Car park paranoia

lordrobs

lordrobs

lordrobs

Soldato
Joined
30 Sep 2003
Posts
16,656
Location
Norwich
I've never owned a car without dents in it before. My Hyundai was a bit of a shed when I got it, but it was free and I was very greatful. My 306 was in excellent condition but still had a few dings. My Octavia on the other hand has been nursed through its first 4.5 years and has come out with nothing more than some stone chips and a very light scratch that will polish out when I get around to it. Whilst at first this was great its now causing me stress :(

This morning I park up next to a nice 3 series estate after assesing the merits of various parking spaces in the carpark. I'm just about to jump out when a round man starts walking in my direction. When I say round I mean completely sperical. I'm not fattest in the slightest, infact I'm a big guy myself but I didn't ike the look of the guy. He pulls out his keys and the lights flash on the Beemer. I still had the engine running so I stuck it in reverse and parked in the row behind. Round man pulls open his door hard and lets it bounce back off the hinge stops. Whether he'd have done that with my car next to him I don't know.

Anyway off I go into work happy that a potential ding had been avoided. 5 minutes later I look blankly out of the window. Disaster. The spaces in our car park aren't lined but instead have these silly little markers in the gravel so often the guides end up being ignored and people just park where they like. This had happened today and had left a 7/8 sized space next to my car and the car next to mine was at an angle. The kind of space that you could park in but getting your door open would be tight. Panic set in and I assess the car park again. There must be a conference on as the car park has filled up loads, the 7/8 size space is the closest to the door, its raining, my boss isn't here yet, she can't park and bounces her door off the car next to hers, she doesn't like getting wet. ****

I tell our admin girl that I'm off to move my car. "Why?" I briefly explain then off I go. Through the whole building, out into the piddling down rain and move my car into the safe zone of the car park. As I pull out another car pulls into the space I was leaving an 5 minutes later my boss pulls into that space inches from the other car (which would have been mine) Whether she bounced the door off it or not I couldn't tell. Still a justified decision IMO.

As I get back in the office our admin girl said "Thats the gayest thing I've ever seen!" She was right :o :(

Am I alone in this obsession? I mean its a bloomin 52 plate Skoda at the end of the day not some exotica worth £100k.
 
I always get paranoid, I think its why I still havent had a single ding.


Guess who just opened the flood gates.. I'm looking outside and my MDs merc has pulled up and he's a reet fat git. And he's just parked next to me... yay!
 
Doesn't matter how far away I park from the entrance in a tesco car park, some egit decides to park next to me. So I always take up two spaces now. Sure I may get called a merchant banker but it saves the dings, scratches and assorted trolley scrappings my old Peugoet 406 had.
 
tbz_ck said:
Doesn't matter how far away I park from the entrance in a tesco car park, some egit decides to park next to me. So I always take up two spaces now. Sure I may get called a merchant banker but it saves the dings, scratches and assorted trolley scrappings my old Peugoet 406 had.
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If you did that and there wheren't loads of spaces left I'd probably park as close to you as possible, just 'cos its selfish, obviously if the car park is no where near full then thats different
 
Our site's a govt. building. When it was being built, about 13 years ago, they were going to put a multi-storey there but local residents petitioned and the plans got binned. Now there's (guess-timate) 750 spaces for 3500 employees and the residents complain about us parking in the streets. The waiting list for a full-time pass is about 10-11 years, I've been there 9 and only qualify for a pass on Mondays and Fridays (most part-timers don't work those days and if people book an odd day off, it's usually for a long weekend so there's more space).

Whoever designed the works car park doesn't have a very high opinion of civil servants cos the spaces are huge!!! You'd have to be a REAL eedjit to ding someone from inside the white lines there.

But parking off-site I'm constantly paranoid about angry locals keying it, slashing the tyres (me and friends have had mysterious flats down certain areas) etc. I've already been threatened by one guy for parking too close to the back of his car- even though there was nothing in front of him, he could just drive away.

And in supermarkets, multi-storeys or wherever I just park further away. I'm a large chap myself (not quite "spherical" as the OP said, though :p) so I leave plenty of room for me to get in anyways. Just a shame not everyone gives a monkeys about little dings, dents, scratches and that :(
 
I park in disabled / children and parents spaces in supermarkets and as far away as anyone else in normal car parks.

Seems to do the job.
 
I'm also a paranoid car park parker :) In our car park at work which is a council multi-storey I park my car within an inch of the pillars, back and front so as to leave the max amount of room in the space next to me for the average 'idjiot' to park. Still come back in the evening and the car next to me is on the white line closest to my car with 2 feet of space on the other side, you can never ever really win to be honest. :(
 
I'm ashamed to say that in Tesco I now park in the parent and child spaces :o Even that doesn't always work because the mothers seem to think that the areas between the spaces are a perfect place to leave the trolley they've just been using :(
 
I dont worry about my car because of its worth, but in 12 months of parking in an officil NCP car park it has gained 6 dings on either side, had one tyre slashed and has a rather large 2" by 1" dent above the rear bumper, made by someone in a light green metallic car of some kind.

You are not being paranoid, people generally have no respect for other peoples property and it drives me insane.
 
I'm not bothered at all. Not even if I had a £100K Ferrari instead of the £5K Golf that I have now. I believe cars were designed to be driven so a few cosmetic dings and scratches aren't going to affect the cars safety or how it drives. This line of reasoning means I get to waste less time washing the car as well. :)
 
I'd never put my M5 at risk, I would actually go move it, but it's £80k of investment I wanna protect it, my MR2 however I don't care about the odd ding, it's my gig car, it cost probably about £3000 in total.
I've yet to get a new commuting vehicle, I hate parking my M5 and leaving it all alone, reserved car space, but still worrying indeed.
 
I have a new parking philosophy:

Impatient, rude, door slamming types like to park right next to the shop.

So when I go to ASDA (without my sister and nephew, when I use the parent & child spaces) I park in the furthest row from the door, right next to the pathway to the door. It's actually quicker to the shop than a few laps of the car park I think, and all the patient types who care about their cars park out there, spaces are easy to come by too.
 
You are not alone, i'm a paranoid parker aswell. Luckily I have more than one car so the nicer one doesn't ever need to see a car park! I hate leaving it on the drive too as next doors neighbour's cat walks all over it! :(

It doesn't matter how much you paid for it, it matters how much you care about it and what condition it is currently in :)
 
I get paranoid parking my car too and its only a 306! I usually try and park my car next to nicer cars, I avoid parking next to older/battered cars or people carriers (children).

Sounds stupid but if I dont look out for my cars well being no one else will!
 
Matt82 said:
its because you care. nothing more nothing less... youre the sorta person id be happy to buy a car from
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Yup, you care about your car, that's a good thing.

I partially care about mine, but am not overly fussed if it gets dinged...but it's an '89 Pug 205 with a plethora of scratches and dings in it already due to previous owners.
If/When I get a decent car next year I'll probably be quite anal about it, I don't want a dinged/scratched decent car.

My car may look a bit of a heap, but I make sure that if I park next to someone, I don't fling the doors open or anything...I wouldn't want my car damaged, so why should I do it to theirs.

InvG
 
lordrobs said:
As I get back in the office our admin girl said "Thats the gayest thing I've ever seen!" She was right :o :(

Am I alone in this obsession? I mean its a bloomin 52 plate Skoda at the end of the day not some exotica worth £100k.
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If she'd said that to me, I'd ask her whether she drove and if she cared about her car. With her response most likely being "no", I'd have told her to shut up. It's people like her who are responsible for car park dings. They don't care about their own car and so certainly don't care about others.

As for it being an obsession, I drive a £500 Rover and treat it with respect. Find the furthest corner in a carpark and park there, and even then I worry about it. It's going in for some bodywork next year where all the dents/scrapes will get removed and I still can't bring myself to park it just anywhere.

Maybe I have an obsession, but I'd much rather drive a nice clean looking car than something that looks like it's been driven through a WWII battlefield.
 
Yeah she said it in jest really. Its a bit of an ongoing joke how much I worry about my car.

I used to park well out of the way but I came back one day to find a car randomly parked right up against it :confused: so I now prefer to park it between two others where they've left a big gap.
 
Matt82 said:
its because you care. nothing more nothing less... youre the sorta person id be happy to buy a car from
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Quite.

My car cost less than 4 grand but I still care about it and generally look after it. I looked after my first car that costed £200 and had cracked bumpers. I did zero damage to that, everyone that looked at it and saw the cracks/small dents said "you must suck at driving" and they never believed me when I say it was like that when I got it, and it was actually true :o :(


Then my Megane, when I sold it the buyer said that he "could tell that this is a genuine car that's been looked after" etc.

Now I have my Honda, fingers crossed it'll be similar when I go to sell it :) It would **** me off if some ignorant Mike Hunt dinged it in a carpark!

It's my property, no matter of it's value. People have no right to disregard this. It always makes me think when I see fairly "expensive" cars like modern Audis/BMWs/Porsches etc parked up down dirty/busy roads, I'd be a little paranoid if it were me!
 
It drives me mad. The amount of ignorant swine in this town is unbelievable. I've had the Saab 8 months or so and already I have two large dents in the rear passengers door and a large scrape down the passengers wing from scum opening doors on it, or using it as a parking indicator. I now park in the sainsbury's car park over the other side of the road, as close to the back as I can get, and even then I was walking back to my car the other day when some old biddy slammed her door into the side of my car. I was ******* livid, but she saw me coming, closed her door again and sped off. Luckily there was no damage other than some mild scratches on the rub strips, but it's driving me mad. I've only brough my GT6 into work about a dozen times at the most and it has a dink in the rear wing from someone's door.

I too the Saab to a bodyshop the other day and he quoted me £165 to sort just the door out, now there's the front wing as well. I'm seriously thinking that I may have to go out and buy a beaten up old mondy with a cracked rear bumper just so I can park up at work safe in the knowledge that nobody can make it any worse than it already is.

Honestly, the lack of care and consideration for other people's property here makes me livid :mad::mad:
 
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