2009 BMW 750i: Door Ding Hell

You know that's a typical response of a BMW owner

A real person that owns a car that people can actually afford would be like 'damn that sucks. Now where did I put those salt & vinegar chips'

I dunno Wrinkle..... my ride cost me sub 22 and I do my very best to park carefully/away and I have always sweated dings.

That really, totally, absolutely sucks. I just had one banged out of my door - luckily there was no paint damage but in this case I think you'll need a visit to the body shop instead of the traveling ding repair-magician.

Just think for a second the force it takes to do this to steel. My guess is that a kid (or parent) kicked or flung a rear sedan door open judging by the angle of impact. It could also, ironically, be the edge of the other car's door ding guard strip, which is often pointy and protrudes when a door is opened. Either way, you *just know* whoever did that *had to know* it left a mark. And that's what makes it all the more infuriating.

wrinklebump says:

12:00 PM, 10/27/09

You know that's a typical response of a BMW owner

...And that's a typical jackass response of someone who could never afford to do anything other than sling ridiculously judgmental comments towards the owner of a nice car (or any car for that matter) showing unhappiness that their possession was damaged by the thoughtless nature of another person. Way to keep up with the stereotype, cheers!

Try paintless dent repair. They took a ding out of my infiniti for $110 that was similar to this one (but not as deep). It was in a tight spot and right on a profile line.. but they did an awesome job (cant see it anymore)

"You know that's a typical response of a BMW owner"

...or anyone who spent money on their car and cares about it in the slightest.

wrinklebump, rick8365 & matt310 - its just a car. Many things in this world are more important (think our soldiers in the wars, your families, and your jobs to name a few). Sure, door dings are irritating, but really - you're gonna wail over this? If you want your cars to remain pristine, don't drive them. I, for one, believe a car needs to be driven and sometimes there are chips out of the paint from road debris, dings in the door from less caring parking lots, and rain on the windshield from irresponsible rain storms (gah!). Perhaps my priorities our out of wack...

Such is life. These things happen.

@yellowmiata
Of course there are more important things to worry about, but when when you spend thousands of dollars for a car its annoying that people would disrespect your property. I think this happens more so to high end cars as well,even when I'm driving my pickup I try to park away from everybody else when possible.

@yellowmiata:

I agree with you to a point. Keep in mind you're posting an "it's just a car" remark on an auto enthusiast blog. :) Yeah, it's not the end of the world, but it sucks that a ding (especially one that looks rather severe) was likely caused by a thoughtless person who, on top of their 'accident', didn't leave a note.

In your off-time from crying about our dying troops due to two ridiculous wars crafted by the most inept and idiotic former president ever, how would you feel if a dog and their owner walked onto your freshly mowed lawn and took a huge dump, and then walked away without cleaning it up? Would you just shrug your shoulders in the fact that it's just a lawn, and walk away? I guess we all have varying degrees about what irritates us, but c'mon, door dings suck.

"...how would you feel if a dog and their owner walked onto your freshly mowed lawn and took a huge dump, and then walked away without cleaning it up?"

Wait did both the dog AND the owner take a dump on my lawn? If that were the case, yeah I'd be pissed.

Oh and whoever caused this door ding deserves to have their face dinged.

I'm surprised it hasn't happened sooner. People are jealous, especially of ostentatious displays of wealth like a 7-series. It is pathetic, but not exactly life-altering.

I left it openly ambiguous. Choose your level of rage. :)

"You know that's a typical response of a BMW owner

A real person that owns a car that people can actually afford would be like 'damn that sucks. Now where did I put those salt & vinegar chips'"

Thats the response of the type of person who opens their door onto other people's cars.

Yes, there are more important things that door dents in the world. However, this was either intentional or the person just didn't care that they accidentally whacked the door.

I've actually seen the former happen in a parking lot, a woman opened her door and repeatedly slammed it into the car next to her. The owner was watching and called the cops because the woman was so irate.

Regardless, stone chips and small dents will happen, but something of this magnitude is ridiculous. wrinklebump, I'm sorry to add to everyone else, but I have friends who aren't car-people that drive 8 year old Civics and they get pissed at door dings half that size that.

I also agree with bimmerjay's punishment, either that or a 2x4 to their car door.

I've had plenty of things happen in my life to remind me what is important and what's not. But, I'm also a car/truck guy who really loves the same and I believe that I find refuge of sorts in maintaining, caring for/about my vehicle - call me weird. If I do happen to get a ding, a dent or worse I know it's not the end of the world and that I will get it fixed but I'd really like to avoid all of that. It's the ones that can be avoided or worst, deliberate, that annoy me. This one has the look of one of those avoidable ones - a shame.

I agree these things are terribly madening, but not the end of the world. Someone did something very similar to my passenger-side rear door shortly after I got my car a few years ago. It made me mad to be leaving a stressful day of work to come down to that, but I just took it to a body shop and dealt with it. I love my car and take the best care of it I can, but you can't let yourself get hung up on things you have no control over.

Ok I'm going to add the "end all" in this little war we got going on.

If a BMW 7 owner saw that ding they would say "Who is the mother*&*^r that dented my car!?" Then within 2 weeks they would have taken the car to a body shop and had the dent repaired.

All this points to the fact that if you have the money to buy/support a BMW 750i you can afford the $100-250 body shop bill. Is the idea of people pounding on your car wrong? Yes and I wish decent amounts of bad karma for those people its not worth going on and on about on a car blog.

I don't care how new, old, expensive, ugly, etc. someone's car is - for someone to carelessly and thoughtlessly cause damage to it is rude and disrespectful. I think it's indicative of the general decline in the most basic of manners and civility that we are witnessing in our culture every day. It's very sad that "Screw you" has become an acceptable attitude to hold towards others.

If this were my car, I would care. On something this nice, I would want to keep it looking nice. Sure it's "just a car", but I wouldn't want it looking like it went through a gang war shootout in a year.

On the other hand, if this happened to my current truck, meh. It's already pretty scratched up and has its fair share of small dings, so it wouldn't really bother me if it happened...

Can't resist - 'the general decline in the most basic of manners and civility...' really??? Like door dings are something new? Yeah, it's a pain, has been for, what, 100 years...let's not go overboard...yeah, right ;-)

I think its funny that someone says there are more important things like our soldiers in wars and whatnot....I was one of those soldiers...and the hard-earned cash I spent on my BMW is NOT taken lightly...and neither is carelessness by another person in dinging my car door. Regular road wear and tear is fine...perfectly natural...door dings are preventable because there are caused or prevented by so-called higher thinking beings that being most humans.....

@texases:

Door dings might not be new, but the attitude of a lot of posts on here, to paraphrase, "Eh, you were asking for it with a fancy car" or "it's not a big deal" point in that direction. It's still damage to someone else's property as a result of carelessness and disregard for others.

That's nothing. I went out this afternoon to go to class and I found this.

http://s643.photobucket.com/albums/uu159/daveinfl/?action=view¤t=1027091610.jpg

No note claiming responsibility. At least they missed hitting the wheel and I can still use the door.

@altimadude00:

That really sucks.

It's one thing to take care of your car. It's quite another to hope that it will never get injured.

This is the perfect reason to buy a slightly used car instead of new -- they're never perfect to begin with so they're far less stressful to own.

"That's the response of the type of person who opens their door onto other people's cars."

And that type of person deserves to rot in Hell- whether they ding an old KIA Rio, a new Veyron, or anything in between...

It just shows a lack of respect for other people's property. That's what it says to me.

Altimadude00, that sucks! Sorry to see that. Here's my battle scar:

http://i620.photobucket.com/albums/tt281/mattwestside/dent.jpg

The ding guy worked his magic and was able to completely take it out. For $250. So that stung, but there was no way in hell I was going to look at that for the remainder of the car's (or my) life.

Its just plain bizarre to me how there are so many people who believe that door dings are no big deal. Door dings cause $100+ worth of damage, yet there are people who genuinely think that anyone who cares about door dings has issues. I am unable to think of any other piece of property that gets this kind of reaction where honestly 100% think its ok cause damage and not pay for it.

You are taught to leave a note for the owner if you damage a car when the owner is not around. This is an expected responsibility for any adult, but for some reason this magically does not apply to dents that you cause with your car door. I have never put a dent in another car with my door, but if I do I will leave a note and offer to pay for the damage I caused to the other car! Sometimes accidents just happen, but people who accidentally dent another person’s car should pay to have the dent fixed.

Damn you George Bush!

Why have almost all the manufacturers removed body side moldings from their new designs? Stupidest deletion of a good feature in recent years. True, they don't stop all dings due to the wide variation in door and body height profiles of the offending vehicle, but they are effective for stopping many dings.

Oh my god some of you are so sensitive

There are 400 million cars on the road, this stuff is going to happen, stop crying. Reacting like Oldham did to the dent is the most childish nonsense I've ever seen.

Hey wrinklebump, pull that bone out of your...wrinkled bump, and turn on your hyperbole detector. I doubt Oldham's going to go on a rampage, he's just ephasizing for a humorous effect. Writers do that from time to time.

lots of truthful insights on this post, both pro and con, but esoterica's comment rings truest.

As an addendum to my post, the body shop wants $1400 to repair the dent and three days to order parts.

ouch!

I know that nimrod, I suggested earlier — recognizing the outrageous-ness of the post — that a BMW owner would react like that. The whole point was to denigrate the pettiness of people that buy a car and expect everything in the world to get out the way

Thats insane altima dude....go somewhere else.