We all have been in a similar situation: You walk back to your car after running errands only to find that your door has been dinged by another vehicle.
In fact, door dings are an annoying, common occurrence. But you can avoid them taking the following precautions.
Park Away From Other Cars to Avoid Door Dings
Parking on an end spot is a tried-and-true method to avoid door dings. Without vehicles around, the likelihood of getting your doors dinged drops dramatically. You’ll probably have to walk more, but the effort will be worth it.
Open Your Doors Slowly
Remember to always open your door slowly. This simple measure will help you avoid dings and other headaches as well. By the way: Remember that closing your doors carefully is important as well, since vibration may worsen damage such as windshield cracks.
Check Neighboring Cars
This doesn’t mean you should be judgmental, but take a good look at the cars parked next to yours and consider these factors:
- Determine if there are passengers: If there are no passengers, parking on the passenger side is a good way to avoid door dings.
- The length of the doors: Try to evaluate visually if the doors of other cars can reach yours when fully opened.
- The height of other cars: Your vehicle may have rubber moldings to protect the body when the doors of a car of similar size parked next to you are opened. But if the other car is taller than yours, then the risk of a door ding is greater.
- Child seats: Be aware of neighboring cars with child seats, because the procedure to attach a child to those kinds of seats requires the parent to fully extend the door, which can potentially reach your vehicle.
Use Covered Parking
Use covered parking whenever possible, particularly when there’s potential for rain and hail, because hail damage can be costly to repair. Additionally, covered parking protects your car against other agents that cause deterioration of automotive paint, such as sunlight and bird droppings.
At the end of the day, the risk of door dings is part of car ownership. When you spot door dings on your car, make sure to call the experts at Inland Empire Autobody & Paint Inc.
We take pride in our day-to-day workmanship and we work closely with our clients to satisfy their every concern.
We have locations in Riverside and Moreno Valley. Call us, contact us through our website or through our social media accounts on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram to get information about our services: Collision repair, custom paint, windshield replacement, rim repair, paintless dent removal, auto detail, complete paint jobs and more!