Dad talks so often about his experiences as a youngster and in the service that I quite often forget to focus on his working career. Last week we got into a conversation about the weather which eventually led to hail storms and – what else? – car repair.
He recalled getting a car into the shop that had been in a severe hail storm and the entire roof was covered with dents. Now these can be repaired and Dad had done so. The repair is done by heating each dent causing it to “pop up”. You the take a metal file and file down the bump after which you fill the area with body filler, sand the results and paint.
Of course, when this happens to an entire roof the repair takes a tremendous amount of work. In this case the car owner and the insurance company were arguing about the repairs since the owner wanted them done and the insurance company wanted the cheap way out which was no repair. The damage was only cosmetic and did not impact the use of the car.
Dad knew that this car was primarily used by the owners wife and she liked having a fancy, shiny car. He got her on the phone and asked if she liked convertibles. She didn’t care for having the roof retracted but liked the look. So Dad suggested to the car owner and the insurance company that he simply cover the damage with a padded vinyl roof! The result was an inexpensive repair and every one’s satisfaction. This became a solution on many other occasions. With experience comes wisdom!