Welp, it was bound to happen... My car is parked in a parking garage Mon-Fri; I only see/drive my car on the weekends basically. I returned to my car today and I found a tiny dent along with some paint scraped on my passenger-side rear quarter panel. I should have known better than to park closer to the elevators... I usually just park as far as possible, and glued to a wall, but last Monday I pushed my luck and of course this happened.

I didn't look at it too much as I was furious, so I am not exactly sure if they scraped my paint off, or if that's paint from their car on mine.. This will go nicely with my cracked winshield I guess

I was looking forward to detailing my car this weekend, but this really put a damper on it.

 

understand that. 3 months i got a small ding under my gas cap. It was so small and tight that most dentless repair guys says that it probably pop out, so i am stuck with it...

 

door dings suck

 

ouchhiee!! the first one is the hardest one to deal with. (not saying the 4th or 5th one is any less upsetting). some of the 'dentless repair' jobs i've seen are absolutely amazing- perhaps worth looking into.

happy motoring!

 

Should I just contact local body shops and see what they have to say? It's somewhat small; I'm not sure what a dent puller might be able to salvage... I was really wanting to replace my windshield; hopefully I don't have to dump much money in getting this fixed.

 

Check carefully to see if it's just a paint transfer from the other vehicle or if your paint was actually damaged.

When I went to claim rep school, the first thing they taught us about Paintless Dent Repair: If there is damage to the paint, PDR is not the route to go... conventional repair techniques are needed.

Yep, dings suck...well put, gcm.

 

I have only gotten 1 door ding in 3 years of parkin wherever I wanna

knock on wood

 

That's because Alabama rocks!

 

Should be covered under "comprehensive" - lower deductible and no negative consequence to the driving record.

 

Definitely a comp claim. Most people don't claim door dings as they are usually less than the deductible.

Also, beware, most companies are now using a system that can result in increased premiums for comp claims. Actuaries have proven statistically that people with numerous comp claims are more likely to be involved in accidents in which they are negligent than those without comp claims.

 

Hmm.. yeah the thought of claiming it never crossed my mind. It should definitely cost less than the $500 deductible. Upon closer inspection, no paint was scraped off my car. I think I can live with it if it's too expensive to fix, it's really hard to notice.

 

If there's no paint damage, then you can likely get it PDR's for about $75. Well worth it, IMO.

And... LOWER THAT COMP DEDUCTIBLE !!

Get a quote with a $100 deductible and see how much your premiums would go up. I'm betting less than $15 every six months and it's worth every penny of it. Lots of claims fall under the Comp umbrella and most of them you have no control over (as you just found out).

 

I lowered my comp deduct to zero, for three cars, for less that $50 a year. Given that I've been averaging a windshield a year, with a previous $200 deductable this was a no brainer.... 'cept it took me so long to figure it out.

every situation is different but it's worth a phonecall

 

OK now which is it? Should we lower our deductibles & file comp claims or leave our deductible high & try not to file them cause our rates will go up

I only ask because I was thinking of lowering my comp deductible at one time to cover windshields but I don't wanna do it if it will cause my premiums to increase drastically

Oh & I just gotta LMAO at the actuaries. They can spit out any finding that is necessary to help insurance co's (or any company) to line their pockets. "Excuse me Mr. Johnson... sir what kind of underwear do you prefer? Boxers, oh my, I see I am sorry sir but we find that people who wear boxers are more likely to file false insurance claims so we are going the have to raise your rate 25%"

 

My advice is this:

Lower your comp deductible to $100.

When determining to file a claim or not, take everything into account. How much is the total damage ? How much would be out of pocket versus picked up by the policy ? How many comp claims have I filed in the past couple of years ? What's the likelihood of my filing future comp claims ?

As far as Actuaries... those guys spend their lives not only determining who should pay higher rates, but who should be getting a break. They're not totally bad. And the day they are able to statistically prove that guys who wear boxers are more likely to have at-fault accidents than guys who wear briefs, that's the day I'm going to start going commando. Let's see them pull out a statistic on me !

 

Wow, I think I'll be in touch with my insurance agent about lowering the deduc... didn't realize it was so cheap to do so. Thanks guys!

 

my guess at least $250 to correct... sanded, painted and entire door cleared.