A rare hail storm in Kalgoorlie has forced the local dealership to slash its margins to move damaged stock.
The Westland Autos Group dealership with Ford, Mitsubishi, Nissan, Subaru and Volkswagen brands was one of the victims of last month’s freak hail storm which pummeled the Kalgoorlie, Norseman, Laverton, Leinster, Lenora and Menzies region in Western Australia.
Ice balls the size of 20 cent pieces caught the Goldfields region by surprise, including Westlands Autos dealer principal Robert Murison who tells Kalgoorlie Miner the business has resorted to a fire sale.
“In daylight you would hardly notice the damage, in most cases you can’t even see it,” Murison says.
The storm had a “fairly significant impact” on the dealership while assessors held 150 cars in limbo.
“From an insurance perspective, [they] were rated as minor damage — just a few dents here and there,” he explains.
“We got the experts in and they look at them under the ultra-violet light that can actually pick up the small dents,” Murison says.
He explains that the storm damage resulted in customers being offered discounts to take the pelted stock straight away, or have damage repaired and waive the savings.
“It causes a fair disruption to the business, we virtually can’t sell cars for a week to 10 days while we are doing the assessments,” Murison continues.
Fortunately, already-sold stock was under cover when the hail came down during the wild storm which uprooted trees, causing fires and created treacherous driving conditions.
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