You know, you get a new car, and you obsess over it and dread the first ding, scratch or scuff, knowing it will be the first of many, especially driving in a major metro city, as I do...

My Ghia was obviously years and years old when I cleaned it up, but I did do a lot of finish renovation and redid the interior and a lot of the chrome and such, so it certainly FELT new... until road rockery took out a 1/2" chip in the front left bottom corner of the nose cone... which was the sum total of the surface damage for several months, even a year, before I decided to have my door hinges replaced with new aluminum hinges, and discovered, to my dismay, that the old 30 year old hinges had sagged witht he car, and the new ones were tight as could be, and watched as my body shop guy closed the door and a sheet of body paint sheared off the door jamb. Guhhh.

On the new VW GTI, it was cherry for several weeks, until a trip to IKEA, where I stuffed so many boxes into the hatch that people took photos of it (from their larger vehicles, which didn't hold as much.) I strapped the hatch door down to the tow hook using IKEA twine... but when I got home, I learned, again to my dismay, that the synthetic twine was very abrasive, leaving a light streak of wear corss the back face of the hatch and the bumper, like the GTI got a bad flagelation. Ah well, so that was the first for that car.

Yesterday, my wife took her mother out for a tour of design spaces in San Francisco, and being a warm, sunny day, they took the new MCS with 390 miles on it. We'd already gone over the main differences between driving this one and driving the last car, the similarly sized GTI, which is of course a whale in comparison when you actually get down to driving it. The one thing I was a little nervaous about was curbing. My wife is hyper-dilligent about parking tight and proper to the curb. I, on the other hand, like my nice web-spoke 17s and have been parking a bit wider than is her preference.

Yep. Curb rash at the front right!
Ah well, initiation's over!
HAHAHAHHA

 

I know what you mean. I have 2500 on my MCS, have been dreading that first "ding" which, thank God, has not happened yet. I know when it does happen, either from some idiot in a parking lot with their big SUV door or some neighbor kid with a ball, I'll be mad and sick over it for awhile. But then as you say, it's been initiated. We all eventually get over this, but dread the moment it happens.

Sorry to hear about your curb rash.

 

OH NO!!!
Sorry to hear about the curb rash. That first blemish really hurts -- I remember when I found an ever-so-slight indent in my door and had a fit because it was the first boo-boo for Dylan. But then I started finding rock chips on the front bumper & bonnet and well... you get over it. Though I still wince when I find a new one.

 

i donno, maybe you can put painter's tape all over the car with
bubble wrap and put some cardboard covers on the wheels when you
let your wife drive the MINI next time. cause you know it's going
to happen to the other 3 wheels.

oh well, sorry to hear. sh*t happens.

 

ha, well, on the GTI before this, I had the wheels pristine for about a year, then screwed my OWN clever parking maneuvers up and ground BOTH right side rims my OWN self. It runs in the family I suppose.

 

Nope, thought of this already. Too much work. Instead. I got my wife to order her own MINI. Hopefully it comes in tomorrow.

 

I know the feeling, but I did it myself. I have the same color and I curbed the same wheel. Thinking "I'll park on the end, close to the curb, so nobody will door ding me" and I back in, and thought I heard a scrape, worried I had curbed the rear wheel, but thankfully I didn't. It was the front one. It sure hurt, it's the first time I've ever done that to any vehicle. But I'm coming to terms with it slowly. We'll be okay, and so will our cars.

 

wow! swap out the wheels before she sees.

congrats

 

you only have 390 miles on it!? ive already racked up 634 since I picked it up on Thursday .... =(

 

I hear ya.....no way to prepare for it psychologically. That first ding is just a real gut-wrencher.

 

We all feel for you. Sorry about the curb incident.

 

Better to get your first scar early. Now that you've "initiated" your MINI, it's time to get at some serious motoring (once the break on period is up),

Motor On!!

 

I have never had soo much trouble with curb rash in my life...ugh...I have never done it once untill this car. I think it is something to be about how short the car is and I turn way to early or late (going or coming).

Also it does not help my stupid employer has 8' parking stalls.

Also it does not help that I work for a Civil Engineering firm and I designed the parking lot that way so we could meet the required zoning (parking stalls to building size ratio). Beaurocracy in action!


Signed,

4 scufed wheels

 

hahahahaha fishey, I'm an architect and am frequently in situations where I'm looking around and think 'I know why this is the way it is. Crap."

Well, if a little curb rash on the web-spokes is the price to pay for a wicked turning radius, low center of gravity, and a happy car-borrowing wife, tan it's worth it!

 

add me to the damaged web spoke wheel club. here is my shiny two month old web spoke,

well like a usual story, just made a turn a little too tight in the company parking lot, it's odd I never did that to other cars. Corner and parallel parking start to make me nervous.

 

DAY ONE of my '05 MINI I parked at my sister in law's house and gave the right rear 17" S-Lite a rash. The wide wheel base really fooled me; now I use the side view mirror for a better view of proximity to the curb.

 

The first day I had my yellow GTI, I had it loaded and ready to take to a gig. As I was pulling around the corner to go behind the venue to unload, I spotted my band mates on the sidewalk. So excited about my new (used) car, I was waving at them and - CREERUNK! - drove over the corner curb, and ripped off the front passenger mud guard. Oops.

 

Be happy it is only curb rash, twice in the old car Bumble called me to tell me a curb attacked him and we had to buy new rims/tires

Angel is not even three months old and we already have a cracked windshield

 

Just last Monday I reached the 5000 mile mark and drifted my car a bit to far to the right and "BAM" ! I now have my first damaged rim to the Checkmate Flame Spoked wheel.
Thank god the tire didn't go...

What is everyone doing to fix the damage... Thinking of buying a new rim to replace the damaged one... Any thoughts

 

There was a thread in the Tires sub-forum about DIY rim repair... me, I choose to pretend it isn't there. Ha

 

Just a lurker/potential owners observation of human nature....

This site brings together people of nearly infinite variation; age, race, religion, sex, economic situation, etc, etc.. But, the one thing that is shared by each of the very different people is the odd passion for these funny little cars. Something as insignificant (in the big view) as a scuffed wheel will resonate with just about everyone here. We all get it. I actually have a symbiotic sadness as I read each incident.

Sorry to wander, it just makes you smile when you think about it.

 

a scuffed wheel is a big deal to some. respecting everyone's
values is very important here at NAM.

 

Well, and among the surface damage one might and will acquire, wheel shear is frustrating because YOU (or your agent) caused it. The curb didn't fly out there and get you, despite what some people's Mini's tell them. Coming out to the car in a parking garage and finding keying, dooring, bumper rash, etc is frustrating, but someone else did it. Rear eded, side-swiped, bus-mashed, earthquake-crushed, something else did it (we hope)... but the curb rash, like the door-into-parking-bollard, the bumper-kiss (self-caused) and the bottomed-out-skirt (not bottom out of skirt) are all driver error, and that burns you the most.

But hey, big picture, it's just the tip (side, edge, rim) of the iceberg! HA. And for those of us who drive in metropolitan cities, there will be many more.

On a positive side note, I've located all of the wierd optimistic non-spaces in the major garages here in SF that allow you to wedge a Mini into a triangular space as far as possible from an SUV bumper or door... these are GREAT! Only we can fit in them (excpeting the *** with the Porsche taking up this AND the next space) and the best part is that as I zoom up each parking level to check for these spaces? They're full... of Minis.

I'm half-tempted to utilize my Mini Parking Only stencil and go to work on these spaces!!!

 

Which is exactly how I intiated the MINI's dings.....which was followed by a sloppy driver who was too lazy to take the trouble to not nick therear bumper on the corner (driver's side). Such a pain to see that black mark on the back.

I am afraid to fix it myself just in case I get the paint off trying to fix it.

Debating if I should have it fixed @ my 10k oil change.

 

yeh, i had a UPS truck back into my brandnew 06 CivicEX the other week.
only had 600miles. broken bumper, smashed tail light, bent quarter
panel. Im still laughing cause it wasn't my MCS that got mashed.