Stuck in "Hail" status?

[JT614]

Word from a dealership, rumor or otherwise, is that around 2,000 Gladiators are stuck in a Toledo lot with potential hail damage. I can't find any news articles on the Gladiators specifically, but NW Ohio has had it's fair share of bad storms this month.

So this begs the question, if YOUR JT was included in the damaged lot, do you still take delivery? Cancel? Or deal like hell?!?!

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[Sorbs]

Word from a dealership, rumor or otherwise, is that around 2,000 Gladiators are stuck in a Toledo lot with potential hail damage. I can't find any news articles on the Gladiators specifically, but NE Ohio has had it's fair share of bad storms this month.

So this begs the question, if YOUR JT was included in the damaged lot, do you still take delivery? Cancel? Or deal like hell?!?!

Hail you say? Father's Day here in Colorado Springs...

 

[JT614]

Hail you say? Father's Day here in Colorado Springs...

Awesome footage!! It looked like you were burying cars in your wake!! Nice work! Hopefully there was no damage to your JTT

 

[DanOnTheCob]

Interesting, I hope that is just fake news, but if it is true. I would probably ask for a deal. I figure tops are fiberglass or vinyl, Beds are steel, only thing i think would show damage is the hood and that should be easy to get hail damage out of.

 

[ACAD_Cowboy]

Depending on how bad, it’s dented hoods and beds and potentially broken glass. Really nasty can include water intrusion into the cab from damaged glass and top damage.

FCA won’t want the problems of trying to sell you a vehicle with hail damage but if they are never released they can be repaired and it never officially happened because they never left the custody of the factory.

You can lean on the dealer and make a stink about delays and what are they going to do to compensate you but I doubt they are going to cut a deal because you heard about hail even if every word of it is true.

 

[PropWash]

Depending on how bad, it’s dented hoods and beds and potentially broken glass. Really nasty can include water intrusion into the cab from damaged glass and top damage.

FCA won’t want the problems of trying to sell you a vehicle with hail damage but if they are never released they can be repaired and it never officially happened because they never left the custody of the factory.

You can lean on the dealer and make a stink about delays and what are they going to do to compensate you but I doubt they are going to cut a deal because you heard about hail even if every word of it is true.

FCA has been deliberately keeping this from the dealerships, it took a direct question from my sales guy to a regional rep to get confirmation that this was true

 

[Sorbs]

Awesome footage!! It looked like you were burying cars in your wake!! Nice work! Hopefully there was no damage to your JTT

No damage but it’s our JLR. Our JT is in Utah awaiting delivery to Idaho for pickup at the end of June. So hopefully, no dents in the hood!

 

[trez63]

Oh crap. This makes perfect sense. Mine went from JB to JS. That’s exactly the kind of shit that would cause that. Oh well. It was nice knowing y’all.

 

[OCGld8r]

Word from a dealership, rumor or otherwise, is that around 2,000 Gladiators are stuck in a Toledo lot with potential hail damage. I can't find any news articles on the Gladiators specifically, but NE Ohio has had it's fair share of bad storms this month.

So this begs the question, if YOUR JT was included in the damaged lot, do you still take delivery? Cancel? Or deal like hell?!?!

That theory would make a lot of sense based on my timeline! It looks like the Toledo area had a ton of hail on June 1. On May 28 I was told my JT would be shipped in a few days, then it unexpectedly spent about 3 weeks in JB status waiting to ship. Coincidence??

 

[OCGld8r]

Oh crap. This makes perfect sense. Mine went from JB to JS. That’s exactly the kind of shit that would cause that. Oh well. It was nice knowing y’all.

Hmm I'm starting to rethink Jeep Chat's canned response regarding JB status ("This is a necessary step when additional features or optional equipment packages are added to the vehicle"). That may be true, but I suspect JB status is also a necessary step when your JT is destroyed by hail. If you look at a list of status code definitions, JB means "shipped to body vendor." That sounds much more ominous in light of this hail revelation.

 

[Moabite]

So I guess there's a silver lining to the D status cloud...shouldn't have hail damage if it hasn't been built yet.

 

[WXman]

Guess I got lucky because mine was born on June 6th.

 

[Hootbro]

If FCA can fix them, they will sell them without ever disclosing the issue to the end customer. Any of them they cannot repair to selling condition, they will crush.

 

[JeepDreams]

JB = Just Blitzed!

No I would not take delivery - of a late and damaged, expensive vehicle.

 

[trez63]

So I did some digging around.
There indeed was a hail storm ("Marble sized") on June 1st in Toledo.
annnnnd, if you read this article it does say that "Several motorists on the Anthony Wayne Trail stopped beneath bridges near the Toledo Zoo to take refuge from the storm’s falling hailstones". If you look on Google maps, the Jeep plant is only 5.5 miles form the zoo. So the story totally checks out.

Here's the thing. I was talking to a friend of mine who works for Carmax. She said that years ago they had a hair storm that damaged 400 of their cars and they just shipped them all out to be sold at auction with Salvage titles.
I know these cars are still in manufacturing process, but I hope that FCA isn't planning on hiding the fact that these cars had to be refurbished, or repainted. I'm very confident that my car was one of these as the timing is exactly right. I'm going to write my dealer and let him know that I won't be interested in taking delivery if Jeep is simply going to repaint the car and replace a couple of panels and send it my way. It'll be very easy to tell if the car has been painted again with a paint thickness gauge. This is all very upsetting.

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