Someone "decorated" my driver-side door!
 

So, at 3:30 AM on Friday I got to my girlfriend's apartment complex and parked in the back next to the leasing office as opposed to out on the street. I even purposely parked next to a new Genesis Coupe thinking that side of my car would be protected from dents.

At 6:00 PM on Friday we go out to my car so we can go somewhere to see the fireworks and to my horror I find that someone has really gone at it on my driver-side door.

I am so shocked. I have no enemies in that complex let alone anywhere else...so the only thing that came to mind was that my exhaust pissed someone off. But when I went door to door to ask if anyone had seen anything everyone said they didn't even hear me come in.

Anyways, my deductible is $500, but the money isn't my concern, my concern is not having the peace of mind of being able to park somewhere without having my car carved up. The complex is in the middle of Irvine, not East LA or Inglewood! My other concern is that once repaired, the door panel will be a different tone or shade than the rest of the car. Would it be effective to look through salvage parts sites for a whole new door?

Any ideas or tips on how to handle this would be really appreciated.

First off...You don't need to stereotype that Inglewood and east LA are automatically bad.


Secondly, what a typical body shop will do is paint the entire side of the car. All you need to do is file a police report and then a claim.

Invest in a security system with a video camera and mic. Regardless of where you go, you'll always have that one person that will hate you for no reason.

I didn't mean to imply that Inglewood or East LA are automatically bad. I did a project in Inglewood for a month and on two separate occasions I found gang logos etched into the paint of my Pathfinder but never got them fixed. Sorry, didn't mean to stereotype.

Irvine isn't the best for this kind of stuff. There are a lot of racers and ricers and whatnot here. Not to mention after going to UCI for one year I racked up 5 small dings on my doors. In LA or Compton you'd probably expect your windows to be broken in and things stolen but in Irvine I'd say this isn't too far fetched unfortunately.

As for the car I am sorry to hear. I really doubt getting a new door is a viable option but I am sure there body shops that can fix it and paint match. One place I recommend near spectrum is OC Bumper and Body. I went there with my brother's G35 a few times for some small damages and they did a fantastic job (not Westminster cheap but it's worth it if you care).

sucks, man... somebody was either jealous, drunk, or both

I looked them up and they look pretty good. It's on my way to work so I'll probably go by tomorrow to get an estimate.

It pisses me off seeing it everytime I get into the car. :mad0260:

That totally sucks..sorry to see some low life PoS do that to your car..
A good body shop can match it right and make it look new again..
Good luck..

Damn blows

holy shit they went to town on your door. damn sorry to hear/see :(

and having a good body shop repaint and match would probably be a better option than finding a used door.

I'm sorry to hear of your misfortune. I would have acted if I'd witnessed such an act. Unless you're a complete waste of flesh, your car is my car and should be valued as such.

Sorry for what happened to you brother. Just be humble and think about the good things in life.

It appears they had tremors.

Unbelievable - my SO is always going off on me about needing to calm down, or be less paranoid about my car when I park it somewhere because "people really don't do that sort of thing" (regarding getting keyed or vandalized; I have about a 3" long cut on my roof that crosses the ridge lines, and definitely needed firm/consistent pressure to keep an even cut along the ridge, so I feel it was vandalized and not some bizarre anomaly of rock chip damage or similar).

I'm so sorry for your car man and the distress this has caused you, that is so f'ing messed up. Is there a chance that the leasing office you parked near would have a security camera?

Maybe you can find out who owns the Gen Coupe and ask if they had any damage done to their car - or perhaps they would have had a dash cam that might have caught something if it happened during the hours that you were parked next to each other?

Best of luck getting your door fixed up and hopefully seeing justice done to the sociopath that did this.