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Driving vs. protecting - keeping your sanity

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As we all know an EV vehicle begs/demands to be a car that is driven - frequently. Particularly in the city.

The current car that we drive everywhere is a relatively new Avalon Limited, and it's a very fast car, while getting up to 32mpg on the highway and 26 in the city... yet this car is getting beat up in the parking lots - attracting door dings and dimples galore, even someone spraying oven cleaner on the passenger door (causes the paint to blister). The car is pearl white (it's covered under insurance), but they have to paint the entire side to get it to match. That's the cost of pearl white by the way, gorgeous to look at, but a nightmare to touch up.

What I'm worried about, is that the Model S (or X or Roadster) would be magnets for vandalism... getting keyed, bumped, banged, sprayed, etc, but not necessarily by accident. That's one of the reasons I don't spend too much on cars, and my wife hates to try and keep the vehicle clean from the kids, or worrying about driving the wheels in to the curb etc. "It's just a car!" she states. Nice cars are more than just tools in my mind.

And the S is a juxtaposition of extremes on so many fronts. It begs to be taken care of, respected, like a high-end collector's investment, yet for good battery health, it should be driven most days. It begs to be a highway cruiser, yet it yields more savings in town (from the grocery store and back). It begs to be "my" car (because I'll keep it immaculate and keep track of battery management), but my wife wants a car that can carry 7 people (think muddy kid's soccer team).

Do you hire a bodyguard for the car when you go shopping?
How do you do all the above and keep your sanity?
 
I sold my gas car, and now I drive a Roadster everywhere. I park it anywhere I would have parked my old economy car. 3 years and no issues...no dents, scratches, notes, garbage, nothing.

I think the Model S will attract far less attention than the Roadster.
 
I sold my gas car, and now I drive a Roadster everywhere. I park it anywhere I would have parked my old economy car. 3 years and no issues...no dents, scratches, notes, garbage, nothing.

I think the Model S will attract far less attention than the Roadster.

I agree, but the Roadster is not nearly as wide as the Model S. It's the width that's the problem.
 
Yeah the roadster is small, and it's also very low. When an average person walks by it for instance, their elbows and and bags they would be carrying are usually above the car, or at least, above the door/window line. There's not much opportunity for scratching that way.


Anyways, yeah, I've really been worried about this. I have tried my best to keep my current car (which is not fancy) blemish free, but of course, it has scratches here and there from who knows what. Some of them are vertical scratches and so I don't even understand what could have caused them. The only dent I ever got was a door ding, which I was able to repair for about $100. It really irks me though. That someone can just randomly dent your car, costing you money.

At work, I always hunt for end spaces where I can park over a line and give my car a buffer. Also, be cognizant of areas where someone might try to walk between a wall and your car. Either park so close to the wall that it's impossible to walk there, or give them plenty of room so they're not going to be rubbing against your car.
 
I think parking strategies where you park at an angle taking up two spots, park on a line...etc actually attract more attention to your car and could lead to someone doing something to your car to teach you a lesson. I'd say park in a regular spot and enjoy the car. Something will invariably happen to it but that's just part of going out into the wild. Only way to keep the car safe is to never drive it.
 
I had paint blister due to someone carelessly tossing their coke out the window. Doesn't seem likely it would be oven cleaner when coke is so ubiquitous.

Oven cleaner was suggested by the body shop guy when he was reviewing the damage ($1200 to repaint that side). I thought it must have been acid of some kind. But it's definitely in a confined horizontal spray about 18" long. :(
 
What I'm worried about, is that the Model S (or X or Roadster) would be magnets for vandalism... getting keyed, bumped, banged, sprayed, etc, but not necessarily by accident. That's one of the reasons I don't spend too much on cars, and my wife hates to try and keep the vehicle clean from the kids, or worrying about driving the wheels in to the curb etc. "It's just a car!" she states. Nice cars are more than just tools in my mind.

It's impossible to keep a car in perfect shape. New cars show stuff more, so it seems like they get dinged more, but I feel it's misleading. And unless you're there, you really can't know if it's by accident, so why presume the worst? Life's too short. I want to keep my Model S in pristine condition, but the roads alone (in my area) will prevent that. I'm more afraid of that than an odd ding...but yeah, you might find me copying my other half and parking a few spots away from people, at first, if there's plenty of space wherever I'm parking. ;-) No one knows how to drive or park, for some reason; but IMHO it's incompetence, not maliciousness.

Though I am reminded of Fried Green Tomatoes: "Face it girls, I'm older and have more insurance." ;-)
 
I think parking strategies where you park at an angle taking up two spots, park on a line...etc actually attract more attention to your car and could lead to someone doing something to your car to teach you a lesson. I'd say park in a regular spot and enjoy the car. Something will invariably happen to it but that's just part of going out into the wild. Only way to keep the car safe is to never drive it.

Dear god yes, please. I hate hate hate that...so tempting to park up close to someone who does that, although I never would (why go looking for trouble). Also as a parking lot fills up, protecting one's special snowflake just screws innocent people who do know how to park, are looking for a spot, but can't fit because you're taking up two. Or worse yet, wind up parking too close because everyone's parking around you and there's just...enough...space! Gah. Never do this, folks. Park farther away or leave a few spots free on either side, but just park properly.

Though I know, many people don't seem to know how to park. And some drive junk heaps, so they can't all be purposely flouting the parking rules/laws to protect fancy cars. ;-) But who knows, eh?
 
Why the hate for parking in the last spot of a strip of spaces? It's not cheating anyone out of any space, it's just reducing cars next to you from 2 to 1, and if you park over towards the edge of your space you have lots of distance between you and the other car.

I believe he was referring to my post about people parking over a line taking up two spaces in an attempt to give themselves a few feet of protection on each side. If there is a spot at the end, that's exactly what I do.
 
Yeah I never park in such a way as to take two spaces. That's not what I was saying.

What I was talking about, is in my parking garage at work, many of the end spaces have have a a buffer where you can park over the line without harming anyone, without reducing pedestrian space, without reducing another parking space, without reducing a driveway or road space. In fact, parking like this helps everyone because then the next guy can also park over the line some and so on.

Yeah, in another particularly bad parking lot I used to have to park at every day, I always found expensive cars to park next to, and I'd park pretty close to them. In fact, many times, I would end up parking between two of them with my not expensive car! But I love my car, trust me, I'm sure that I am way more careful than those drivers were. They should be thankful that someone like me parked next to them. I'm sure I saved their car from much worse parkers and, er... car-egress-ers.