Quick advice, hit and run on parked car

[swee'pea99]

Mainly scraping on the front bumper so about 4-5 inches square patch of scraping round the foglights

Personally, if I had damage like that, easily repairable, I'd just fume a bit, be relieved it wasn't any worse, repair it and get on with my life. The very last thing I'd do is contact my insurers - they'd log it as 'an incident', and bump up your premiums. Unfair, but that's the way it works.

 

[Globalti]

Modern water-based paint is usually covered with a water-based lacquer, which is very soft and powders white when scratched. Often a scratch can be polished out and will disappear with little effort so have a look to see if the scratches have gone though the lacquer or not. If not, a spot of elbow grease and some mildly abrasive car polish will sort it.

Even a home dent repair service will sort it without the need to tell your insurer and bump up that premium.

 

[Brandane]

I used to be quite precious about my cars, back in the day when I ran about in Cavalier SRi's, Golf GTi's and the like. These days I have a 9 year old Toyota Corolla, and I find it saves me a lot of stress as I can park it without getting too worried about it getting another scrape/ding from a careless door opener. Fortunately, Toyota painted their black cars in an exact match for Hammerite smooth black . As long as it is mechanically sound, I am happy. I am probably more precious about the aesthetics of my bikes, and especially the motorbike (but I've only had it two weeks, so the novelty has yet to wear off).

 

[Milkfloat]

For me I would simply contact a few of my local garages and ask who does their smart repairs, then contact one of them to get the damage repaired. Anything else would involve your insurance company at some point which will cost you more than the repair. The police will do nothing even with CCTV.

It is a crap situation, but unfortunately it is all too easy to get away with doing such damage.

 

[Lonestar]

Amazing isn't it how precious we are about our cars? In France when parking on flat ground (most notably in Paris) you leave your handbrake off because you can be certain that somebody will come along and nudge your car with their bumper so as to create space. Consequently every Parisian car has damaged bumpers - which is what bumpers are for, isn't it?

Im not precious about my car mate,it's still in the showrooom.

 

[I like Skol]

My wife keeps pushing for a newer car but I am steadfastly resisting, for many of the reasons mentioned upthread. At 10 yrs old it is now past the point of having cosmetic repairs done as this would just be a waste of money. I was fuming when some A'hole caved in the drivers door in the supermarket carpark a year or so ago (I have no doubt they knew what they had done!) and drove off but this now seems to be the way of the world so having a newer, nicer car just isn't worth the hassle and stress even if I did want to spend my cash in that way.

Getting back to the OP, unless the car is very new (less than 3-4yrs old) then it is probably best just to suck it up and move on without contacting your insurance. You never know your luck, somebody may actually hit your car there when you are in it and you can get it repaired on their insurance but if not, having a car that is already mildly damaged makes it much less emotionally traumatic when it happens again

 

[Brandane]

I was fuming when some A'hole caved in the drivers door in the supermarket carpark a year or so ago

I saw someone doing exactly that about a year ago in a Tesco car park. Tried to drive into a space at an angle, got it wrong, and scraped along the door of the car beside him, leaving it quite badly damaged. The old git knew exactly what he had done, and reversed away before parking in another space some distance away.
I continued to watch as he left his car and walked towards the shop as if nothing had happened. I walked up to him and told him what I had seen, but of course he denied it. When I showed him the damage, he said he would go to Tesco security and report it. I decided to accompany him, just to assist his fading memory, of course. Security tannoyed for the owner of the damaged car in the car park, and details were exchanged. Otherwise some poor car owner was going to be faced with an insurance claim through no fault of their own. People who do that really boil my pish.

 

[Dan B]

So Globalti, if your bike was worth £20k, and you'd parked it somewhere and somebody came along, parked their bike next to yours and in doing so scratched all the paintwork on yours, I take it that you'd be entirely phlegmatic about that? After all, the paintwork of your bike doesn't perform a function, does it?

If I had a bike worth £20k I hope I'd take better care of it than to leave it lying around in a public place where somebody was likely to scratch it. Ditto a painting, a musical instrument, a computer...

If somebody had maliciously damaged it, that's another matter, but complaining about car park scrapes is a bit like carpeting your hallway in silk then complaining when the meter reader tracks mud in

 

[Drago]

My meters are outside, so I think I'd be quite justified in complaining if my meter reader did that.

 

[GrumpyGregry]

If I had a bike worth £20k I hope I'd take better care of it than to leave it lying around in a public place where somebody was likely to scratch it. Ditto a painting, a musical instrument, a computer...

If somebody had maliciously damaged it, that's another matter, but complaining about car park scrapes is a bit like carpeting your hallway in silk then complaining when the meter reader tracks mud in

Leave a wardrobe in the road, next to the kerb, or a washing machine, or perhaps a stereogram. Or a double bass. See how long it remains undamaged.

Why folk think that they are entitled to leave their property cluttering up the shared space in our towns with impunity, just because it has wheels and an internal combustion engine, is beyond me.

 

[screenman]

Modern water-based paint is usually covered with a water-based lacquer, which is very soft and powders white when scratched. Often a scratch can be polished out and will disappear with little effort so have a look to see if the scratches have gone though the lacquer or not. If not, a spot of elbow grease and some mildly abrasive car polish will sort it.

Even a home dent repair service will sort it without the need to tell your insurer and bump up that premium.

Laquers nowadays are twin pack solvents, not water based. The base coat is water bourne.

Twin pack lawyers are actually very hard and will need a machine polished to have any real effect, they are though also very thin so it is easy to go through to the base coat.

A home dent repair service like mine does not do paintwork, a mobile smart repair guy will.

 

[Drago]

Leave a wardrobe in the road, next to the kerb, or a washing machine, or perhaps a stereogram.

The locals have a name for that. They cal it pikea. Fortunately, not really being a local I can cluck disdainfully at such name calling.