Hey all,

I went to lunch with some guys from work today, and I volunteered to drive. Everyone was cool with the idea until I told them where I park. I park on the 5th floor of the parking garage where very few cars are located and in an end spot so there is less chance of door dings.

They all thought it was a little ridiculous that I will park way out of my way to ensure that car has less of a chance to get dinged up....

Does anyone else do this???

 

I'd rather my friends think i'm ridiculous than to get my car dinged up. I park far away all the time!

 

Tell them they can afford to lose a few pounds walking when you park farther away! .....A lot of people park far away, me included, especially when a nice car is involved in the picture!

 

I park as far away from any other cars as possible. I also ALWAYS park on end or parallel spots.

The wife isn't crazy about this when we go out to the mall or shopping, but hey there's a reason the TL has 0 dings and the Civic she drives has 100. I'd rather walk an extra several hundred feet with the piece of mind that I won't have to worry (at least not as much) about coming back to my car with a nice fresh ding in it.

 

I do always and I don't care what anyone says or thinks. I have 0 dings in my car and would like to keep it that way.

 

Nice!!! I love how you have the TL and she has the Civic! Seems like most of my friends who are married, the wife always gets the nicer car.

 

I have a feeling that most of the people on this board (me included) will side with you. Afterall, this is a car enthusiasts forum, so people who come here probably at least try to take car of their wheels.

I've only had mine for a few weeks, but everyone at work knows that I am a corner parker, and the wife knows that when she drives it, she has to treat it like I would (ie: Parking a mile away from anything). Even then, I use corner spots and park as close to the curb as possible.

Bottom line is it's your ride. If they don't like it, they can either walk or drive themselves!

 

Also.... my girlfriend and I have a dog, an extremely energized Boxer (Diesel is his name, and it fits him). Anyways, I get so paranoid when he rides in my car as dogs have bad balance and it seems like he is scratching the crap out of the leather. I always put a towel down, but he finds a way to get under it or get back down to the leather.... Any ideas?

 

Drive the civic ?

 

same here....I park like an ass at work, two spots most of the time. Then again, it's a small company, only about 15-20 cars in the lot at any given time, and the lot holds about 50 cars, so it's no biggie....

 

I park as far away as possible..........and always try to "block" one side of my car by using end spots or the larger off marked spaces where the white lines were made bigger than others.

 

I always park in the Back Forty so that my car won't get dinged, keyed, or whatever. It's worth the walk! My husband does the same thing with his Lexus RX400h, so we're both used to long hikes.

 

I have 3 dings on my TL already. not super noticeable unless u look at the sides of the car at an angle to see the dents / nicks etc...

When i was younger i always wondered why the hell ppl parked so far away?

I thought they were stupid.

But now that I am older and experienced some dings, i now completely understand why they do that.

I don't park ridiculously far away but i do park near the end where there's more space.

 

I always try to park the car away from the others and when the parking lot is big, I try to park it by itself. Even I do that, when I get back to my car, I always find that some other car has parked next to me and all the time is some nice Mercedes or BMW or nice hooked up car. From all that parking spaces available, they chose to park next to me.
Tim

 

I too park far. It drives the girlfriend crazy.

 

always - and I make sure that I park in an end spot where nobody can park on the right side of the car so I am only vulnerable to dings if the car that parks next to me has a passeger...

 

I always park my TL in protected spots, but I also always offer to first take my passengers (coworkers or family) to the main entrance/ front door for drop off.

I usually make a joke of it by saying I'll see them in about an hour. They know I'll be parking in the "next county." They are all accustomed to it; they all comment about how well I maintain my TL.

You need to be sensitive with coworkers especially if they don't take such care with their cars. You don't want to insult them. Again, I joke that I realize I'm a nutcase about parking and door dings.

 

Ha! I love this subject, because the primary culprit of door dings? Fat-fuggin-lazy-people!

Yup the fatties are the cause of most door dings, watch them in the parking lot sometime, they tend to kick the door with their foot rather than exert a little calorie burning in their arm.

FWIW - when I have other people in the car, I drop them off first then I go park and I'll even offer to get the car and pick them up... All in the name of not parking next to any fatties.

In garages, I park on the top floor, cause again it's too much work for the fatties to get up there. I don't care if it is raining/snowing or huricaning... I WILL NOT park next to other cars in parking lots and I'M THIN AS A RESULT! I'm so fanatical about it I even catch myself driving the old lady's company vehicle to the back of the lot... We don't own it and a new one is coming soon so there's no need for me to care about it, but it's the principle of it all IMO.

 

wandered over from 2nd gen forum, anyhow got some dings in my ride recently from a shopping cart or two (I work in a supermarket) and it annoyes me how ppl can never fess up to shit like that. I now park around the corner of the building in the spots that never seem to get used. Paintless dent removal unfortunately, will now be one of my next "mods".

 

Yes...I'm one of those anal type of person who park like out in the boonies. I usually find a corner spot and park as close as the corner spot. Or if I'm driving out for lunch, I usually have my friends go get a table first at the restaurant and I will look for parking by myself so they don't think I'm an ass. But ya.......I park in the boonies if I have to. hee hee

 

Yes, always.

 

I always look for a safe spot when I park, ie, next to a ada spot, end of a aisle, next to an island, near a light pole, whatever I can to to protect the car. I have a 2004 and just got my first dent/ding this past month, I had to park and fly out of ATL Airport, in a public parking lot, nobody cares, you look to park near a car as nice or nicer than your own and the f*$kers don't care and bamm, I got a dent in the right rear passenger door. On a black car, stands out like a huge amount of damage.

 

the dog can go in the trunk. I wouldn't be parking far away if I didn't think it was necessary...

 

I don't necessarily park farther away. At the office, for example, the garage is always overfilled (they double-park cars in the aisles and such), so instead of focusing on parking in an isolated spot, I try to park so that the passenger side is next to some pillars, which means that nobody can park next to me on that side; as an added bonus, because I never have anyone riding on that side on the way into work, I can park extra-far to the right in the space, making dings on the other side less likely just because of the extra distance from the car on the other side. (I worry more about the annoying back-in parkers here than I do about door dings. Half of these idiots think they need to park backwards but aren't very good at it, and they go back and forth, over and over....stupid habit.)

The one that's tough for me is what to do at football tailgates. On the one hand I like to park on the end of a row because you can only get door dings on one side, but on the other hand, then there's an increased risk of the car getting hit by kids throwing footballs and the like (I WISH their parents would make them throw Nerf footballs only). So what usually happens is that I know two other guys who are fussy about their vehicles and we try to park next to each other.

 

The trick is to park next to a car as nice as yours- but no so upscale as to be driven by the sort who consider themself above the rest

Yeah! for painless dent removal- hardly hurts the wallet compared to the wifes pleasure at no more dings when she looks at the car

 

I refuse to shop at the Giant and Safeway nearest to my house because they don't have the cart-return corrals (landlord won't allow it) and the lazy shitheads in my area leave the carts all over the place. I'll drive an extra few miles to a store that has the corrals before I let my car get dinged up by carts.

 

That's where car #3 comes into play. It's been demoted to my I'm going somewhere where there are no good parking spaces car. Either that or I try to get someone else to drive.

 

Yeh, we have taken Ms1995hoo's RSX several times, but she's starting to get as picky as I am about it (no doubt corrupted by me). My second car doesn't have enough room to carry tailgating stuff (an RX-7; it's on the Photo Gallery section of the forum), so from time to time I've considered the idea of buying a used SUV, something like a Honda CR-V with four-wheel drive that I can use for tailgating, for skiing, and for hauling stuff around when I need to (trips to Home Depot and the like). But I haven't done it, in part because the notion of being a single guy with three cars doesn't make a lot of sense to me.

 

A supermarket with no car corrals? What kinda moron landlord is that? LOL! One of my co-workers just bought a new black nissan altima and got just had it detailed, now I see he is taking my lead and double parking it in the same section of the lot I've been using. lol!

 

I've thought about the whole SUV thing too, but from a WAY different perspective. I've got 3 kids that I have to haul around from time-to-time and they aren't getting in the TL-S with wet, snowy, or dirty feet. Car #3 is a 9-year old Accord that I'm thinking of selling for a used SUV (good for dirty kid transport and bike trips with the crew, etc). But first I have to sell the wife on the idea. Could be a little different since I just bought the TL about 2 weeks ago.

 

yes, i too park ridiculously far away from any and all cars whenever possible...my wife and my co-workers think i'm weird, but i love my TL!

 

Yup, $100 for three dings=no brainer. Same detailing and aftermarket performance shop that did my tints. All I ever see when I drive by the place are Infiniti's, Lexus, BMW's sitting in the lot, and the other day there was a very clean AUDI S6. So I trust their work. Learned my lesson about parking spaces the hard way unfortunatly.

 

I do ALL the time! I get razzed, but look at my car vs. alll of their's!

 

I park as far as way as I can. When my wife drives, she knows to do the same.

 

I also park far away and if the bank is closed at the mall, I part in the drive through. Worse comes to worse I keep these in my trunk. I love them

http://www.doordefender.com/

 

I could totally relate to this topic. I personally would drop off my passengers up front (where we are going) and drive through the parking complex/lot/etc to find that spot that is close enough to a curb/island and would leave my passenger side enough space that a dingdong would have to be a total nutjob to hit my door/s.

I usually park in spots that have bigger white areas on one side (those nearest to the end of the row) or the ones next to handicap spots (they tend to have more *room*). either those or i park so close to the island to leave as much space to the car next to me as possible (short of curbing my rims). what pisses me off to no end are people that park so close that they risk dinging my car.

im too paranoid that, when i walk back to my car, i kneel in front/behind and watch the reflection of the light off my doors. if i see a ding (thank goodness nothing yet *knocks on wood*) you would be sure I will line that ding up with the car next to me.

and IF i find out that the car next to me is responsible (if i see paint on my car matching the one next to me) then God help that car. Im not one to take out my frustration on another person's car (I live by that *code*), but if they cross that line (ding my car knowing I parked as far away as possible), all bets are off.

sorry but there is just no excuse for you to ding a car that intentionally gave you all the room in the world to park. that is just plain selfish and ignorant.

 

Yes, I park at the very top level of my parking garage at work and take up a couple of spaces at an angle at the very end of the deck. My co-workers make fun of me for it, but I don't care. My car still looks good despite it being a couple of years old. I just wish it wouldn't ding so easily in the front from road debris.

 

well sometimes parking far away makes your car a "mark" for some idiot that is looking for trouble and will go out of their way to mess with the car thats "far" away from others.

 

or you could just leave it at home and never drive anywhere and then there would be zero risk of dings, so you get to pay for the car to sit cause you dont want a ding. its really not expensive to fix a ding, so if it happens ya just get it fixed, you wont end up broke over it. plus parking far at night in seclusion could leave you as a mark for getting robbed or worse and if that happened and you ended up robbed or in a hospital or worse you could then say well at least my car didnt get dings. but the amount of mony you get robbed could be more then ficing the ding and you could be in a hospital in pain from injury. at nite its safer to stay close to the pack in a well lit area. sorry for the rambling but theres some good points buired in here somewhere i think lol

 

It was early so the lot wasn't full yet but here's where I park......LOL