MIDLAND, Texas — The most obvious way to protect your car is to do things like put it in the garage or park under cover.
But if there’s no cover available, you still have a few ways of saving yourself a trip to the body shop.
“If you’re unable to cover it definitely get your car parked somewhere up to a large building of sorts. Try to protect at least one side of it," Nicole Bill, production manager and estimator at Reliable Collision Body Shop in Midland, said. "But definitely you’re going to want to protect your glass any way you can if at all possible if you cannot protect the body panels of the car.”
If your car has a sunroof, it’s especially important that you cover it.
“I just think a lot of people don’t realize when you have a sunroof that’s a big area to protect cause when you have something pounding on the top of your car on your roof up there and you have a sunroof glass, and if it’s a newer model or older model, it has a very thin seal up there," Bill said. "So, you want to try to layer something over the top of that if you don’t have anywhere to protect your vehicle.”
Another common spot people use to park their cars under are trees. But according to Bill, while parking under trees might seem like they could work in a pinch, most of the time that's not the case.
"You definitely do not want to park under the tree unless it's your last resort. And even then you can come out with more damage because the hail, depending on how the size of it is, it will be knocking down some branches, some twigs, if it hits the right spots a whole branch might come down," Bill said.
Be mindful of where your car is parked and if possible either move it to somewhere safer or cover it up as best you can.