http://www.thelocal.de/12735/20080627

Volkswagen on Friday said that a severe hailstorm last weekend damaged a significant number of the 30,000 new cars at its plant in the northwestern German city of Emden.

It was the worst hail damage in the history of Europe's biggest automaker.

VW spokesman Christoph Adomat told Friday's edition of the Süddeutsche Zeitung daily, that the tennis ball-sized hailstones damaged the cars' paint and dented rooftops and hoods. Windshields, however, were not shattered.

Damage amounts could reach the hundreds of millions of euros, Adomat said, adding that VW is insured against hail damage.

"We are now meticulously inspecting every car," he told the paper. "Our customers have a right to a automobile in top condition, so we're going over everything."

 

While severe thunderstorms with large hail and tornadoes like that are most frequent in the American South and Midwest, they do happen occasionally in other parts of the world.....notably Australia, south-central South America, northern India/Assam, and (as noted) parts of Europe.

I'm sure that VW has buisness insurance to cover their losses (and the cost of repairing the hail damage), but it's a shame that all the work on the assembly line and the efforts of the plant employees was messed up by weather like that. And, I don't know about German law, but here, legally, repaired vehicles usually cannot be sold as new cars........they have to be sold at a discount.

That is one reason why, since I don't have a garage ,myself , I try to get my car to the nearest covered free-parking garage when I can see a violent storm approaching or on radar..

 

screw the vdubs, anyone see the headlines on the right?