Hit and Run

[qwerty]

Hubby and I discovered damage to the paint on our 4 month old car yesterday. At first, we tried to figure our when one of us could have caused it. We had someone look at it to see what it will take to repaint.

The person who looked at the car advised us that we could not have caused the damage while driving. He pointed out that there is a clear impact mark on the front drivers side right in front of the wheel well and that the damage wraps around to the front bumper. He advised us that it would take precision driving in reverse to cause the damage and ONLY damage the paint.

He then offered his opinion...the damage wasn't caused by a car but something like a shopping cart. His reasoning was that a car is heavy enough to cause more damage even at a low speed and he would expect to see dents etc. It would be very difficult to lightly scrape the paint while driving around the car.

How?? How does one hit a car with a cart, not notice, and continue to walk around the car all the while scraping paint? Or, iss there something else that could have caused this?

[PepperElf]

It's because some people are too fucking lazy to put the carts back when they're done with them.

Then the wind picks up and these carts get blown into cars.

[BroSCFischer]

How?? How does one hit a car with a cart, not care, and continue to walk around the car all the while scraping paint? Or, iss there something else that could have caused this?

Edited for accuracy. I think this is more likely what happened.

ETA:

It's because some people are too fucking lazy to put the carts back when they're done with them.

Then the wind picks up and these carts get blown into cars.

From the OP it sounds like the scrape continued around the car, so I don't think it was "unmanned," so to speak.

SC

[qwerty]

Correct! The scrape goes around the curve in the front bumper. A 90 degree turn would be required to be made to maintain contact with the car.

[Zellie Crescent]

Someone was being an asshole and intentionally scratched up your car, from the damage mentioned that's the only explanation I could think of.

[LillFilly]

I'm sorry about your car. I'll bet someone was trying to squeeze their cart in between to get to where they parked. Maybe you can remember where you were that had carts and ask for camera footage? Some of the systems have VERY clear pictures. If you could catch the person scraping the car, you could follow the video back into the store and even the register for that time and, if they checked-out by check or credit, you have a name At the very least, report it to the police for vandalism.

[PepperElf]

The problem is... the store *might* let you view the tape, but most likely won't. As for pulling register data to give you the customer's name... that's not going to happen.

Financial data privacy etc.

[RealUnimportant]

I'm waiting a callback from the guys who do the trash collections at work, as one of their trained monkeys decided that pushing their dumpster into and along my bumper made more sense than pulling it along & guiding it past... I should be thankful he only hit it in one direction I suppose, but the paintmarks he's left clash terribly with the car's finish!

[Zaiida]

Someone did that to my flatmates car. Went shopping for 30 mins, come out and find some asshole had backed into his car *twice* on a really weird angle and left. Unluckily there were no cameras in that part of the lot and he found out that that part of the parking area was not actually part of the supermarket so he had to claim on his insurance for a hit and run and nobody saw it (think it was a tourist).

Still not sure if it was a really repeatedly hard cart hits or an amazing physics bender car to hit it that way. This wasn't a small dent, this was the right front panel/ wheelwell area and the drivers' side door all with deep, significant dents and scraping. How the frack do you not notice if you repeatedly hit a damn car?!?

Mind you, this was 4 weeks after getting his car back after nearly having it totalled after he was rear ended. Ropeable does not cover how mad he was.