So, it's been a pretty ****ty day. My girlfriend and I decided we wanted to go to the mall. We decided to take the Evo. I was a little hesitant at first since she is so new, only about 2 months old in fact. Anyway, we get to the mall and parked outside Target. I was parked away from everybody, like usual, and not parked near a cart return. We went inside, walked around for about an hour and returned outside. As soon as I walked outside I could see something on the driver's door. It looked like a shadow. (Today was very dreary and rainy out). As I got closer and closer I could see it was a dent. This is no door ding or like something tapped the car. It's about 18-24" in diameter with a big indentation in the middle (as in something hit it pretty damn hard).

It just pisses me off to no end that something like this would happen. It looks to me like somebody kicked the side of my car. The only other thing I can think of is maybe a cart hit it. I strongly feel somebody personally did it however.

I was very very upset. I couldn't even really speak. What do you do in this situation?? I went back inside to talk to security. They came out and looked at my car and said they would try to get video. They took down all my information and told me they would contact me in the next few days.

Should I have called the police and filed a report? I wasn't sure. Obviously it seems to be vandalism.

So, thats the first dent, and it's a big one.

The only real positive I can find in all of this is that I don't see any scratching at all. Just a very large dent.

How much do you think it would cost to do paintless dent repair? My deductible is $500, so if I can get away for cheaper, I suppose that is the route I will go.

Right when I was about to start buying some goodies too.....

Any opinions/thoughts would help.

Thanks

 

Well the good thing is that it is a dent and not a scratch , and like you said no scratches. Don't use your deductable it will cost far less to get someone to fix it. Should cost you about 100 bux but then again it all depends... guy around here dentless repair is 50 bux for small dents.

Shop around and best of luck... I feel your pain.

Btw calling the police will do nothing except waste your time... unless the security camera can get a good picture of who did it, then I would get the police involved...

 

looking into car black box

 

I feel your pain. I have to park in a public lot at work. I now have THREE door dings down the passenger side of my '10 EVO. I never croud people when I park. I do work in an area of very dumb people, it's not a gene pool, it's a freaking stagnent puddle.

 

dont waste your time with police and/or reporting really meaningless stuff bro... I learned my lesson back in 08:

We walked out the door to find my wife's '08 Lancer ES with a big dent/scratch in the rear bumper... it was early AM, no one in the complex knew what happened...

We called the cops, filed a report and moved on with our lives...

Well lo' n behold, just before I was going to trade in the car (months later), a stealership's representative comes to me with a carmax paperwork and says "man, you crashed the car? you said you didnt..."

I was like "WTF? I never crashed this car!" then I started thinking about the stupid, useless report I filed for a worthless parking-lot dent... I took a 1,500 loss in the lancer cause of that, and the 250 bucks it took me to fix/paint the bumper.

when stuff like this happens, just curse at people randomly (in your mind though) to release your anger, and then find a cheap ding/dent repair dude to take care of it...

I know a local dude with a red Evo IX who's fixed some of the dents I had in the (now gone) Ralliart for like $10 a dent lol.. and he has the right tools

and in the case of scratches, don't buy the dam scratch repair kits on ebay, none of that crap works... shop around for a good/cheap place where they can fix it for you

in your case, a simple dent remover (the little thing they use to pop out a dent) might fix it... if theres no need for paint, this shouldn't cost you more than $100 bucks

good luck man, I know the feeling... I want to ****** beat someone real nasty when stuff like this happens lol

 

Thanks everyone for your replies! I'm relieved to hear it shouldn't be too much. $100 bucks is definitely do-able. I was gonna be very upset if I had to pay for something I didn't even do.

Once again, Thank you!

 

Don't bother with insurance, it will just create a Carfax event and everyone who runs it later will think collision. My car has one of these on record from the previous owner and I'm sure I'll get hassled later. You'll kick yourself later if you end up with a recorded event and end up footing the bill because of your deductible!

 

why don't you post a picture?

I'm pretty sure this can be fixed easily... you said it's on a door right?

how about removing the door panel and poping out the dent from inside? that's how I fixed a big dent in my trunk... looks like someone punched it in or hit it with a ball or something and it was a huge 1 foot-wide dent lol

what I did was remove all the interior panels off the trunk, popped out the dent slowly with my hands the trunk was back to normal, no scratches, no dents lol

 

welcome to the club, my best advice, take it in stride. the first dent is always the hardest but you have two choices, make it a garage queen or drive it, if you drive it you have to deal with all the asshats and dents etc. etc. drive it, enjoy it, remember dents can be fixed, and that karma is a *****.

Personally I recommend at least trying a paintless dent repair guy in your area. We have an awesome guy where I live and he works magic. I had a nasty shopping cart dent that he fixed in no time flat and for alot less than a body shop had quoted me. Only took about 20min of me standing abound bs'ing with him while having a beer and he did his thing (fixed a couple dents actually), no holes had to be drilled and the thing looks good as new.

Furthermore.....lol, just pray no one dings up your rear quarter panels. The front fenders and all the doors can be repaired, replaced rather easily but the quarter panels are a bit tougher, (rear more expensive).

Anyway sorry to hear about it, post a pic.

 

Paintless body repair can be done on panels that do not have any scratches and/or creases. If, as you said, the dent looks like it was done by someone kicking your door in, then more than likely it does have light creases where the metal was bent inward. If that's the case, popping the panel out will not bring the door back to being 100% perfect. Meaning that the only way to have it perfect again would be via pounding/sanding/respraying. If the dent ends up being unrepairable by a paintless repair specialist, then you'd have to claim it to your insurance. The insurance claim representative will automatically try to file the claim as a "collision" claim (usually meaning a higher deductible). Make sure that you insist on telling the insurance claim rep that the damage was as a result of vandalism, which would then be classified as a "comprehensive" claim, which normally carries a lower deductible. If you tell your insurance that it could have been caused by a shopping cart or another vehicle, that would be a no-fault collision claim. Again, based on your insurance policy, collision deductible could very well be a lot more than your comprehensive deductible.

 

anybody know any paintless dent repairs in so cal?

 

any pix??

 

I remember the first "ding" I had. Driver rear door a nice ding with some paint gone. And I always park FAR away from everyone. That was like 2 years ago though.

 

What you should do is fix it up nice and proper. Then buy you a sniper rifle and learn how to use it well. Then set your car up around the same area and instead of walking around the mall, go up to the roof of the building and use that scope on your gun!

 

Well my first ding in the evo and still to this date only ding is from some stupid 12 year old who was eating a jolly rancher and found it a good idea to hurl it at the side of my car as I drove by. Welp it put a dent in the car after it shattered on the quarter panel.

I immediately stopped. Got out to look at it and went to my trunk to get my wooden baseball bat. The kid looked scared ****less and he just stood there so I let him go before he pissed his pants.

Some people have no respect for other peoples stuff...just a fact of life. Hope you can get the dent fixed for cheap.