There are no guarantees, but I always park as far away from other cars as possible, and near a light. My husband growls a little, but at least my 2 month old MINI is ding-free *knocks on wood*.

His 3 week old Lexus, on the other hand, which he insists on parking as close to the restaurant/store as humanly possible, was rammed by a huge SUV trying to squeeze into a parking spot next to him. Cost was $1,000 to repair it. Hit and run, no less. The hostess at the restaurant where we were dining came out and told us she witnessed it.

 

What a rotten thing to have happen to your brand new MINI. Hope it doesn't cost much to fix, and that it looks as good as new.

You can only do so much in a parking lot sometimes, defensively, and there's always that one thoughtless twit. We live in a selfish society where too many only care about themselves, and if they can get away with something, like dinging another car or backing into one with no one else seeing it, they scoot away.

Usually, they get theirs, somehow, somewhere.

CROC 411

 

My husband drive a big ford van for work and parks it away from everyone when possible, only to have a herd of cars and other big trucks surrounding him. Mind you the parking lot is still empty. Are we all decended from cows and sheep?

 

Looks like your paint is ok - call your Dealer and get a suggestion on who they use for PDR (paintless dent removal) - roughly $100 and you'll never know it was there.

 

Dude, I am so sorry. I had a similar ding on my bonnet taken out last week. I was so happy when the dent repair place was finished and they walked me out to show me the work. I actually squealed at the guy and bounced like a teenager, I haven't done that since I was a teenager...

I'll keep my fingers crossed that your dent repair goes as well as mine did. Good luck!

 

I would just like to clarify something for situations like this. A lot of people are under the impression that damage like this (which is usually smaller than the deductible) will not be covered by their own insurance. That's probably what many of the parties involved would like you to believe, but that's absolutely not the case. Since you witnessed the damage, you still could have called the police, just to have an incident report, and you should have contacted your insurance with the *********'s license plate info. Even without a police incident report, you could still have contacted your insurance company with the license info. Your company will pay to repair the damage (because you are not at fault, the deductible does not apply), and will then go after him/his insurance to cover their bill. This is one of the reasons we pay for insurance, people. For small amounts like this, it doesn't even count as a claim, and will not affect your insurance rate. But guess what? It will affect his...

The important part here is having license plate info. Without it, you've got nothing and your deductible does come into play. But if you had it, then it was silly to let it go. To go one step further, a couple of years ago, this happened to my father in a Home Depot parking lot. When he got into his car, he didn't notice the ding, but a good samaritan did and left the offender's license plate info on the windshield. That was all that was needed for our insurance company: Expense = zero (if you don't count the general bad emotions and loss of time).

 

Unfortunately, the car that dinged me left before I went back to my car - so no license plate number.

Ouch, I just got a quote for $175. He was explaining to me that since it was on the quarter panel it would be difficult to get to.

 

A good read...

I laughed. I cried. (I laughed some more.) I shook my head and chuckled. And I even learned something.

My time here isn't wasted.

Sorry about all your dings (and the ones that I don't have yet, but will soon enough, I'm sure)...

 

I am about to go out on my road bike and do battle with all the mental slobs, inconsiderate rat bastuds and people who should be thrown into ditches and buried alive.

I didn't need to see your post and the pic. Pisses me off to no end.

You can see videos on YouTube where the pros work magic on getting those dents out.

I watched about 30 of those movies and downloaded them. I can assure you yours is fixable. But make sure to get a pro.

Here are some of my favorite ones. I uploaded them to my server.

http://www.heartinsanfrancisco.com/M...RepairDemo.wmv

http://www.heartinsanfrancisco.com/M...epairDemo2.wmv

http://www.heartinsanfrancisco.com/M...epairDemo3.wmv

Sadly, all you can do is get it fixed. No one in that Whole Foods parking lot gives a rip about others.

What I do is simply not park in parking lots like they have at Whole Foods. The store here has a tiny lot and the cars are crammed next to each other. No way a MINI can escape damage there. So I park on the curb or not at all.

Wherever else I am parking and it looks like there will be problems I park semi-sideways out by the curb, where there is no one but me.

I am known for surveying a parking lot for 10 minutes to get a secure spot. I've even parked in someone else's parking lot if I can't find something next to the place I am shopping.

Nothing is worth getting a door ding or dent. No safe parking = no shopping. I'll go home empty handed.

 

MichaelSF, your area is probably worse than others. That's why I hate driving up to the City (I'm in Foster City).

On a positive note, I'm getting it fixed this Friday. I'll let you guys know how it all comes out.

 

Is that from a pro who only does dents? That might be about right since the easier jobs [easy access] seem to be about $100 or so. And $175 is a lot less than what it would cost to do it the old fashioned body shop way.

This can be paid under the comp provision of your policy.

See the threads in here talking about getting your insurance deductible on "comp" or comprehensive coverage as low as your company allows [my insurer's is $100.]

If this happened to me, it would be $100, but that's better than paying $500 to have a body shop do the work [with bondo and what not.] Plus those dent guys show up at your house and can do the job in 40 minutes.

And you car will look like new.

Guess I am saying, it could have been worse. No one likes being out $175, but I would take that over something not being repairable or never being the same even after the repair.

 

For sure. I was down in Redwood City and I was marveling at all the free parking and how w i d e the parking spots were.

Here they cram in cars like sardines.

 

I refuse to park at Whole Foods lots. The spaces are jammed tight, and most drivers are hippie's in their dirty Suburu's that just don't give a crap about anything except high fiber cereals. To them a nice shiny car belongs to the "man" and they are the materialistic enemy.

Rant over...

 

I think hippies tend to look favorably towards MINIs. And I'm pretty sure that any hippie worth their salt would tend to be against the whole property-damage thing. The spaces at Whole Foods are a bit tight, though... But I'd rather park next to a dirty Subaru than a shiny Yukon driven by a pseudo-organic soccer mom who thinks she needs an SUV to cart around her morbidly obese son. Just sayin'...

 

does anyone think this approch will work. it uses a hair dryer and a can of compressed air upside down and is basied on expansion and contraction. i just got hit this sunday, someone backed up into me in a parking lot and i couldnt move basicly, and i've got some dentage on the leading edge of the front passenger door and the quarter panel, its small and not to bad but i think location is what will keep mine from working. has anyone tried this? will it hurt the paint? the heat that is.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=miNykNl-0NM

 

check this out, even if you have already gotten the repairs done. You can use a hair dryer and a can of compressed air to get the ding out.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=miNykNl-0NM

I saw this a while back, and you little ding reminded of of it. I have not tried it out, but there are quite a bit of videos out on this quick fix.

Good luck!

 

oook you just posted the same video as me... any idea if this will hurt the paint?

 

lol i guess i'm not the only person who has heard about this technique.

Maybe this would be a better technique - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QrXg1KXrN4k&NR=1

 

I was getting off my truck one day, the wind caught my door and slammed it into the car next to me with the driver sitting in it! I felt terrible because she said her car was only 2 weeks old. Nothing happened to my door, not even a scratch but her's was horrible. I told her I'd pay for it and we exchanged info; the total came out to $2,000. Kinda high but this was no normal ding, my door literally slammed into the car. Not sure how I would have reacted had it been my car getting slammed.

 

That trick does not work on most dents.

And the OP's injury is not the kind that would pop out with this type of technique.

Better to leave it up to the pros. Nothing can screw things up faster than DIY nonsense that we see on YouTube.

 

i tried the DIY technique on my multitude of dings. Unfortunately they are all still there. Its worth a try i suppose, and i have heard of it working on rare occasions. But as for me, no effect, positive or negative. Good luck! I'm still accumulating dings till i save enough to fix them all...and hopefully i'll get a good deal because i have at least 5 dings (keep in mind they're all very minor and tolerable enough to live with...but annoying none the less) I feel your pain.

 

I had a similar situation as tigwantstoplay. I was the only car (94 Nissan Twin Turbo 300ZX with no dings) in a restaurant parking lot. Watched mom in her pos station wagon pull right next to me. A little girl gets out and bangs her door right into the middle of my drivers side door. Instant rage by me! I go out and politely tell the lady what happened and she denies it, of course. I politely opened her door and it amazingly lined up perfectly with the dent. She stopped arguing then. Got her information. Caught her insurance guy walking out of the office for the day. Ended up getting about $400 bucks for the repair.

 

I am so sorry to see this. And this is exactly why I will not, I repeat, will NOT park anywhere near another car or in a spot that has even a remote chance of anyone parking next to me. When I must park in a lot I go to the farthest reaches of the lot in an empty corner. I don't merely put 4 or 5 empty spaces between me and the masses. If I can't find such a spot I will actually go outside the lot to a joining business or the street if that is better. I trust NO ONE. I assume all people are idiots just like the one that hit your MINI. People ask me how long I plan to practice this obsessive behavior and my answer is "as long as I own this car". It's a pain, for sure. But it is the only way to really minimize the risk. My MINI is now almost 4 months old and so far so good.

I hope you get yours fixed satisfactorily.

 

LOL, -so true

 

So true. These punks across the street (renters) are always doing something stupid. They like to ride their ATV's up and down our quiet street. One day I just snapped and started screamin at this kid. Next day I had a mark on my bumper with tire marks in the driveway about the size of an ATVs. I finally lost it. They also like to use the empty lot right across from my driveway as their personal parking garage. So a couple days later I had to work early and I said F*** it. I backed my truck out as fast as I could right into their suped up Honda. OOPS

The best part was the cops were laughing about it when that punk wasnt around. They wrote it was dark and I didn't see the car. No insurance hike either. lol lol No one has parked there since!!!