[Closed] Car park damage - best option?

[i]Is it worth contacting insurance or just get it done privately? [/i]

Only a quote will tell you that.

But will the insurance not penalise me by letting them know?. My wife told them about damage to her car and although no claim made they kept it in her file.

Got a pic?

If you can afford to lose the £2-300ish it'll cost to fix, get it done without telling the insewerants. Alternatively, cough up the excess and be penalised for the claim for the next five years via your premiums, or just view it as 'patina'...

No pic, will add that later this morning. Sorry.

Dent is bang top centre of wheel arch, 1 inch long and probably 4-6mm deep. Nothing major but very noticeable.

Dent is bang top centre of wheel arch, 1 inch long and probably 4-6mm deep. Nothing major but very noticeable.

You could get that filled and sprayed by someone like Chip's Away etc.....

Or try http://www.thedentmen.com/

Depending on the pic but I've had the odd dent pulled out by a dent master.

It could also be touched up in conjunction with a chipsaway chap too (if needed).

I had a trolley dent in the rear door crease/fold which I thought would be impossible but hey- it was done right.

Inform your insurer if you like but they are a private company and your car wasn't involved in an accident. It was a private landing parking incident.

Dent master or chips away sound like cheaper options than whole new panel.

Oh come on you lot!

Take some Time Out and contact a few local body repair shops; could end up costing Buttons.

Ps my wife laughs but I always now STW is the place to pick brains and get good (sometimes bollocks) ideas! Worth my premier membership in spades.

Buttons sounds good to me! Thanks all for advice.

Ironically on my dent it was a lease car one day before handback. I had scrubbed it non-stop allover outside my house, had a chugger make a rude veiled threatening remark to me which I swallowed as I didn't want him returning to damage said-car....so when I finished I popped over to Tescos. Parked in the middle of nowhere and ran in for 15mins- came out to immediately spot the tell-tale deep-bash of a careless twit with a trolley.

Chap charged me £60 and sorted 🙂

On yours- get a couple of dent guys out to quote and really quiz them. One may admit it'll be noticeable the other more confident/had done this previously.

sorry to highjack the thread, got up yesterday morning to find my door mirror kindly ragged from the car and the coloured coded plastic cover parked on the bonnet. Definite vandalism as they were folded in! luckily the bracket clipped back in to the motor but the cover has lots of thin clips to hold it in place now all smashed off- anyone know who could repair these clips as other than scratches the mirror is salvageable.

Hijack away Muddy. I've got my common sense advice (probably knew what to do anyway just like the STW crowd-knowledge reassurance!).

If its only dented and the paint is broken, id go with one of the paintless dent removal companies... Fixadent did a good job on our motor and charged something like £35 a panel (was a couple of years ago)

@muddy; either bodge, (glue the cover on) or fix properly (new cover). Depends on how good a job/how much you want to spend, really.

Muddy it might be worthwhile trawling google for salvage companies or ebay (for the part)?

Or even the complete unit?

complete unit not necessary and expensive! at least £150 for the folding type..and only need the cover that contains the bulb
[img] [/img]
I thinking glass fibre resin or some other type of filler should suffice, needs to be strong enough to stop it flying off unexpected at speed. the clips are very thin and probably not suited to loctite

unfortunately I can't find any pictures of the inside of the cover

Shoo glue where it touches the mirror body if you're going to bodge it (I would). Forget about the clips.

SOME drivers/pasengers go out of their way to dent cars by slamming doors into them, and sometimes its accidental, wind caught door etc, for either one why would a fellow driver leave a note with their contact details on it for you someone they dont know to make an inflated damage claim on your insurance.

It dose happen quite often it appears, tiny dent requires whole vehicle respray or new door or wing.

SOME drivers/pasengers go out of their way to dent cars by slamming doors into them,

I imagine alot of people think that you've parked too close to let them get in properly so they punish you/that'll show you...

Considering alot of drivers have very sedate lifestyles and/or are overweight I can only see this happening more and more.

Stupid but thats some drivers I guess.

A word of advice from a family friend who works in motor insurance: no matter how small the damage or how caused, and even if you decide to fix it yourself, DO NOT tell your insurer because they will mark you down as what the industry calls an "accident magnet". You know the rest.

Get a dent repair service and swallow the cost.

Imo, UK car parking slots are a joke. These days I've taken to parking across two spaces so that I've room to open the doors and to allow others to open the doors of their cars, without modifying the body work of either car.

Whoever dreams up the dimensions for UK car parking slots either doesn't live in the real world, or owns a national chain of body repair centres.

This is my biggest stress when it come to finally owning a new/nice car. Never lost sleep over it when I had the 150k 306td estate...

Has the paint started to flake?

[i]Imo, UK car parking slots are a joke. These days I've taken to parking across two spaces so that I've room to open the doors and to allow others to open the doors of their cars, without modifying the body work of either car.[/i]

IMO there are lots of 5h1t drivers in the UK, and many can't even park properly...

Whoever dreams up the dimensions for UK car parking slots[b]/new houses/gardens/garages/ roads on housing estates/public transport seating[/b] doesn't live in the real world [b]or is an accountant[/b]

EDIT: Reading fail.

Imo, UK car parking slots are a joke. ....

Whoever dreams up the dimensions for UK car parking slots either doesn't live in the real world, or owns a national chain of body repair centres

Or it's just that cars have been getting steadily bigger and bulkier over the years and the spaces aren't?

I've given up caring about the cosmetics of our car, I still go out of my way to take care and not damage other peoples, but since we don't buy new cars, and keep them until they get scrapped a few dents and scratches don't bother me.

If I'd spent thousands, regularly re-sold, or we were leasing I'd probably get more uptight about it*, but that's just another stress I don't need.

* In fact it would wind me right up, as it's just carelessness and lack of respect to go around dinging other people's cars, but it seems to be the way of things these days so I choose the other path and avoid the stress.

For continuity!

[img] [/img]
[img] [/img]
[img] [/img]

Worth a try???

I don't get stressed or wound up by it. But as mentioned above, some folk don't give a toss at best or exercise this ever present, latent malice at worst. Which results in damaging other people's kit.

So until the man with the white paint, get's an updated set of CP dimensions reflecting the current size and cost of cars, I'll be parking in two spaces. It's cheap, it's convenient, everybody wins.

cjr61.
That crease took a fair bit of force to create it. Completely avoidable if the perp had just a smidgen of common.

Karma will ensure that a massive flock of migrating geese will do my bidding as they fly over their car!

I think it'll come out but you'll need a chips away chap ontop

My crease through the door line (see pic of rear door/not my car) but it was through that curve (end of black sidestrip protector) at 90'degrees so very similar damage

[img] [/img]

any good dentman should solve your problem, that's their bread and butter repair. back to my smashed up bits of plastic this maybe just the ticket "Q bond" but there must be an equivalent?

That looks like a pretty deep ding - there must have been some force to make that.

I think it may need paint - we have a small dent on the crease of a panel and the PDR chap who came out said that he couldn't sort it (he did the others though). I think the PDR guys can do a good job on flat panels.

It winds me up that people think it is OK to open car doors onto other people's cars. I remember watching some old puffins pull up next to a nice 335 at a pub last summer and open the door against the BM. The puffin in the back was levering themself out of the car using the door to support themselvesw whilst it was on the other car. The car park was pretty empty too so they could have parked in a space without a car next to them and have more space.

I run www.expresscarbodywork.com

A good dent guy should be able to get that out. Mark should polish out. About £70ish.

If it has broken the paint either do above and touch in. Or a full repair and repainted would be about £200

Thanks for all of the advice guys. Robbery - sadly you're miles away as I would be inclined to keep it an STW job.

Got a chap from Chipsaway coming to have a look later in there week. Fingers crossed.

Thanks all

I d look up dent devils.

my wife reversed into a big stone at Greggs the other day 😯 It must have been a camo stone as she has reversing camera and didn't see it.... maybe there was a sausage roll on it 🙂

anyway, areas about football sized scratched and scuffed (Kia Soul) on corner of bumper area - local chipsaway type folk coming tomorrow to sort for £115. Seemed quiete expensive to me, coulda bought a load of pasties for that ...

One thing to watch is your anti corrosion warranty. Might be worth seeing how much an approved repairer is as they often do cheap deals for private jobs (not insurance) as they keep the place ticking over.

Might not be as bad as you think.