First of all, I want to say that this is a great site and all your posts have been extremely helpful. I'm an old reader but new poster to this site.

So here is what happened today. I went to fill up my gas tank, unscrewed the gas cap, clumsily lost grip of the cap (due to lack of sleep last night) and instead of the cap falling to the floor, the tether caused the cap to slam against the rear fender. At first I thought nothing happened but I when I got back to work, I checked closely and a small ding. Hard to tell for the most part but big enough to put me in a bad mood for the rest of the day.

Anyway, wanted to know if I am the only bonehead that has ever done this.

 

Clip that shit off at the earliest convenience.

I didnt think it could reach the fender though

 

so what your saying is in addition to the thin leather in the interior, it also has thin sheet metal the dings easily?

 

I don't see him saying that. He said he let is slip out of his hands. He knows it was his mistake. No reason to turn this into anything other than that.

To answer your question - yes many people have done this, with many cars including the TL. I would suggest, like the other poster, to clip it off so it won't happen again.

 

Wow, that smarts.

The TL is supposed to have thicker steel for ding resistant doors. (I would imagine this also goes toward improved safety in accidents)

The fenders are less likely to get dinged in parking lots, so they may not have used the same gauge steel for the quarter panels. I was concerned about this when I bought my TL, but I was rear ended a few weeks after I bought the car by a guy driving a Lincoln Town car at a pretty good clip. Maybe 5 to 10 mph. My head bumped the headrest. I was amazed to find only a little cosmetic damage.

Paintless dent removal should fix your problem. A decent detail shop should be able to fix it in no time. They use a special tool to pull the ding out. Probably won't set you back that much. Good luck!

 

I am only stating the obvious. I guess it sucks that the truth hurts.

 

There was NO mention of this in the original post. Aside from that, the sheet metal is fine. People make mistakes and let things hit the body of the car. No car is going to be able to avoid all dings. Do you think this is a new problem with the TL alone? All cars suffer from this.

 

oh yeah the truth is finally out, the TL has poor sheet metal

 

funny thing is that i did exactly the same thing this past saturday.. it didn't dent or ding the car but it did put a small chip in the paint, i was super heated. i wasn't going to do anything till i read this thread... question, should i cut the entire cord, lil ball included???

 

SHODOG How come in every post you seem to be bashing the TL and putting text into peoples posts that is not there? Just a question....

 

Honda made all their cars with thin sheet metal so it can absorb the impact during a collision. A PDR told me this (paintless dent repair). So if you just lean on your car filling up your gas tank, I can say you are most likely going to bend the sheet metal. I'm so anal and tell no one to lean on my car. You can tell how the sheet metal has a "wavy" look and it's not even. I hope this doesn't happen to me filling up gas.

 

EEEegads! As far as I can read nothing like that was written. Not going to validate that response, but dogman if you had chili last night and the rhoids are acting up try some tucks and go to your special place.

 

I can see how you probably lost grip. But the cord and the ball at the end of it is made so that you can hook it to inside of the little door while fueling...this prevents you from losing it...like leaving it at the gas station or on top of the car....it can happen!

 

Wow, that is scary! I'm kind of lost as to how much momentum could have built up to create enough force to ding the fender. I'll definitely be more careful. Personally, I like the cord.

What I have noticed is that the gas door is flimsy. My 01 CL Type-S had a much sturdier door. I know that's nit-picking, but it is an honest observation.

 

What? He let go of the gas cap and it actually managed to ding his car

"thin sheet metal" isn't an unreasonable conclusion to come to; it shouldn't have dented unless he threw the gas cap at the car...

 

I've had the gas cap fall when I was trying to hook it to the gas door. Believe me, when it happened, I was terrified. It did hit hard enough to cause a scratch or a ding, but I was fortunate that nothing happened.

It's crazy that the gas cap can get away from you like that and hit with that much force but it happens. Filling my TL up is always an exercise in the utmost care. One other way to get around it is not even rest the gas cap in the catch. Sometimes I gently place the cap against the quarter panel so that I can be sure that I don't have any type of accident.