Inspection guide

The damage that was already fixed

Good repairs are not a reason to walk away. Undisclosed ones are a reason to renegotiate — and on an electric car, a poorly repaired roof or floor is a water-ingress problem with a five-figure tail.

Fresh paint hides hail from the eye almost perfectly. It does not hide it from a gauge that reads coating thickness in microns.

Why Australia has a hail problem

Major hailstorms through Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane and the ACT over the last decade have damaged hundreds of thousands of vehicles. Many were repaired and returned to the road legitimately; a proportion were written off, repaired and re-registered; and a large number were repaired privately without ever touching an insurance claim.

That last group is the one that matters to a buyer, because there is no claim record to find. The only evidence is on the car.

How repaired damage is detected

A paint depth gauge measures coating thickness in microns. Factory paint on a given model sits in a fairly tight range across every panel; filler, respray or panel replacement reads noticeably differently. Running the gauge systematically across every panel and the roof produces a map, and it is the inconsistency between panels rather than any single reading that tells the story.

Paintless dent repair — the usual fix for light hail — leaves the paint intact but often leaves subtle surface distortion visible under raking light, and sometimes tool marks on the inner panel. Roof and bonnet are where hail lands, so those are checked hardest.

• Paint depth mapped across every panel, roof and pillars
• Panel gaps, fastener marks and overspray on seals and trim
• Glass date codes, which reveal replaced windscreens and rear glass
• Underbody and boot floor for repair evidence and water staining
• Seals and drain paths, particularly on the roof and tailgate

Why it matters more on an electric car

On a combustion car a mediocre roof repair is a rust risk. On an EV it is a water risk, and water is the one thing high-voltage systems genuinely cannot tolerate. Poorly resealed roof panels, tailgates and boot floors let moisture find its way to places that were designed to stay dry.

Boot floor water ingress is a known issue on some models even without repair history, and it sits directly above high-voltage components on several platforms. That is why isolation resistance testing is part of every inspection — a reading that has drifted from specification is an early warning that water is getting somewhere it should not.

What to do with what you find

Disclosed, properly repaired hail is a legitimate reason to pay less, not a disqualification. The market discounts repaired-hail cars, and if the repair was done well and the seller is upfront, that discount is your gain.

Undisclosed repairs are a different signal. It is not only about the metal — it tells you what else the seller has not mentioned, and it is a reasonable point to reopen the whole conversation.

A repairable write-off is a further step again. Those cars can be perfectly sound, but they carry a permanent record, a materially lower resale value and, on some models, insurance complications. Always run a written-off vehicle register check alongside the inspection.

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