After spending the last 10 years repairing door dings for people, I have some advice on how to keep your car from getting door dings.  First of all, most dings happen at the place where your car is most often, home and work.  Of course dings can happen anywhere, but your car spends most of it’s time parked at home or work.  We see lot’s of dings on one side or the other from being parked with another car in the garage at home.  Kids are notorious for causing these dings, so the first piece of advice is to train everyone in the family to be careful about getting out of the car.  This is useful at home, but also courteous in any circumstance, so the kids don’t ding other peoples cars!  If you do park two cars in the garage, honestly there is not really enough room in a two car garage to have other stuff on the sides of the garage.  You really need a shed or other storage for household items and yard tools.  It’s very hard to get these things in and out of a garage without risking dings to the car.  At work, and other places that you park regularly, there is one very safe parking secret that I can tell you.  Always try to park on an end space at the top of a hill!  Think about it.  When you open a car door, if you are on a hill it naturally wants to fall downhill.  Since you are a careful person, you will be sure to not let your car door fall down and hit the car below, and the car below’s doors are swinging uphill, not likely to hit your car.  And since there is no one above you on the hill, there are no doors to hit your car from above.  This is a safe spot!  Some of the most abused cars I have ever seen have been cars that are consistently parked in the same spot at work for years, downhill from a car next to it.

My next advice is to park far away from other cars.  But of course, my customers have been telling me for years that they DO park far away, and people just park right next to them anyway.  My advice here is to park as far away from your destination as possible.   Even if it is a long walk, it’s worth it.  Most people will just not park WAY out and walk.  So protect your car, and get a little exercise.

Lastly remember that a lot of door dings are self inflicted.  A very common ding is caused by the protective poles at gas stations.  These stout short poles are intended to protect the gas pumps from cars, yet people are always opening their doors into them.  Always open your door slowly with a firm grip on the handle.  Never just throw your door open.  Slow down!

That’s it; with some training, some care, and some longer walks, you can protect your car from door dings!