Viewing 40 posts - 1 through 40 (of 42 total)
  • Flippin' dent in flippin' car roof.
  • one_happy_hippy
    Free Member

    More annoying than anything, driving along minding my own business when ‘bang!’ like someone had hit the roof with a hammer.

    Couldn’t see anything on the dash cam, and I wasn’t going under a bridge at the time but I now have a dent about an inch and a half across in the roof, with a central bullseye about 6mm across. Probably just enough crease to it that it won’t pop out too.

    Looks for all the world like someone has shot it straight down with a BB gun. Impact looks almost completely perpendicular to the roof and if so must have only missed hitting the roof rack instead by mm’s.

    Can’t work out what’s done it. My guesses currently range from bird dropping perfectly spherical stone to really small meteorite.

    I can’t post the photo but if you are intrigued and one to try and have a guess there is a photo here: https://instagram.com/p/BWsYvL6hRMH/

    Worst part is it is just above the drivers door so I’m going to see it every time I get in.

    Balls.

    Tallpaul
    Full Member

    Golf course alongside that stretch of road?

    enfht
    Free Member

    Meteorite or frozen faeces from a plane.

    stevextc
    Free Member

    I had a similar experience I put down to a branch falling from a tree. Never really sure what it was.
    Freakin huge bang .. and I ended up swerving thinking I’d hit the side of the road or something .. right into a car coming round the bend…. luckily the mirrors just touched and the driver was angry as hell… so I didn’t even get chance to tell him why i’d swerved .. but he couldn’t even find a scratch on his mirror (it was that glancing)

    one_happy_hippy
    Free Member

    Nope. No golf course. No tree cover.

    Mixed housing estate / industrial set back 10-20m from road.

    40mph dual carriageway, accelerating to 40mph from some lights had probably got to >35mph by that point.

    Lat 52.5016 Long -2.1019 if you are so inclined to look at salubrious Dudley…

    jimdubleyou
    Full Member

    We had a tree branch fall on our bonnet, left similar sized holes in the bonnet & smashed the windscreen.

    Actually, looking at it again, ours are not as deep.

    wiganer
    Free Member

    Paintless dent repair? Had it done on one of my cars a few years back, charged £50 and got it back to perfect.

    bigyinn
    Free Member

    No idea, but it looks like a mini wormhole!

    one_happy_hippy
    Free Member

    Going to ask ‘Demon Dents’ two doors down as he does paintless dent removal but I suspect the slight creased bullseye means it won’t pop out.

    At lest I hope he still does, I’ve just realised I haven’t seen his van in a week or so…

    5thElefant
    Free Member

    Why bother fixing it? The hit by a meteorite story adds character.

    one_happy_hippy
    Free Member

    Well there are only 216 left on the road at the last count and it was in really good nick until now ??

    funkmasterp
    Full Member

    Now there are 215 standard versions and one that survived a meteriote strike!

    CountZero
    Full Member

    Could have been worse, could have been a couple of kilos of meteorite:

    john_drummer
    Free Member

    Brick. Back when I lived in Beirut, sorry Bradford, lovely next door neighbour encouraged his small child to drop a brick on my car from their first floor bedroom window. Left a nice dent in the bonnet, complete with 5mm central bullseye

    one_happy_hippy
    Free Member

    I’ve checked the dash cam footage again there’s definitely nothing visible coming off the road (would have had to come off other carriageway as there was nothing in front as I was first of the lights and road was clear. Nothing obvious coming the other way.

    I’m putting it down to a meteorite or a failed drone strike. They are obviously on to me…

    dirksdiggler
    Free Member

    Watched a wheel lug or something fly up from a logging truck and strike the roof just missing the windscreen.. it was amazing how that thing was a projectile.. however, if I’d been checking the mirror at the time I would’ve missed it. Insurance fixed under comprehensive for my deductible, no impact on premium
    Wife got hit by a large piece of plastic yesterday that came over the central reservation from a lorry.. hit the car then she ran it over. Evasive action taken but to no success.
    Whilst comprehensive covers missiles, animal stikes etc, unless we can prove the item didn’t touch the road before hitting us.. its classed as a collision and loss of no claims discount!
    Anyway, sh*t comes from all directions

    spooky_b329
    Full Member

    Could it have been done earlier (whilst parked) and you heard a larger part of the roof/dent pop back up whilst driving?

    one_happy_hippy
    Free Member

    It’s was parked undercover in my work carpark so no-one could really get to it and the dent is right above the drivers door so I think I would have noticed it to be honest.

    The bang it made was so loud I thought something had come through the roof!

    stevextc
    Free Member

    Given recent meteorlogical events it could have been a golf ball sized freak hailstone ???

    one_happy_hippy
    Free Member

    That’s what someone else suggested but it would have had to come from a limited number of clouds in a mostly blue sky.

    Also having inspected it there is a distinct inner depression About 6-7mm across with a almost creased rim, the large circumference of the dent seems to be due to the depth that it has pushed in.

    aracer
    Free Member

    Your problem will be the flipping – car roofs aren’t designed for that.

    cubist
    Free Member

    What goes up, must come down! Any nearby Militia celebrating a recent victory?

    v8ninety
    Full Member

    Having seen half bricks flung from between twin wheels with alarming velocity, My money is on something small and dense (probably metal rather than stone) being chucked off a lorry wheel with a high arc. Wheel nut or similar. Thinking metal rather than stone because of the weird lack of paint disruption. Or meteor. Or blue ice.

    Edukator
    Free Member

    Dudley = kid with a catpult firing ball bearings up in the air. I had a car with a hail-modified finish, the dents were wider and not as deep.

    mudshark
    Free Member

    Make a feature of it by putting one in the same place on the other-side.

    BigButSlimmerBloke
    Free Member

    baby robin?
    You barsteward

    one_happy_hippy
    Free Member

    Personally I think Edukator and Cubist have the most likely explanations, I wouldn’t be surprised if it was a BB or similar coming back down though it must have gone pretty high to make the bang and dent it did coming back down!

    househusband
    Free Member

    It sucks getting a dent in your car – especially the first/only. At the end of the day it is only cosmetic and you are bound to notice because you know its there; but the paint doesn’t appear to have been compromised so long-term corrosion shouldn’t be an issue. Repair likely to be costly as the metalwork has been deformed so won’t pop back into shape..?

    v8ninety
    Full Member

    Metal (almost) never pops back into shape; stretching almost always occurs. This will be a fill n respray job. Or keep for character.

    TiRed
    Full Member

    My in-laws Volvo is now considerably more aero after a French hailstorm. The hailstones were as big as gold balls, broke all the garden furniture and a few roof slates.

    blader1611
    Free Member

    Tired – check you out with your gold balls as point of reference.

    CountZero
    Full Member

    Just had a shufti at the photo – that dent is perfectly formed, whatever did that could only have come down vertically, and at quite a velocity, it’s almost conical! Is there a rack on the roof? If that had been an object thrown up by a tyre, it would have almost certainly been travelling at an angle, and left a scuff mark – I’ve had a windscreen go, had something bounce off the bonnet then off the top of the windscreen and leave a mark on the front edge of the roof, and I’ve had two windscreens wrecked by objects while delivering cars, one cracked nearly three inches in from the right hand side, the other hit near the centre right and left a double mark, right in the line of view, and all of them I saw coming, pretty sure the last two were large bolts, judging by the double impact mark.
    Never get used to the enormous bang when something hits the screen, though.

    one_happy_hippy
    Free Member

    @ CounttZero it really looks like a vertical strike by something almost perfectly spherical. Dent is prob best part of 10mm deep.

    If it did come down vertically then it missed the roof rack by 10-15mm perhaps. No evidence on rack of secondary impact from a richocet either.

    Weird. Weird and really annoying.

    Daffy
    Full Member

    My first thought was ball bearing.

    GavinT
    Free Member

    Is the car a particular pride and joy?

    I don’t think I’d bother doing anything about a neat little dent like that.
    But then I don’t really care about cars.

    newrobdob
    Free Member

    Problem with a dent like that is that water might pool in it and if paint is cracked rust could start quite quickly. Probably best to get it fixed if keeping car for a while.

    newrobdob
    Free Member

    Nice Volvo BTW. I “heart” volvos, although mine is RWD so I heart it more. 😉

    natrix
    Free Member

    Good job it hit the car and not you, could have made a nasty dent in your skull 😯

    Dickyboy
    Full Member

    Looks like the beginning of a black hole to me

    CountZero
    Full Member

    @one_happy_hippy – certainly is weird, damndest dent I’ve ever seen, to be that perfect a shape, the object must have been both very heavy and fast moving, to deform steel in that way.
    Really does look a bit like the theoretical gravity well around a black hole!
    As someone suggested, it would be a good idea to rub the paint down with wet’n’dry, fill it with P38 body filler, then respraying it, otherwise that’ll hold water and start to corrode.
    Dunno about annoyed, I’d be bloody furious!
    And it would nag at me for the rest of my life, wondering just what the hell could have caused it! 😀

Viewing 40 posts - 1 through 40 (of 42 total)

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