Sad story...at least for me. Last friday was the first day that we were allowed to park in the new garage at the new company site. It is a new building and the garage is very tight. In fact the CEO of the company has already raised hell with the building management about repainting the parking spaces since they are too small. Seeing as this is in Cambridge, MA...space is at a premium. Anyhow, we had finished our "pre-move" lunch at the old facility and people we headed over to the new building with the intention of parking there and grabbing a beer at a local place. I was going up the ramp to the second floor of the garage and it is a super tight turn with posts in between the up and down lanes. I cut the corner too tight and CRUNCH. I learned a very bad lesson that concrete>Acura steel. It put a really large scrape in the passenger door all the way back to the wheel well. There are a few little scratches on the rear wheel also. I have been dragging my butt around all weekend and finally figured that I'd post about it to my A-CL support group.

Anyhow, it gets looked at on Tuesday for an estimate to fix it. It is dented so I am not sure if they can re-use the rear quarter. Stupid move on my part again but I would place money on it that I won't be the only car to get damaged in that spot.

Oh well...back to moping. :'(
:angry:

I am sure that it will be "good as new" but anyone who has hurt their CL can probably imagine how I feel.

 

Maybe have the CEO do the same to his car so he gets a feeling for how bad it is.

 

Bring this problem/issue up to him. He may throw down some money to get your car fixed and also fix the underlying issue with the garage.

It could happen.... McWorld!@!

 

lets see some pics!

sidemarker

 

I feel you man ... I did the same thing 2 winters ago to my car in the parking garage at work. We have really tight parking spaces too and some of them have a conrete pillar in between the spaces. Took my turn too sharp into the space and scraped the hell out of my car ... Costed $700 to re-paint the rear quarter panel with blending being done on the driver's side plus pulling a dent out of the rear driver's side wheel well ...

Sounds like yours might be a little bit worse. I know its hard because I felt like crap the entire week after it happened ... but try to cheer up, at least this is pretty easily repairable and shouldn't effect the car in anyway except for looks. Think about if you got rear ended and when you got the car back it didn't drive quite right because the frame took some damage...

 

That sucks. You'll feel better when its fixed.

 

how deep is it, post pix

 

This is what it used to look like.

 

ouch. i would say that's more than a scrape. :o



your car needs a quarter panel.

 

Ouch that hurts to see. :crying:

Thats a few grand in damage.

 

holey shit...how fast were you going?

 

I had worse damage done and the garage fixed it...they said to replace the panel would mean welding etc and would comprimise the integrity...they can fix pretty much anything nowadays man dont' sweat it...but I feel your pain...I couldn't think of my car for months without cringing after it happend to me

 

VERY slow. A few mph maybe. I know...it looks really bad. Bulldog01 was over today and he didn't think that it would be as bad as it is too. It was definitely a case of once I head the scrape, I wasn't sure which would be better...hitting the brakes and backing up immediately or cutting the wheel and continuing forward. It only took 1 second and I jerked the wheel impulsively anyway once I heard it so I stayed with that. Lets just say that I wish that I was a LOT more careful (do I get a prize for that understatement). I am sure that I wasn't the first car to go up that ramp so I am sure that it is easily done but I know I won't be the last car to scrape the wall...if you can call it a scrape. If you guys saw the angle on the ramp you'd understand the damage better. It was really tight and it wasn't like there was a circular center piece. It was squared off in areas and it wasn't consistant. I gauged the turn radius by the first couple angles and then the angles changed. :P

It is just @ss luck and an obvious "pay better attention" scenario. I beat myself up enough about it.

 

Thanks for the support guys. I DOES help a lot.

 

Ouch. Thats painful to look at.

At least you know its gonna look like that last pic once again.

 

I had a car come out of the shop and the same day I got hit on a parking lot so I had to pay for it myself ...
....So, I feel your pain...make sure they fix that area ofthe garage....or the same thing could happen again...seems like a nice car catches more hell than a bucket.....hope you get it fixed up really soon!!!!

 

OUCH!

 

that hurts....

 

Same thing happened to me when the car was 9 months old:

My wheels were OK and the bumper has a scratch that's about 2mm long and even up close it's hard to see.
Total cost to fix was 1k and it took a week, with thanksgiving in the middle of that week. Not a big deal. They wanted to replace the bumper but I told them not to - not worth it.

The smaller turning radius of the 03s is a double edged sword

This was the column I hit. Notice the fucked up angle it was constructed at:

 

If I think about taking a pic of the "impact area" tomorrow then I'll post it. It might validate some of my stupidity. Although sometimes in pictures it looks like a lane is 10 feet wide when it really isn't. Eh....it happens. My Prelude fit like a glove as far as a drivers car and I felt like I knew every inch. With the CL-S I still worry about the cars corners pulling into tight spaces sometimes. I feel that I know it well but it is big enough that it FEELS like a big coupe. I took the width for granted and paid (or WILL pay) for it. I used to tease my fiance' about how small her Integra felt but there are advantages to having a "go-cart" for a car.

It's all good...it will be fixed eventually and I'll continue with the coats of Zaino that I just started.

 

fawk, it will be good as new soon

 

Yeah, it hurt to look at it. Shit is not pretty.

 

i would pay the insurance deductable, take it to the dealer body shop and get it fixed...asap.

 

That sucks !!! Must be really tight quarters down in that garage.

How is someone going to park an Expedition, Escalade, H2 or other BEHEMOTH down there?
Especially considering that they make up nearly 50% of new vehicle sales right now.
Obviously some of the employee’s there drive big monsters like that.
Or what happened if you’re parked and one of them decides to park next to you?
You won’t even be able to open the door.
Yet another reason to hate on SUV’s.

 

Done that at my fraternity house last year in the parking lot.

Give it a few months, and that support column is going to be covered with 20 different shades of car paint. Maybe then they will get off their lazy asses and fix it. This is the 21st century and it's not like we just started building parking ramps. Yet there are still idiots out there who don't know how to do it. They build ramps for cars like Yugos and Metros.

 

brutal. Sorry mang.

 

It’s all about money.
Anyone who knows about basic construction engineering knows that more column’s means they can be smaller and the overhead beams are lighter with less of a span.
A few feet and a few extra supports can easily be MILLIONS in the overall design.

 

Parking Garages can suck. The newer ones seem to be the worse. The Marriott Waterfront in Baltimore is new. The garage entrance/exit is curved, steep, and so tight they added foam padding to the walls, it's banged to hell. I don't see how valets can handle Navigators and such in it.

 

People try to save money too many ways now when they build new buildings. I am sure that a large SUV could make it up the ramp that I whacked my car on if they are careful but that isn't an excuse for not giving people some comfort room. I am sure that it is designed to be wide enough for cars or trucks far wider than mine but I still think that it could have been designed better. I am sure that I was just a dumb@ss the day I hit the wall but I still bet there will be others after me.

The estimate on the damage from my insurance company was around $2000 before the deductible ($500 deductible). It will go into the shop on Monday and the shop said that they'd get it back in about a week. I'll post pics after I get it back. Hopefully it will look good as new.