You may try your hardest to avoid it, but if you drive your car daily, it will get some form of cosmetic damage eventually. Maybe it’s a ding or a dent, maybe it’s fading paint or heck, maybe you crash your ride into something. How much do you care about cosmetic damage? Does it have you lying awake at night?
My wife’s Scion iQ has become like a pet to her. Sheryl’s given her iQ a name, Ike, and thanks the little car after every successful trip. We think of the little car as an underdog taking on the world. Unfortunately, growing such an attachment to a small car means feeling hurt when the little car takes on damage.
I don’t have pictures of it yet, but Sheryl says she got trapped in a horrible scenario. A semi-trailer ahead of her shredded a tire and she couldn’t react in time to dodge the tire “gator.” The tire shred removed a chunk from the vehicle’s lower left front bumper cover before whipping around and slamming into both right wheels. The vehicle’s right wheels lost their trim rings, which isn’t bad, but the tire also somehow managed to bend one of the steel wheels a little. We were already considering replacing the steelies with alloys, so now we have one more reason to. Thankfully, the overall body escaped damage and the only broken parts under the vehicle appear to be one or two exhaust hanger welds on the pipe. Here’s the sharp little car beforehand, if you’ve never read my pieces on it:
All things considered, it’s all very minor, very repairable damage. Still, Sheryl feels so sad because her Ike got hurt. She also hates looking at that chunk missing from the bumper because it’s a reminder that she couldn’t dodge the tire. Despite that, Sheryl tends to care less about body damage than I do.
I buy crap cars, but trust me, I do care about cosmetics!
I consider myself to be pretty loose when it comes to cosmetics. I don’t care too much about scratches, dents, dings, or other damage so long as it’s not severe. My Volkswagen Phaeton has a little dent near the right rear wheel well (above). I can live with that or have it fixed.
What I can’t deal with is when body parts are entirely wrong colors, when there are giant rust holes, colossal dents, or just general carnage. Yes, those of you who have read my work long enough will point out that I bought the multi-colored Volkswagen Passat W8. Yeah, I thought making it all one color again was going to be easy. It was not.
I won’t even buy a vehicle for the Gambler 500 if it’s been beaten too far for my liking, which some might call insane. I’ll make exceptions for rust for Gambler vehicles, but I’m not going to park a car at my apartment that has three different colors of doors or whatever.
Yet, Sheryl will happily drive around a car that has body damage so long as she didn’t cause it. Her HHR had a messed-up maw and her Oldsmobile LSS shed paint in giant sheets. Yet, she loved those vehicles.
So, what about you? How much do you care about that dent on your car’s door? Did you get good sleep last night?
My cars are all stored outdoors so I’m pretty forgiving on a daily. All my cars have well over 100k miles and appropriate road rash, chips, and swirl marks. I have had several deer strikes fixed through insurance. I do keep headlamps polished and have even replaced as needed. Rust is a big thing for me as is interior condition and cleanliness. I see and touch the interior every minute while driving and want it complete, clean, and presentable.
I have never owned a new car, always used and am not sure can I handle the responsibility. I use my cars as cars. I get a scratch or ding in the 2005 SUV and I’m not sweating it.
I’ve tried hard not to care, but I can’t. It’s just how I’m wired.
I bought my 2022 Santa Cruz brand new in August 2021 – I bought the first one sold by the dealership I got it from.
I took possesion of it on a Saturday. The following Tuesday I went to Discount Tire to get Certificates for the tires. As the employee and I walked out to the truck to get the mileage for the Certificates, I noticed a rock had chipped the hood. I’d had it three days. I just shrugged and moved on with life. I did look into getting a touch up pen for it, but since it was a new color (Stone Blue), they didn’t have pens available.
Over Memorial Day Weekend I visited my MIL, and as I was parking it in her garage, I inched forward too far and the hood hit the shelf supports on the back wall. When I checked for damage, I found two pairs of two dents/scratches that matched up with the supports. I’ll probably leave them as-is.
While I want any vehicle I own to look as nice as possible as long as possible, ultimately they are simply tools used to transport me and my stuff from place to place. As long as they function properly, I couldn’t care less about cosmetic damage. I also don’t wash my vehicles very much for the same reason.
On my FJ? I have gotten so many sinks, dents and scratches on that from wheeling I don’t care much for what happens to it cosmetically any more. My Cummins has been in a few accidents due to failed brakes or snow so that I also do not care what happens cosmetically any more though it does tick me off seeing the giants dents in it as it was a very clean straight truck when I got it. My firebird I care a bit how it looks it has some dents and scratches on it and would like to bring it to a body shop for new paint and to straighten out the body if/whenever I get that done I will care much more about cosmetic issues on it.
I feel like cleanliness matters more than cosmetics- Ive had cars with peeling clearcoat, dents, and rust. But I made sure they were clean at least!
When I had my vibe, I polished it, painted trim, and made sure itlooked good. but I try not to flip my lid over a door ding. but a ripped bumper, that will get replaced.
I’m in a similar boat, honestly I can forgive paint defects if the interior is pristine.
The scion is named Ike? Kick the scion!
No, dont kick the scion. It may be small, from a foreign land, and adopted by a new family, but its not a baby!
It depends on who did it, and when.
The little wrinkle in the MG’s nose? Been there longer than I’ve owned it, it’s part of the car. I’ll never fix it.
The dents in the truck’s bed from rocks and gravel when we were landscaping the old house, or the scrape on the bed side from a tree branch? Badges of honor. Wouldn’t dream of fixing them.
That new ding I just discovered in the Chrysler’s door, probably from some careless asshat in a parking lot? Makes me livid. But I probably won’t bother fixing it, either.
I care about trim coming off and clearcoat peeling because those lead to bigger problems down the line such as water intrusion and rust. Fogged headlights are a problem for me because I don’t like dim headlights. Plastic being sunfaded I don’t give a shit about, nor do I care about scratches on steel plating such as box bumpers or skid plates. Rust is an immediate no go. If there’s rust on something that shouldn’t have rust or even surface rust, like brake rotors or hitch receivers, that gets fixed as soon as possible. Paint scratches aren’t an immediate fix, but do tend to get fixed faster than other issues because, again, I hate rust. My current car has a tiny bit of the shiny black plastic surrounding the grille emblem cracked and I haven’t bothered to fix that because nobody would notice and nothing gets damaged by leaving it alone. Wheels being scuffed I don’t like because, say it with me folks, it leads to rust. Mismatched paint can be bothersome but understandable, and can even be a part of the car’s aesthetic if it’s symmetrical. Flat primer or spraypaint is an immediate red flag never to touch the thing. Broken glass, so long as it’s not the windshield, isn’t a problem because I know how to cut and form acrylic and polycarbonate, and if I do one side I’ll do the other so they match, assuming the gaskets and trim aren’t damaged. I don’t do temporary windshields with that because they’ll scratch all to hell from the bug impacts and the windshield wipers pushing dirt for the first few swipes, as I found out with my dad’s UTV I made a windshield for. Door windows are a maybe with that fix, depending on if the door’s frameless or not. Missing hubcaps, whatever, fuck it, I like steelies more than gaudy hubcaps anyways and take them off regardless. Hail dents are a “What can you do?” situation, but bigger dents get pulled and hammered out, even if that means doing something as involved as removing the fender liner, battery bracket, and headlight. A dent not fixed now means a dent not fixed later, and I want whoever has the car after me to enjoy it instead of fretting over that. For the interior? My last car didn’t have an interior… I had a half assembled center stack with a Raspberry Pi in it for the stereo and no door cards. So long as there’s no mud and no risk of being stabbed from a hard brake stop from things either attached to the car or stored in it it’s not much of a problem.
Mostly it’s just matters of practicality and cost.
Dings and scratches are part of the aging process, so not a big deal. Broken or missing pieces have to be fixed ASAP.
Dings and scratches, etc. are part of wear and tear, and they cost WAY too much to remedy. Of course I don’t love them, but it’s a part of car ownership. I have an old 83 911 that has plenty of dings and paint damage. It would cost a fortune to fix and it would then prevent me from driving it whenever I want.
I have had a door dent for a year and it has been driving me nuts, then last week a tree fell on the car-
The good news is that you can stop obsessing about the door dent.
Whatever happened to the dent resistant, scratch hiding plastic body panels of Saturns?
People complained about poor panel gaps due to the expansion and contraction of the plastic.
Thanks. You prompted me to bet off my lazy duff and look myself:
After reviewing the reasons for using plastic in the Saturn, Lutz states:
“In practice, however, the plastic panels were finicky. They took longer to produce than conventional stamped steel, and they grew and shrank when the temperature changed, requiring the cars to have wide, unappealing gaps around the doors, hood and trunk for clearance.”
Plastics have a higher coefficient of linear thermal expansion (CLTE) than steel, and require more space to grow and shrink. Efforts to improve CLTE properties of plastic compounds with fillers and backbone tweaking haven’t resolved the problem.
GM moved back to steel for body panels when it launched the Saturn Sky roadster, Aura sedan, and Outlook cross/utility vehicle in 2006, and the Vue CUV in 2007.
https://www.designnews.com/plastics/finally-we-get-some-truth-on-plastic-body-panels
https://www.gardnerweb.com/articles/do-plastic-body-panels-have-a-future
The Smart for Two however has plastic panels:
https://www.machinedesign.com/news/article/21813232/smart-pioneers-first-full-polypropylene-body-panels
It looks like plastic panels are still being worked on.
Door dings and light scratches on a older car I can live with. For worse stuff I have great insurance.
Cosmetic damage only works on vehicles where you can imagine said vehicle doing fun thing that would result in damage. Things going off-road and on an adventure. Jeeps, and trucks, and the occasional Subaru. Something that looks like a hiking boot, should look like it’s been hiking.
On the other hand, damage to my van would theoretically look like one of the following:
None of these things imply experience of an adventure well lived. It implies the day to day drudgery of the life of a regular old chump. It’s a reminder of when some bastard rear ended you and then took off. Or when your father-in-law borrowed your basic commuter and backed it into a telephone pole. Or when a tractor trailer hitch punctured a hole in your Suzuki SX4’s bumper and dragged it across your employers parking lot and out onto Broadway, and you got a check to fix it but were too poor to not use it to pay rent (real example).
TLDR: Cosmetic damage usually bothers me.
I thought I cared, but after someone hit my frontier in a parking lot and left it with a busted headlight, bumper and fender i just sorta felt meh,
oddly enough here in NC where people drive like fools on the highway i’ve noticed other drivers now keep clear of my busted up truck, so thats a benefit i guess
My mail xj doesn’t have a straight body panel on it, but it is covered in mud 95% of the time anyway. Someone door dinged my wife’s very nice, black, sequoia and I am not happy about it. So it depends on the vehicle.
It depends from whom….
Years back, I punched a hole in my bumper cover hitting an unseen rock under a snowbank. Drilled some holes and zip tied what was left back together, ran it for 4 more years. Had that hole come from a hit and run or someone else, it would have driven me crazy.
Same now. My current car is missing some paint on the passenger side front bumper facade due to my wife cutting the turn into our driveway too short. Doesn’t bug me at all so long as it doesn’t keep happening….
And basically that is the end of the list until our kid starts to drive…..
Every time I travel to Michigan: I die a little bit inside.
Why does crossing the state/province line into Ohio/Ontario feel like entering a whole new world?
Counterpoint: The Toleto stare.
They’re wondering if that bailer twine, zip ties, and duct tape holding your body panels in place are a sign that you’re uninsured, and they should gtfo – along with wondering how your car is able to hold itself together at 80mph.
I was under the impression Toleto is in the rust belt too.
More than it should. I’m pretty obsessive when it comes to keeping my car looking nice and I have to be because it’s black. There is no car color that gets dirtier faster. It’s a constant battle.
However, I live in DC. Any car that lives and gets driven in the city is going to have battle scars. People are going to hit you when parking. The wheels are going to hit a curb at some point. Small objects are going to fall off of trucks and ding your hood/potentially your windshield. There’s really no avoiding it regardless of how good of a driver you are.
That being said, it bothers me. A lot. Especially when it’s stuff that happens through no fault of my own, which it usually is. However I don’t know what the answer is. About 18 months in I paid for an expensive detailing for my GTI that including scratch and ding repair and it wasn’t really worth it. They got some stuff out, but they can never get all of it.
I got sick of paying good money to keep my GTI looking good and have been more careful with the Kona N. It never sees drive through car washes, and your car shouldn’t either. I either wash it and detail it in my driveway or I go to a touch less automatic car wash that’s a couple miles away. In my experience they do a vaguely acceptable job and are pretty cheap.
But you’ll absolutely have to go over your car with a microfiber towel and get after the problem areas after rolling through one. IMHO it’s worth the sacrifice to not have an assortment of things rubbing against your car and ruining its finish in a traditional car wash. The Kona has the added nuisance of having forged aluminum wheels as well and they get absolutely filthy. I have a specialized forged wheel spray I use on them.
With the Kona I’ve tried my hand at fixing minor stuff myself and I’ve gotta say-I’m not very good at it. I have paint pen I bought directly from Hyundai. The results it gives me are preferable to having visible chips, but you can absolutely tell where it’s been used if you look closely.
Something fell off a semi a few weeks ago and put a massive chip in my hood’s clear coat that was driving me insane, so I bought a buffing kit and tried my hand at fixing it. I followed all the instructions and…the chip is gone, but now the clear coat around it looks better than the rest of the hood and stands out. Much like the paint pen, it’s a slight improvement but not a FIX, necessarily.
All of this is to say-if anyone has some tips I’m all ears. I’m a cheap bastard and I absolutely don’t want to pay a body shop god knows how much to make my car look factory fresh again, but at the same time the do it yourself stuff has been a “you get what you pay for” experience for me so far. There’s definitely a reason why there are so many professionals out there.
As you say these are by no means a true fix, but I have found this works very well for chips in the paint:
https://drcolorchip.com/
It likely isn’t going to be an overall improvement you are getting but it does have the benefit of being easier to apply once you get used to it. So, you can make repairs to more chips using this product in the same amount of time.
I’ve tried using it on longer scratches and things like that. It’s not a good solution for that but for small rock chips, it’s the easiest one I’ve found.
The other day I noticed a blue scrape on my yellow Maverick’s tailgate. I’m annoyed about it, but stuff happens. It doesn’t penetrate the paint, so rust isn’t going to be a problem and it’s not that noticeable unless you’re up close. I probably won’t do anything about it.
Dents and dings that I am responsible for cause me a lot more angst because every time I see them I am reminded how much an idiot I can be.
Spoken like a true Pickup owner. 😉
Not much. I bought my current daily driver Mazda 3 with a dented hood and some dings on the quarter panel because it was like $2K below market price. Then when I was searching for an older truck/SUV to use as an adventure/tow rig, I actually sought out one that was a little rougher because I knew it’d end up getting lots of trail scratches and the paint would get roasted sitting outside all the time. So I ended up with a 2004 Sequoia with roached clear coat, some exterior scratches, and a few dents on the hatch, and it’s kinda freeing having a vehicle you don’t really care much about.
On the daily driver, minor scratches or dings are ok, I definitely try to touch them up to avoid them getting worse. Entire body panels being messed up or missing is way too much for me.
Saw a dude without a hood driving in to work this morning, that’s a bit crazy, and see people without bumpers all the time since they just rip right off nowadays, the wife and I joke those are ‘custom’, to ‘reduce weight’, but don’t understand how some just drive the car that way forever after that, even if it’s not paint matched, just go to the pick’n’pull and get another one, no idea how that even passes inspection.
I used to see a lady in an Expedition every morning on my drive to work. The Expedition had no muffler, no hood and the side steps were rusted off and just rusty jagged vestigial mounting points sticking out waiting to cut somebody, it was something else
Cosmetic damage is the bane of my existence. I have allowed myself to accept tiny rock chips and slight pitting on the front end. It’s a daily driver, that shit’s gonna happen when driving on the expressway. Anything beyond that is something that I will notice every time I walk up to my car. For instance, some jackass in a Honda Fit wedged himself in a tight spot and put a slight dent in my front bumper. Am I the only one that can see it? Yes. Do I die a little inside every time I look at it? Also yes.
I park at the back of parking lots. My car is garaged at home and at work. It gets professionally detailed twice a year and hand-washed by me in between. Aside from the aforementioned blemish, there are no scratches and no dings.
Interior I’m still particular on as that’s where I spend more time and I want it clean and functioning, but I find I’m more relaxed about the exterior than I was years ago, which is at odds with it being the first new car I chose exactly what I wanted. Some dings and scuffs are obscured unless you look at the right angle. Chips through the finish/paint still bug me as they stand out more, and seem to have happened more on this car compared to my past ones. Like a rock chip right on the leading edge of the hood that stands out more, or curbed rim. Even so, my train of thought when it comes to repairing them cautions, is it something that would worsen in some way, or something that might just happen again after I fix it (probably immediately after given my luck).
It suddenly bothers David Tracy an alarming amount- this is a man who used to daily drive parts-filled boxes of glued-together rust flakes