People opening their doors on your car in carparks.

[Syndrome]

Originally Posted by leesa

What is your general response to someone opening their door on your car and/or how do you avoid it happening in the first place?

Last weekend I parked in a populated car park where the bays were pretty narrow. As I got out, a little girl was about to get in to the car beside me and I could see what was about to happen so I stood there and watched. Sure enough, she opened her car door and slammed it open on the side of my car.

She was young.. about 7 ish so probably didn't really know better but it left a ding in my door. Her mother was on the other side of the car putting a baby in a car seat but she saw what happened.
I spoke to the girl for a couple of minutes and told her that it's not OK to open your car door on someone else's car door. Her mother didn't scream and shout at me so seemed ok with me gently telling off her daughter, so that's a plus I suppose.

I didn't really pursue it because my car is covered in dings and scratches anyway.. and then I realised... all of those dings and scratches are from other people in car parks.
Almost every panel has a dent or a scratch. There has to be something that can be done to avoid this, surely? What do you lot do when you don't catch people in the act? Is there some really obvious answer to this that I haven't realised?

I park my car away from other cars and far from the shop entrance just to avoid such issues. However it ****es me off no end when I return to my car and find somebody has parked next to me when there are many other empty spots surrounded by empty spots in the immediate vicinity.

[FairmontGS]

Originally Posted by Syndrome

I park my car away from other cars and far from the shop entrance just to avoid such issues. However it ****es me off no end when I return to my car and find somebody has parked next to me when there are many other empty spots surrounded by empty spots in the immediate vicinity.

^^ This.

I went to ALDI today and parked so far away that I was in a different time zone. Got back and some chap had parked his XR6 next to the GT.

So, could have been worse

[roddy1960]

Originally Posted by FairmontGS

^^ This.

I went to ALDI today and parked so far away that I was in a different time zone. Got back and some chap had parked his XR6 next to the GT.

So, could have been worse

That'd be okay , a bit of Ford bonding going on there . Maybe the GT was happy to mentor the XR6 and maybe the XR6 owner thought that his would be safe near a GT because you'd have to be a total tool to risk damaging one of those beauties.

Originally Posted by Ford17

Not sure if already mentioned, but the Focus apparently has inbuilt door protecting guards.
They automatically pop out when the door is opened more than 15cm:

Would be great if this sort of thing was made mandatory for all new cars sold.

That looks like a great idea, I too wish it was mandatory for all cars.
Sad thing is that this will protect other peoples' cars from being damaged by their own car but won't help their own car being damaged by other peoples'.

[GTP534]

I've mentioned it before but I always park between 2 cars already parked. Last time I got a ding on the Territory was when I didn't do that and left a spot to my left.

[TheGreenKugaaah]

Maybe I'm just paranoid but I take a photo of both cars to my left and right in the car park so that if there are any dings I know which car to go all vigilante on next time I see it.