OK, what should I do here people??

I was visiting a friend the other night and parked my car in their driveway. After a couple hours I returned to my car. The wind had picked up (Santa Ana's) and had blown a bunch of little 2 inch diameter seed pods out of the tree overhead.

I didn't think much of it at the time, but when I pulled into my garage I was SHOCKED to find that I had approximately 30-40 small dents in my roof.

What the HELL???? Are you kidding me....what kind of a car gets dent in the roof from 3 ounce seed pods????

This is ridiculous. I have painstakingly pampered my car, parking miles from other cars to avoid door dings....and now this.

What should I do??? Am I wasting my time talking with Mini??

Thoughts please.

 

Yes, you'd be wasting your time talking to MINI. While I agree that your situation is a bummer, no manuf would take responsibility for environmental damage...whether it comes from seed pods, hail, or golf *****.

Take this up with your insurance company. That's what insurance is for. Of course, then they'll raise your rates...so who knows?

What the heck kind of seeds do you have out there?

 

Wow that sucks....we need pics of the roof dents and these suspect seeds, if you wouldn't mind.

 

Odd! Must have been the wind speeding the pods up.
I live (and park my MCS) under huge 100+ year-old oak trees that drop acorns from 25-50 ft down onto my helpless MINI at the rate of about 1 every 10 seconds during acorn season. No damage yet, though I recently bought a car cover and use it when practical. (I have no garage and no $$$$ to build one.)
If you have a high deductable or just don't want your insurance to go up, you might now consider getting a roof decal to see if it will hide the dents.

 

Yet another advantage to the sunroof! (less surface area of metal to be dented!)

...Not that this helps you or makes you feel any better. It is mostly a self-satisfying post.

 

>>OK, what should I do here people??
>>
>>I was visiting a friend the other night and parked my car in their driveway. After a couple hours I returned to my car. The wind had picked up (Santa Ana's) and had blown a bunch of little 2 inch diameter seed pods out of the tree overhead.
>>
>>I didn't think much of it at the time, but when I pulled into my garage I was SHOCKED to find that I had approximately 30-40 small dents in my roof.
>>
>>What the HELL???? Are you kidding me....what kind of a car gets dent in the roof from 3 ounce seed pods????
>>
>>This is ridiculous. I have painstakingly pampered my car, parking miles from other cars to avoid door dings....and now this.
>>
>>What should I do??? Am I wasting my time talking with Mini??
>>
>>Thoughts please.


The roof in most new cars doesn't have double bracing, hence it is more prone to get dinged by flying objects hitting it.

No need to panic, here is the best solution for you to repair your roof dings and best of all you can do it yourself without having to remove any interior trim or the interior roof headliner to get to the dings:


http://www.dingkingtool.com/

You can do the repair with the basic ding repair kit for about $30. Depending upon how creased or deep are the dings you should be able to take each one of them out with the Ding King kit.

Try it and let us know.

Cheers!

 

Something sounds wrong here, I had my mini one week and it was out in a very violent midwestern hail storm. I thought for sure there would be dents or at least scratches. To my relief there was not one. I would talk to Mini that seems to be a defect, it is not uncomon for steels to vary from batch to batch you may have just got a bum roof.

 

Go to a Shop that deals with auto customizations and have them fill your roof cavern with 2 part insulating hard foam.

 

I prefer my aluminum roof. That way the gov't can't send me messages. I probably shouldn't say that though because I'm sure they're reading this as I type. :smile: