[PureSpeed1]

Anybody Get Their First DOOR DING DENT yet?? Ive had my 2004 Prius for about 2 months already and some idiot decided door ding my brand new car.. :twisted: Well, I just got dinged and it shows on the rear top of the door, probably coming from an SUV.. What do you guys recommend?? I heard the Paintless Dent Removal method would work fine.. If so, how do they actually repair it? Do they get suction cups, hammmers or anything?

Is there anybody who ever got a Door Ding Dent on your new 2004 Prius?? If so, how did you cope with it or fix the problem?? Just want to see what you guys do.. Any suggestions will be highly appreciated..

 

[AgentElrond]

Sorry, no dents/dings here; my wife and I take the "park in the next county" approach - I need the exercise anyway. :wink:

But seriously, where possible I always park with a curb, wall, etc. to my right. Since every car will have at least 1 occupant (the driver), who gets out on the left (if they pull in to the space vs. pull through from the other side), there's less of a chance of getting struck on the left... and no chance of getting struck on the right.

 

[whatshisname]

Got my Salsa Pearl in February after waiting since October. Took a 900 mile trip to Scottsdale, AZ in early May for sightseeing. I'm retired and can do things like that. Decided I needed a chamois to wipe off water spots whenever I wash my pride and joy and looked everywhere. Finally, with the aid of my GPS (Navigator to some) I located a Home Depot (my last hope) and got there just before closing. The enormous parking lot was almost empty. It was getting dark and a stiff breeze had developed. I parked in the farthest and emptyest (my word) spot I could find. About two hundred feet away (no exaggeration) was a cluster of about 8 shopping carts all poking each other and sort of intermingled so movement by any of them was arrested. I had just pressed the park button and turned things off, when one of the carts moved by the wind sort of backed away from the cluster, slowly turned around as if looking for someone and then moved toward me. Then it picked up speed. I disconnected the seat belt, flung open the door, ran around the front of the vehicle to the right to intercept, but I never had chance. That cart had to be doing 30 miles an hour. Bam! I had my first ding; a perfectly round 2 inch, half inch deep ding in the right front door, down low. I tried to pick up the cart and fling it into the next county, but all I could do was flip it upside down and almost got a hernia doing just that. The way that shopping cart withdrew from the cluster, turn toward my car and then accelerate was absolutely spooky. There has to be shopping cart demons, invisible to us. I decided I'm going to leave the ding. It will be my token ding. The demons are out there and I don't want to upset any of them. So my advice to others is leave the ding if you have only one. Recite a chant of some kind and hope they accept your token acknowledgement. They're out there.

 

[drivenmore]

dings and others

It wasn't the end of the first week of my having the Prius when, trying to take my dogs to the vet, their paws scratched the back bumper. Peeved me to no end, so I went and bought some touch-up paint that did a pretty good job. Then, about a week later, trying to remove some bird droppings from the hood using a wet napkin, my fingernail scratched a swirl into the clearcoat (I'm sure it's easily buffed out). About a month ago, I ran over some tire tread on the highway that tore the gravel guard off from underneath the car, but also scratched up the bottom right-hand side of the bumper. I just exhaled and said "whatever"...

I'm no longer going to worry about nicks and dings, as it is ONLY a car :shock: As long as it continues to run well, then I'll be happy.

 

[Alan Becker]

On dings.

I'm expecting my Prius by the 19th of this month. My 2001 Toyota Camry has avoided dings by never parking next to an SUV or junker. It may seem like sage advice but, in the words of a Hummer owner(not me)" My rule is to leave any vehicle that parks next to me with something to remember me by."

 

[oldfox]

Nope, no dings- I did install side door moldings which should prevent any problem.

 

[woemcats]

Does the paint on the Prius seem unusually wimpy to anyone else? I've had the car a month and driven it 900 miles, and I already have a teeny tiny chip of paint out of it above the rear door on the driver's side (probably from a rock).

Then tonight, my dad was getting out of the back seat when he hit the door into a cart corral thing (which I parked next to because I read it's the place you're least likely to get hit by a cart). I checked when we got home, and sure enough, it took out a chip of paint. Of course, he claims it's all my fault for parking "too close" (it was ALMOST enough room to open the door all the way).

I guess I'll get them touched up the next time I go to the dealer, anyone know home much that costs? They are really tiny chips, like pin-point size.

 

[RSnyder]

You'd be hard pressed to find a new car that doesn't have wimpy paint these days. Anyway, a bottle of touchup paint is under $10 (7ish?) at your dealer. No need to have their service do that work at high hourly rates. Do several light coats rather than trying to cover it up in one shot.

 

[jsp]

Ok - I sure never expected to be writing with a question like this one - but reviewing the posts in this thread, it seems a good place to put it!

Here's the scoop: Have a brand new 2004 white Prius - just picked up from dealer last Friday. Having spent lots of time on this board in anticipation of being a new Prius "mommy", I'd also lined up some time and expertise for putting on some side molding as discussed here (you know the kind - to help protect against demon-grocery-carts and whatever door-dings might be avoided) ---- picked out a nice molding too, with that super strong 3M stuff they use to adhear it with.... ONLY IT WON'T STICK!! Even the masking tape used to line up for the thing kept falling off... As it is, I've got the product still in the box here next to me and we're set to try it again in a couple weeks (thinking that micro-abrasions from driving it a while might help)... The whole garage place was stumped (we're talking Maaco and a guy who's very experienced in such things - and who has done great work for me before).

Some mention was made of a "clear coat" process, but I can't find it talked about in any of the paperwork regarding the car... And also, I put a coat of Nu Finish on it -- but they said that shouldn't have defeated the adheasive all by itself.... we're all just stumped, and Steve (the Maaco guy) said in all his years he's never seen anything quite like it.... he'd gotten the masking tape all lined up - it looked good - he turned around to pick up the box of product and the masking tape was on the floor! It's like the car itself was just NOT going to have it - LOL!)

So - anybody got any ideas on this or do you think it will - eventually - stick as it should??? Or has Toyota come up with something new (possibly to help against the "wimpy paint" situation???)??? All words of wisdom will be most welcome. Many thanks - Jan

 

[oldfox]

Not sure this info will help but... I have 4,200 miles on my Salsa Red and had the black side moldings installed by Auto Trim - They did the masking tape bit and placed the molding on. All stuck with no problems and after several washings is still on firmly. Cost of total job installed was $75.

 

[jsp]

Not sure this info will help but... I have 4,200 miles on my Salsa Red and had the black side moldings installed by Auto Trim - They did the masking tape bit and placed the molding on. All stuck with no problems and after several washings is still on firmly. Cost of total job installed was $75.

Hi Oldfox! Many thanks for the encouragement - right now that matters about as much as anything, LOL! Actually, I think it was one of your posts about this that got me thinking about doing this in the first place - see, you've helped already! ( Actually, I've yet to pay them since we've technically "rescheduled", but that price figure is in the ballpark for what I agreed to - isn't it nice there's actually *reasonable* folks out there willing to help like this?! )

Question - did you have some miles on it before the molding got put on or did you do that when it was "brand new"??? Hard to believe it could make that much of a difference, but there's always all kinds of new things for me to learn yet... this is certainly one of them. :lol: Again - many thanks, Jan

 

[oldfox]

JSP: I had a little over 3000 miles when I did it. btw: my car does have the Toyoguard - not that that should make a difference. Can't understand why the product won't stick to your paint :?