Help! Stupid accidental bonnet damage - expensive repair? What to do?

maninthestreet

Jesthar wrote: »

Oooh, meow! Mine's a great little car! And definitely worth more than a respray, too.

Well, I *say* a sensor, in reality I'm not sure exactly what it is, but there seems to be one at the front of every space along the centre wall in this particular car park, hanging about a foot above standard bumper height. Unfortunately I wasn't thinking straight enough to take a photo when I did it, too annoyed with myself... Might do next time I go there. Reading Station multi storey, in case anyone is remotely interested.

They're a sort of round metal case, about 2/3 inches across and maybe 1/2 inch thick, fixed to the end of a metal strut coming down from the next half floor up. Not sure if there's something similar for the mid floor/edge spaces, never thought to look before! I will be next time... There's definitely one for each centre wall space, though, so that's at least 20 bays per floor with one.

cyclonebri1, all I did was drive an inch too far forwards (Daft, huh? Especially when I've parker there dozens of times in the past... ), and the hanging thing gently scraped and dented it's way an inch into my bonnet. Could have gone several inches more before hitting the actual wall! I'm sure the car-park owners argument would be 'well, you shouldn't have gone so far forwards, then should you?', though.

Anyway, have had a somewhat calmer look at the damage now, and I'm hoping it's not as bad as it first seemed - certainly the dent doesn't seem as big as I thought, and if I'm lucky the scrape hasn't gone completely through the primer underneath. A good mechanic I know and trust is going to be having a look whilst I'm on holiday next week, see what can be done.

Never seen those in Reading station car park,. Are there any warnings?

Jesthar

maninthestreet wrote: »

Never seen those in Reading station car park,. Are there any warnings?

Not that I've seen. Then again, 'Don't drive into the fixtures and fittings, muppet' isn't something even APCOA usually feel the need to spell out...

I usually park along the inside middle wall of a floor as opposed to round the middle/edges, so it may be thse things are only located there. I'll be having a good look next time, that's for sure!

cyclonebri1

:rotfl::rotfl::rotfl:No offence, just thought you'd driven into the barrier arm thing. Give me the heebejeebies those.