My attitude to the first ding in a new car has really changed. I used to get a bit upset about it; now I rather welcome it. It means I no longer have to worry about that inevitable first ding in a new car. It’s rather liberating?
The ding is a bit hard to see, on the sloping upper roof below the missing clearance light, which was of course also part of the same interaction with a low-hanging maple branch deep in the woods in the Coast Range last Sunday.
We were taking the long, slow and very scenic way home via forest roads from a pair of superb hikes to Beaver Creek Falls (above),
and Sweet Creek Falls, which is a continuous series of falls over a mile long, culminating in the main large falls, which I did not shoot because I was scrambling over some rocks to get closer to it.
The exceptional snow and storms this winter resulted in thousands of trees down across the roads, and on the back roads, only the most intrusive portions have been cut back so far. many hiking trails are just getting cleared by chainsaw-toting volunteers. I was bopping down a gravel road and saw that appeared to be just a soft thin leafy branch sticking out. I was going too fast to make an abrupt maneuver, and I assumed it would just get brushed away. At the last moment I realized there was a much stouter branch hidden behind it. Kapow! I was afraid the solar panel might have been knocked off, but no, it was just the clearance light and a ding.
Given all the off-road adventures I’ve had in the Promaster so far, I’m a bit surprised it’s taken this long. Now, it’s off to the FCA dealer, a place I haven’t set foot in since the last time my ’92 Caravan needed another ABS pump under its lifetime warranty. That was in about 2005 or 2006.
How to stay away from an FCA dealer for 15 years? Don’t drive one of their cars. NyukNyukNyuk. 🙂
I am right there with you. That first dent, scrape or bump is a great thing, allowing me to quit worrying about getting one. I still don’t like it as more slowly accumulate, but I don’t freak out about them.
I’m much more relaxed about dings and scrapes than I used to be, as long as they come from unavoidable sources: small rock chips, your normal road debris, etc. It still bugs the hell out of me when somebody just carelessly whacks me with their door, though. Grr.
Yup, well done. It’s christened now, a branch is much more appropriate than a bottle.
That’s why I buy used canoes, after going on a trip with a friend and his new craft “Wait wait, get out the side before we land on that rock!” it’s nice to come home with something that is pre-scratched.
I have the same approach when it comes to automobiles. Let someone else take the big deprecation hit!!
Wal-Mart chafe is beautiful!!!!
Well you can’t slam it, since you like to go offroad, but you could “bag” it and raise it back up after passing low-hanging obstacles. Or buy one of those kits that glues a pad to the dent so you can slide-hammer it straight. Or if the paint isn’t split you can just ignore it. If you don’t polish it too much nobody will notice….
The main thing is that you didn’t damage any of the tech on the roof.
Happy motoring !
I’m more relaxed by first dings if they’re administered by me like this. First ding from a SUV full of soccer kids inexplicably parked right next to my car on in the usual wide open remote spots I choose in the parking lot, still makes me want to go full Rambo. Yes, that happened… (not the Rambo part, thankfully)
There is a catharsis it as time goes on though, and while I may be bugged by a small ding or dent, I’d rather live with it than a so so repair to it (touchup paint mismatch, waviness or haziness) or the spend hundreds or get insurance involved to fix it professionally.
Although it’s not a new car but new to me, I dropped a canoe on mine. I was more upset that I let things get out of hand. I have a canoe loader now, so no more dings.
A co-worker once had a new pickup and he was hyper about someone sliding a box and scratching the bed. I told him he wasn’t looking at it the right way. I offered to borrow his truck for a weekend to haul broken concrete. In that way, he would no longer be upset about some small scratches. He was not amused.
All of my cars have been used and all have been pre scratched in some way shape or form. No stress when the next scratch comes.
Every new pick up that I ever owned, within days of taking ownership had a boulder or something similar launched into the bed to scratch the paint on purpose. You won’t chance wrenching your back to save the paint after the first scrape.
I’m driving a 2011 Highlander, brought from my brother after he replaced it with a 2018. It’s got a golfball size dent in the door, acquired the first week he owned it. I thought about PDR to get rid of it but the I would be left waiting for my first ding, so I left it. And no additional dings yet, kind of cheap insurance.
On the other hand, my daughter has a habit of cutting right turns a little too close. She clipped the rear door and bumper on her 2012 Scion Xd badly enough to need repair before it started rusting out, so I spent a weekend last month with bondo and rattle can paint. I asked her to come over last week end so I could buff it out. She had already scrapped the same exact spot again. Why do I bother.
Save a trip to the dealer–$45.69 genuine Mopar on eBay with free shipping.
Thanks! I’d rather let my finger do the walking. 🙂
One of the myriad of good reasons to only buy used cars is that they come pre-dinged.
Given the height of your rig and the intended use, you might consider designing some solar panel guards- A variation of the “Rock sliders” that Jeepers use to protect the underside of their rigs.
I’m picturing a bar on each side that angles up from the front and runs down the roof edge slightly higher than the panels.
A good friend once “christened” a new (to me) car by vomiting copiously all over the backseat. Apparently the rear window on his side did not roll down, and I had somehow overlooked this when I purchased the car. No real long lasting harm but I did have to burn quite a few incense sticks in the car to mask the aroma of partially digested cheeseburgers and cheap beer.
Oh, the rear window on ONE side didn’t roll down. For a moment I thought we were getting another chance to bash GM for the fixed rear windows on the A/G body!
Not that they didn’t deserve it…
🙂
No, the window should have rolled down, it just didn’t. As I recall it was an easy fix, the mechanism had just come apart and needed to be put back together. This was a 1965 Pontiac Catalina four door hardtop, built before GM started their long slide to insignificance.
I still have a tiny little ding in the right rear door of my G37 – acquired two weeks after purchase back in 2010. A larger one on the rear bumper acquired a couple weeks later (both done by other drivers when parking – that’s SoCal) disappeared along with other bumper dings when someone backed into the car while parked and damaged the bumper and left rear quarter panel. Her insurance covered bumper refinishing as well as fixing the rear quarter. $3,000 worth of work and such a tiny hit.
Hazards of driving and parking in SoCal, not much you can do about it but keep some polishing compound and touch-up paint handy. I’ve even managed to pop out some dents in previous cars (a little rubber mallet tapping inside the trunk can do wonders with rear quarter panels).
My new (used) car came with a handful a tiny dings and scratches, so I don’t have to obsess over that. On the other hand, in a year or two the first signs of rust are going to be traumatic.
Get enough dings and it can be profitable. 4 months after buying my (still) current daily driver, a massive hail storm left it with 52 (exactly) dings about like that one. I got a $5000 payout to keep driving the thing with the little dimples in it.
A nephew was even luckier: hail got his nearly new econobox, which the insurance company wrote off. He took the cash, paid out the loan, and kept driving his “free” car.
Hey man, it’s just a fugly-mugged white van externally. Everyone probably thinks you’re the plumber anyway, so I’d just aquire a few more doinks on it, slap some Turds R Us sticker on the sides, and enjoy the freedom of all the space on the roads and carparks you desire.
I’ve been having a lot of problems with low hanging trees this spring also. Heavy rains here too, perhaps leading to more foliage weight. Unfortunately in my case it hasn’t been my truck roof, but my (helmeted, of course) head on my mountain bike. Ouch.
Just had the first ding on Alfa. Well, in January actually, when the rear bumper was scraped by someone unknown, and it started a three month saga about damaged and then not working rear parking sensors due to the peak level of capability of a nationwide repair chain……frustrating to say the least.