So this weekend, I got the McGuiar's detailing kit and since it was such a beautiful day out here in sunny California (apologies to those of you in the midwest and east coast) I thought I'd work on my car. I spend all morning and most of the afternoon washing, polishing and waxing the A3 and it looks great.

So later that night, my girlfriend and I go out to a movie at the local AMC and I find a parking spot pretty close the the theater entrance. I think to myself "I'm in luck." but think to myself, maybe I should park farther away so there's no cars around me, but I know I'm going to hear it from my girlfriend and park there anyways, making sure there's plenty of room between the other cars.

Well, 2 hours later, I notice a ding on my rear quarter panel just behind the rear door. Someone idiot was kind enough to swing out their door and leave a nice little dimple on my A3's shiny sheet metal. Needless to say, it sorta put a damper to my night if not my weekend. Here I was all excited my baby was nice and shiny and now I have my first dent.

Lesson learned I guess: Park a mile away from wherever you're going away from any other car.
Thanks for letting me vent.

 

yeah i hear you on that one, i have learned the hard way who not to park next to in my apartment complex's underground garage there is a small ding on my pasenger side door and it to bad but it still bothers me. Anyone know of any cheap fixes for nickle or smaller sized dents?

 

I did some research and found services called Paintless Dent Removal (PDR) where they get inside the metal panel and slowly massage out the dents and dings. From the photos I've seen online, it looks as good as new. I got some estimates and it ranged from $150 to $80 per ding/dent. I think less per ding if its on the same panel since most of the time is used to remove interior to access the inside of the metal.

Most of the companies that do this are mobile so they can come to your office or home and it takes a couple hours. My friend who owns a body shop said its cheaper if you go to them. I'm having mine done today. I'll show you the before and after picture if you're interested.

 

PDR works for most door dings and is relatively inexpensive. I've had it done on previous cars. If you like DIY methods, you can buy this kit called Ding King online that's fairly easy to use and suctions out shallow dents. May not be as effective with Audis though, since they have thicker skin than most.

Only down side to PDR is that drilling is sometimes required. My old Subie ended up with a small hole in the door sill for repair of a fender dent, but they plugged and the hole and painted the plug to match.

I learned with my last car to park far away from people and just deal with walking a little farther. Luckily the only ding on my A3 so far is on the protective side molding on the door.

 

I had PDR done on my 328i and it was perfect, literally. No matter how closely I examined the spot, there was no trace of the damage.

FWIW, I used to live in SoCal and couldn't wait go leave. I live in New Hamster now and can't wait for the ten inches of snow that we have forecast for tonight and tomorrow (I know, I'm sick, but for me, the more snow the better). He-he, it's almost guaranteed that the kids won't have school tomorrow so a-skiing (or boarding as the case may be) we will go.

 

Izzy if you wouldnt mind taking pictures of before and after and also the price you ended up paying so i can compare dents and hopefully be able to guess at the cost. My only worry is that if I get it fixed it will just happen again. I may go the DIY route so if anyone has any more feed back on DIY minor dent repair kits please let me know!

 

I have one of those little dimple dings in my rear door too. its not super obvious but its annoying :-/ people can't just watch where they are opening their doors!!

 

I soooooooooo envy you right now. southeastern resorts are hating life this winter.

 

I felt the same way. And knowing my luck, I'll probably get another one next week. It's a small dimple that you wouldn't notice unless you were looking for it at the right angle but it just bugged the hell out of me. I guess the lesson is to park away from other cars cuz the walk is worth the aggravation.

I looked in the the DIY method and the steel Audi uses looks alot thicker than the standard Toyota or Honda metal. That's probably why the panel didn't cave in that much and remained only a ding. So the thicker metal is probably much harder to pop back out.

I'll post before and after pics tomorrow and let you know how much it cost.

Shipo- Did you get the A3's yet?

 

Nope, Wifey's company (a division of Liz Claiborne) just up and closed, giving everyone seven days notice. We're dealing with the fallout from that right now, and thinking that we may have to scale our plans back and only get one A3 this year (for Wifey) and then wait until next year for the second. That said, I've been hearing rumors of a new and improved 2.0T for the 2009 model year that is both more powerful, far "greener" from an emissions perspective and gets superior fuel economy to boot. Naturally I want one.

Hmmm, seems that I've just talked myself out of 2008.