Soon to be new owner ?: Experiences with leaving car unattended

[fasteddie7]

Hi Everyone! I live in a happy little community but I have a little concern with places I travel. I spend a lot of time in parking lots of malls and big cities. Are there any best practices for leaving the car unattended for hours at a time in parking lots or am I over thinking it and not giving people enough credit? My current vehicle has a couple dings and scrapes and no one has ever left a note or tried to take responsibility. Thanks!!!!

 

[Rockster]

After two Teslas in three years, I still park as far away as is reasonably possible in the hope of avoiding dings and other damage.

I'm sure I'll come out to a ding one day, but it's the best I can do.

 

[msnow]

Same here. I'll walk a long long way to find a safe parking spot.

 

[jelloslug]

You can always have some or all of your car wrapped in paint protection film to fight the scrapes and chips. It won't stop a dent though.

 

[PtG62901]

Xpel wrapper, park at the end of the row, with 2 wheels on the line. Some people like to damage new cars, because they are jerks. If it makes you feel better, you can put in a dash cam, so you know who to send Rocko after. lol

 

[Maximus8]

Full (or at least the areas you don't want dinged) wrap of PPF. I would not "double park" because this will just encourage some jerk to really do something to your car. Double parking will attract more attention to your car.

 

[brantse]

I installed a dash cam. Whether or not it will really help in the event of some sort of minor vandalism/accident, is doubtful, but it provides a little piece of mind. It annoys my wife and we fight about it all the time (she usually wins), but I often try to park out far enough in parking lots to avoid door dings. Unfortunately, in certain parking lots that sometimes puts you front and center, which could invite other kinds of concerns.

 

[jelloslug]

Full (or at least the areas you don't want dinged) wrap of PPF. I would not "double park" because this will just encourage some jerk to really do something to your car. Double parking will attract more attention to your car.

I like to find end spots with extra space. At most place I frequent I have found secluded spots that are rarely used that have good "protection" on most sides. My favorite is at a local mall that is at an end, has concrete supports for the parking deck on the front and one side with extra space and only has one other spot next to it that has an equally large amount of extra space on the other side. Even better is that an employee likes to park the other spot and they have a tiny CRZ that they park all the way toward the opposite side of the line.

 

[Rockster]

Depending upon the type of establishment, the more remote spots are often used by employees. The advantage there is that employees don't come and go as frequently as patrons do and it's more likely you'll be there and gone before any adjacent cars are moved.

 

[TampaRich]

A Blackvue dr650gw-2ch dashcam gives me peace of mind, along with selective parking. Corner spots are great in parking garages.

 

[WannabeOwner]

I liked a post I read here some time back, when Summon was introduced ... it suggested that all Tesla drivers would park at the end of the parking lot with a one-inch gap so noone else could get in / out, as all the drivers would be able to retrieve that cars using Summon

 

[javawolfpack]

I personally even before I picked up my Tesla would park far away and walk, but mostly as many of the farther from the store locations are shaded. My only concern is parking for work as waiting for a reserved EV spot to be available... but in the meantime will opt for free street parking. But the free parking is less likely to result in dings/damage than the other paid spots on campus. I parked one of my old cars in the paid general parking and came back to a number of dings in my car in only a few hours. After that never parked in those lots again... would park in the free & walk farther as protected my car better + why pay when you can get for free.

I will say I'm considering a dash cam for parking monitoring and for peace of mind.

 

[Doug_G]

It's a car... drive it and enjoy it.

 

[msnow]

It's a car... drive it and enjoy it.

True but my house is just a house but I have pride of ownership and keeping it looking nice is part of the enjoyment. Same philosophy with my cars, sports equipment and me!

 

[Darryl]

I have had my Model X P90D since early February and as with any new car I am sure the "newness" will eventually wear off but for now I try to avoid parking close to other cars. The other day while I was at the grocery store a person let their grocery cart get away and I was lucky enough to get to it before it hit. I said something to the lady but she was oblivious to what had happened.

I have had Xpel put on the front end of the car but didn't want to go to the expense of doing the side panels.

I find the auto park to be useless as I would never park that close to another car.

 

[Max*]

It's the internet forum effect.

Before joining TMC I parked my cars wherever/whenever. Then I joined, got a Tesla, started worrying about rock chips, considered xpel/opticoat (though I've never heard of them before TMC), started worrying about curbing my wheels, started worrying about parking far away because what if I get a door ding! The horror :gasp:

Then I came back to reality. While it's great that there are people out there that worry about these things, and hand wash their cars, it's not for me. A car is a tool for me, I like to drive it, but I'm not going to hand wash it, I'm not going to spend tons of money on xpel/etc.,

I'm not going to park a mile away from people. If there's two parking spaces, about the same distance from the store, and one has no cars, I'll take it. If I need to walk a lot more, nah, not a huge deal.

 

[jelloslug]

It's the internet forum effect.

Before joining TMC I parked my cars wherever/whenever. Then I joined, got a Tesla, started worrying about rock chips, considered xpel/opticoat (though I've never heard of them before TMC), started worrying about curbing my wheels, started worrying about parking far away because what if I get a door ding! The horror :gasp:

Then I came back to reality. While it's great that there are people out there that worry about these things, and hand wash their cars, it's not for me. A car is a tool for me, I like to drive it, but I'm not going to hand wash it, I'm not going to spend tons of money on xpel/etc.,

I'm not going to park a mile away from people. If there's two parking spaces, about the same distance from the store, and one has no cars, I'll take it. If I need to walk a lot more, nah, not a huge deal.

Nothing wrong with that.

 

[jzhan]

It's the internet forum effect.

Before joining TMC I parked my cars wherever/whenever. Then I joined, got a Tesla, started worrying about rock chips, considered xpel/opticoat (though I've never heard of them before TMC), started worrying about curbing my wheels, started worrying about parking far away because what if I get a door ding! The horror :gasp:

Then I came back to reality. While it's great that there are people out there that worry about these things, and hand wash their cars, it's not for me. A car is a tool for me, I like to drive it, but I'm not going to hand wash it, I'm not going to spend tons of money on xpel/etc.,

I'm not going to park a mile away from people. If there's two parking spaces, about the same distance from the store, and one has no cars, I'll take it. If I need to walk a lot more, nah, not a huge deal.

My exact experience. I had Merc S350 before getting the MS and never worried about any of these things. After getting Model S, I started to worry, but then realized I really shouldn't care all that much.
At the end, I only installed Blackvue DR650S-2CH for liability reasons. As for hand wash, my office building has a convenient complementary full hand wash service for mere $20 tip included. Why not.

 

[JMG]

While I somewhat agree with those "It's a car" "Just drive it" etc....it's not just a car to most. It's 2-4 times more than we've ever spent before on a vehicle. One of the major factors that I bought it is because of how it looks. If I just didn't care and let it get beat up, it would drive me crazy.

Not only that, but getting those types of things fixed in a Tesla is about thousand times more of a hassle than a regular ICE. In my old Tahoe, if someone scrapped or backed into my car...I could take it to the nearby body shop and have them fix it, no big deal. It would take probably 1-2 days and $500. When someone backed into my Tesla (with all of 100 miles on it), it was out of commission for 5 weeks and over $1,000 in rental car fees because of the hassle of Tesla certified body shops, waiting on replacement parts, etc.

So I see both sides of the argument. I'll say this, before my Tesla...I parked wherever I could find a space. My Tahoe had a few dings and door dents. When I got my Tesla, I'm the guy that gets WAY too excited when I see an isolated parking spot that is protected on both sides.

 

[FloridaGary]

I am very selective and practice what others have said in this forum. Park far away and trust that your fellow american is lazy enough to not park near you. If they do, it's because they have the same concern for their car as you do. Last car was an Infiniti G35 that I owned for 12 years. Not one ding anywhere, only a few stone chips on the front end.

Congrats on your new Tesla!