the s2k blog

My buddy parked his s2000 in a restaurant parking lot the other day and the lot was on a bit of incline. He was in a hurry and apparently didn’t leave the car in gear. The parking brake didn’t hold (i’ve noticed that you really need to pull the hell out of it to keep the car in place) and the car rolled back and hit another car. So yeh, make sure that you leave the car in gear when parking on a hill, and give the ebrake a good pull.

I love my car, and like most people fear and loathe dents, even small ones. I usually park way in the back of parking lots so that no one can get close and ding my door. I park in corners where I can get as far away as possible from the door next to me, preferably next to a passenger door which is less likely to be used. I even look at the type of car I park next to. I prefer the medium-high priced cars that are in good shape. People don’t care about crappy cars and the really rich don’t care either. I also try to never park next to 2 door cars as their doors are 1/3 as long as sedans.

All that said, this weekend I got a massive ding, right on the bodyline of my beautiful s2k, having not followed any of my own advice. While on vacation last weekend, I checked into a hotel and parked in the temporary parking spaces, figuring that since I was only going to be away from my car for 5 minutes, parking next to a 2-door, sc430 on the driver side would be ok. Wrong!

Gah! The hit must have been really bad and I figured since the ding was on the bodyline that PDR probably wouldn’t work and I’d have to go with the expensive (quoted $600) route of real bodywork and paint.

I called around and was referred to David Pelikan of SOS Dent out of Los Angeles. He came to my place, spent about 45 minutes working on it with various tools, and for $150 completely took out the dent. I was pretty skeptical that he could get it completely out, but he seemed to know what he was doing. He was really friendly and even explained the process of energy waves as he lightly hammered my door in places no where near the ding. Amazing work, and I definitely recommend him: http://www.sosdent.com/

here’s the pics:

after: