integra a few years ago. Insurance companies pay out more for hail damage claims than any other acts of nature.

 

And I worry about going out in the rain

 

The thing is, I don't even have a garage! If I'm at home and a storm is coming, I take the car over to the building with the parking deck.

I had a hard enough time convincing my wife to let me buy the car. I don't think she'll be too pleased if I start looking for a new house with a garage just for the car!

I do have a car cover (not the Honda one, just a generic one), but I'm wondering what kind of protection one would give. I guess better than nothing!

 

Hey Steve - I got caught on Springfield Rd. in that storm. I was trying to beat the storm and get the car back into my garage. My judgement was quite poor in this case as I should have just left it in the parking deck at work.

Thought I was almost home when the hail started. The rain was letting up but people were still driving like granny out for a Sunday drive (guess I would be too if I wasn't rushing to get home) and I couldn't get around them. I was freaking out.

Just prior to that I was out on Broad Street and the wind was blowing so hard that the power lines were going into the trees and making these huge blue-green "fireballs".

Anyway, I've checked the car for damage and dont see any. Hope yours is ok too. If not, you can take it to Dent Wizard - I had them take a ding out of my previous car.

Dave