Ever damaged your own car?

[J4CKO]

Just had Autoglass replace my windscreen as I stuck a long length of floorboard in, then shut the tailgate which then propelled said timber into the windscreen leaving a nice crack.

I am generally very careful and should have seen that one coming but was wondering what damage you have done to your own cars in a similar manner ?

Cost me my £75 windscreen excess, so not too bad and now have a nice new screen with no stonechips, so not all bad and have to say Autoglass were absolutely spot on, very professional young lad did the work.

[DanL]

I probably shouldn’t admit to it on PH, but I’ve found out that previous cars have been wider or longer than I anticipated, via car park concrete columns and scraping not one but two cars rear bumpers in the past…

[Triumph Man]

I was off-roading a few months ago, fell into a rut that I couldn’t get out of, and had to drag my disco along a gorse bush. It’s a little bit scratched… all along the passenger side…

[Mark-Clio182Trophy]

Closed tailgate only to find the table I was moving was a little larger than I thought. The giveaway was the legs going through the glass

[kambites]

I've scraped the underside of the nose of my Elise on numerous speed bumps and the occasional particularly vicious drive exit if that counts. I doubt there's much GFRP left under there now!

[MitchT]

Closed the bonnet having not replaced the coolant reservoir cap which was sitting on top of the engine. Resulted in a nice little "outward dent" on the bonnet and residue from the hot coolant on the inside of the bonnet as I drove the car for a week before discovering what I'd done!

[Roger Irrelevant]

Barring the writing off of two Novas in spectacular fashion as a teenager, which doesn't count as they were st and so I was doing the world a favour, it's only been low level scratches dings and scrapes for me. Most often as a result of driving into hedges/up verges on the little lanes where I live. Without wanting to open up a can of worms, it's pretty much the main reason why I'm not keen on PCP/lease type arrangements - a bit of minor damage is bound to happen now and again and I don't want to have to worry about it.

[President Merkin]

I once backed my Porsche into a Micra that had parked on the verge outside my drive. also once backed my TT into my mates Boxster parked behind me. I am possibly not the worlds most attentive reversing driver.

[SkodaIan]

Back in the days when you still had to use a key to unlock the doors, I managed to key my own car when it was about 3 weeks old.

I was leaning in to put the key in the lock, and then slipped on some rubbish on the pavement (not a banana skin, otherwise it might have been funny!). As my foot then went off the kerb and I crashed to the ground, the key ran right down the door from the lock to the bottom of the door.

Despite being hardly able to walk afterwards with a twisted ankle, I was far more concerned with what had happened with the car.

Fortunately the car was silver, so I was able to do a decent enough job of hiding the scratch with a bit of polishing, but it still annoyed me when I did catch sight of it years later.

[T6 vanman]

So ... planning to do some light maintenance,

Jacked the left side of the car up and placed one of those 3 legged axle stands under the car on the rear suspension joint,
Jacked the right side of the car up .... the car suddenly 'jerked' to the left and the axle stand twisted and fell over onto it's side, Promptly piercing the fuel tank


Not my finest moment

[What The Deuces]

Drove under a height restrictor with an MTB on a rack on the roof of my mk3 mondeo estate.

Dented the tailgate, scratched the roof rails and wrote off a set of thule aero bars.

Thankfully the bike was fine

[Baldchap]

kambites said:

I've scraped the underside of the nose of my Elise on numerous speed bumps and the occasional particularly vicious drive exit if that counts. I doubt there's much GFRP left under there now!

If you're giving it some on hilly roads my Cup grounds out and scrapes along all the time. It's part of the fun.

[Heathwood]

Quite a few years ago I reversed my car off the drive and was largely unconcerned about the close proximity of a bag of sand.because, well, it’s just sand. For some reason my brain failed to consider the fact that it weighed over a ton and that the material of the bag was very abrasive, so err some damage ensued.

[SteveR1979]

Knocked my motorbike off its stand into my Porsche, twice.

Slipped off a wheel brace and drove my elbow into the top of the wing on my Laguna

Reversed the X5 into a wall

Bent the floor on my MK3 Golf by jacking in the wrong place (Sills weren't great)

Pressed the wrong button on my remote and opened the boot on my 440, bike was on the bike rack and the boot opened into the metal pedal

Sure I have others

[lee_erm]

I once dropped a tandem on the roof of a then brand new fiesta. That hurt.

[Chubbyross]

Ordered a pair of new gas struts for my Boxster’s bonnet. In between work meetings I thought I could replace them both quickly. After all, it looked so easy on YouTube. You need a small screwdriver to prise them off. I tried prising the first one and the screwdriver shot off the strut, gouging a 6-inch scratch all the way down my wing. Right through to the metal. I’d only just spent a fortnight giving the car a full paint correction and ceramic coating.

[Ste372]

My best one was driving the car out of the drive and clipping the wing mirror slightly on the gate post....

So I thought I'd be clever going backwards with the wheels at a slight angle to bring the mirror back past the post without further damage

I then proceeded to scrape the 3 day old freshly painted rear quarter wheel arch down the side of the house.....

I just burst out laughing at that point, It was either that or burst into tears!

[otolith]

kambites said:

I've scraped the underside of the nose of my Elise on numerous speed bumps and the occasional particularly vicious drive exit if that counts. I doubt there's much GFRP left under there now!

I did that within days of buying it, in a car park pothole that was deep enough to ground the chin.

I need to get it fixed again, a suicidal rabbit damaged it a few years ago.

[HustleRussell]

In a stressy house move situation I threw a panel from an old cot into a skip from a distance. It bounced off a child's trampoline which was in the skip and smashed the windscreen of my first car. Could've been worse I suppose, apart from the windscreen there was only a small dent in the roof ahead of the sunroof. I was distraught at the time though. I went for a drive to clear my mind as I used to at the time, but this time it didn't really help as I watched the spider's web of cracks spread across the whole screen.

[plfrench]

Reversed onto the drive and parked a little too close to the garage where the up and over door was already open to hoover the boot out.

All nice and clean, went to shut the garage door and crack - closed it down and the corner of the door went straight through the driver’s side tail light on my E class. Doh. Still better that than into the rear wing or boot lid I guess.