Tuesday's hail storm brought grief to homeowners and businesses alike, but one business that always has to take cover and watch their assets are vehicle dealerships.

Dents to vehicles usually lead to traditional 'hail sales' at most locations but modern technology has helped the dealership industry in the last couple of decades.

General manager of Okotoks Ford Lincoln Richard Cherrington says hail did hit their vehicles but the damage was not as bad as you'd think.

"Ours was minor, so there will be some damage and it will be paintless dent repair and sold at a discount," Cherrington says. "There will be some of them selected where you virtually can't see the damage but it's there and we'll offer the customer an even bigger discount to take it as is."

He says most dealerships have special protocols when it comes to incoming hail.

"We watch the forecast really closely and when we know there's going to be, or suspect there's going to be hail, the priority is to get anything that is sold that the customer has done a deal on. You have to get that covered as soon as possible."

Cherrington says hail stones used to be crippling to dealerships but not as much anymore.

"Hail sales used to be devastating because everything was body work and paint and that was the only way to fix hail damage. Now virtually everything on hail is paintless dent repair, there's no flaw in the original paint, doesn't affect warranties or anything. You get back the same thing as what you had so hail isn't as catastrophic as it used to be."

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