I visited my RX-8 at my dealership today and was a little concerned to see that they'd backed the car up against a dense bit of vegetation. The foliage is kind of rambling climbing twiggy stuff with leaves but no obvious thorns. Each twig is about 5mm in diameter and quite flexible. Their parking area is so packed with cars that they've nowhere else to put mine and there were other RX-8s parked similarly. I made disgruntled noises about the plant but my dealer said 'don't worry about that' and changed the subject.
I'm home now and feeling that perhaps I should have been more positive about the subject and asked them to move it somewhere. I'm concerned that if the wind gets up (forecast) then the moving twigs might scratch my rear paint and/or lights. The car is as it was on the transporter so I presume it has some kind of coating on the paint (is that right?) which should prevent damage but my question is this: do you think small twigs moving on the paint surface are likely to damage it. I presume that the dealership parks cars there all the time and doesn't normally have problems but to be honest it's worrying me and I can't even phone them until tomorrow if I did want to raise the issue as it's 19:38 here now. This is probably nothing but opinions are welcome.

There's nothing you can do about it tonight, so try not to worry. I would guess it's unlikely to cause any damage that a good polish wouldn't sort out, but check the car before accepting it.

Originally posted by mr_digital_uk
There's nothing you can do about it tonight, so try not to worry. I would guess it's unlikely to cause any damage that a good polish wouldn't sort out, but check the car before accepting it.

Wise words, thanks.

Consider yourself lucky. I went to collect my car last night and the dealer told me that a car transporter was recently delivering a consignment of RX8s to him. The driver got lost and ended up going under a railway bridge. You can guess the rest - two cars written off and various other bits of minor damage (windscreens chipped by flying glass etc).

Anyway, modern paintwork is extremely tough. I've scraped against some dense foliage whilst passing oncoming traffic on narrow lanes. Makes an awful noise but never seems to do any damage.

Something more serious I have suffered from is council workers cutting back undergrowth with strimmers and catapulting small stones at supersonic speeds into the side of my car. Extremely annoying. Surpassed only by coming up behind gritter lorries doing 20mph on motorways and facing the decision of either running the gauntlet or holding back. Took a chance last time but wont do it again - ended up with a broken headlamp lens and a cracked fog light.

mazda edinburgh has red one in showroom salesman told me it was a customers car:eek: :eek:
i'll take a chance on the twigs myself

Nothing that a power buffer won't remove easily.

On the other hand, I would demand to have the car buffed if I found any scratches (even superficial light paint scratches.) Beside, I don't own a power buffer.

I hope my car was not on that transporter, does anbody know who's they were?