My last car was EBP Civic and it showed dents/door dings like crazy. Now that I have a Storm Silver Fit, I'm going to try my best to prevent dings/dents. What can I do to prevent dings from occuring? I try to not follow dump trucks because pebbles may fly off and chip the paint.

What's the best spot in the parking lot to prevent dings? I try to park as close to the curb as possible.

What tips do you have to protect your car from getting dings, dents, or chipped paint?

 

just park far away from other cars

 

Honestly you can do a couple small things, but that sad fact is alot of dings/dents/keying happens because people are jerks. They see your new car and get jealous so they screw it up, its as simple as that.

But, park it away from other cars.
Don't park next to the cart return stalls at stores.
Don't follow people to closely, stay a good one and half to two cars back.
If you must park close, do not park next to trucks. Or old people. And give them plenty of room on both sides.

Oh and something else we do, we box our car in. I park next to the curb, and park are other car on the other side.

Curb|Fit|Our other car.

But its going to happen, sadly...you can't avoid the jackass factor.

 

or get the body side moldings that help as well

 

at work I only park next to co-workers who I know will be careful when opening their doors

at other parking lots like the movies, grocery store, mall, etc I park far far away

 

Yeah, distance is your friend. I'd rather walk the extra mile then have to deal with mopes who're too stupid to care about other people's property. I also try to find spots that allow me to park apart from the car next to me -- i.e. at the end of a row where there's some striping and I'll park half in the striping and half in the spot.

 

I've been looking at other cars where I work, and there is a Pontiac Vibe, about the same color as mine, and I'll be measuring the body-side moldings on it.

I <cringe> may have to go to a Pontiac dealer to get moldings for mine...

 

dont tail gate when you drive and keep the speed down. The faster you drive the more energy the rock will have to do damage. we say the rock damages our car but isint it true the other way.

 

A Vibe is just a rebadged Toyota Matrix, so a visit to the Toyota dealer might not be as stressful.

 

i dont mean to discriminate, but i would try to stay farthest away from SUV's and large vehicles.

 

Yeah parking away is the best.

I've found up to 7 door dents on my car and a ****in' like a long scuff across my paint work, it's ****ing annoying.

Man at this rate, I'm just going to go to a scrap yard and pick up 4 new doors from a broken up jazz.

 

Parking far away can be bad, too. I know people that got jumped on their way to their car. The closer the car, the quicker you can get to it and the safer you'd be, but then you'd get dings. I wish they made portable force fields for cars.

 

I imagin with little skill the Fit should avoid many door dings by dinks. The car is so small. What I do is find a parking place on the end to park. There ar usallly ends other then the vary far end because of trees walkways or other. Doing it this way makes only be one car to park next to. The detail with this is to park as far away from the car that is next to you or might be next to you. I usualy back in. My favorite place is next to a walk way. There I park on the white line to maxamize distance from cars when they open doors. I like to parralel park but I am watchfull of folks that back out from parking stalls. Once I was hit and run. I owned a honda civic then which I just painted myself. I had not even got all the trim back on. Oh well. It happend at work so most likely by a coworker because it was in employee parking. There are pros and cons and lots of potential hazards. Good luck

 

regarding body molds. If there is an auto paint store near by they can supply them. Otherwise probly a body shop. you could select what you want and secure it with industial doubl tape. If you go to a junk yard most of those cars will have mold that is fasten by clips. I would not recomend drilling holes in a door to add clips... It does not take much for rust to seed. It is all about metal prep in doing the job.

 

That's what I do too. Once in a while though the idiot that parks next to you will take it as a license to park over the line into your space.

I found a good spot at work which only has two space next to each other and the other guy that always parks there parks way at the end so I know we are both trying to protect our cars.

 

"Old people" are often more careful. They're the people everyone wants to buy cars from because they're in such good shape. It was a young SUV driver who loused up a Fit owned by one of our members (good for him for confronting the guy and getting a confession out of him). A pick-up driver backed into someone else's Fit and smashed in the side. I tried to park "away" from the crowd and came out to find a huge SUV parked on either side of my Fit. It attracts "fat" vehicles. (I hate traveling on planes because big people slop over into my seat.) I think the ding in my Fit was deliberate. An oversized Home Depot shopping cart struck the door -- a direct hit, not at an angle, suggesting that it was pushed rather than rolling into the door. Beware of Fit Envy.

 

Home depot wow. It reminds me I seen a guy pushing a flatbed and one of the studs started rotating then wam! It hit dead on a rear lense cover on a suberue.... the guy new what he did and kept walking loaded his truck and jamed. I made an effort to record his plate number but between my buddy and I we got the numbers wrong so he got away.

 

also, park next to nicer, more expensive cars. people with nice cars usually take care of their car

 

going to try these out:

http://www.carbumper.com/white.html

 

Always a good idea to wrap your entire car in bubble wrap, I have always had good luck doing this in the past to friends cars.....

hehe
no joke