:-(

I knew it would be something. A rock to the windshield. A kicked up tire chunk from a semi. Something would happen.

Inevitable, my prophecy was self-fulfilling. I was in my neighborhood (I guess bad things DO often happen close to home) and took a spirited tight turn onto my street. Unfortunately, the curve was not even, and I was tight to the curb.

I hit my right rear rim on the curb...

I heard a crunch/grind, and began screaming obscenities.

When I got home, I calmly walked over and looked, and my stupidly over-priced stock rim had a ground-off section about 6 inches long around it's edge. Luckily, it's extremely easy to overlook as the ground-into material is the exact same color as the painted rim....but still.

<sniffle>

So stupid...

 

i scratched my wheel the other day also, and it was my first boo-boo. unfortunately i not only got the rim, but also one of the spokes so im going to have to get it fixed

 

Ok, this is not an rx8 story but I will never forget this. A couple of years ago I traded my MR2 for a Tacoma 4X (stupid, I know) The second or third day I had it, I was at a gas station. Normally I would see the steal post guarding the pumps in the MR2 and would always be very careful when opening the door. The Tacoma was much higher so the post was not visible unless you looked down. I’ll never forget the sound it made opening the door full force into the post.

 

I just scratched up my right front rim Friday. I was pulling into a parking lot that had a cop checking for parking passes at the entrance. Between his car and him standing next to it, he was blocking about 1/3 of the entrance lane and as I maneuvered to avoid him I heard a loud scrape as rim met curb. *sigh*

 

about those posts at the gas station, i saw another car pull up too far past the gas pump, proceed to open his driver's side door, and looking rear-wards move the car backwards. you can guess what happened. door caught post. driver heard noise. proceeded to let foot off gas, thus propelling car backward, door ended up on hood. i watched this owner go into the storefornt and proceed to yell at the owner/attendant how it was the gas stations fault. funny. (i find idioticy funny i guess)

 

Llathos,

For $125, you can have the wheels completely refinished and clear coated at your local hub cab/wheel reseller. At least that's what I paid to fix all the corrosion (and it was bad) on my truck's wheels. After 7 Ohio winters, it was so bad that I'd lose air down to 14lbs in a week. The refinished wheels are better looking and better protected with clear coat than my originals from Toyota.

$125 isn't so bad although you may have to pay more to have the tires remounted and balanced.

I rarely drive my RX-8 and I already have probably $300 of door dings and scrapes. None of the dings were my fault too.

 

anybody know how much a new wheel is from mazda?

 

One scratched wheel and my wife's rings have also scratched the trunk lid and right door. I guess all of the my fault.....

 

I had mine for less than 3 weeks. Now it's been in the shop for body repairs for 4. argh. I got hit by an unlicensed, uninsured pickup truck driver. His fault, completely.
Funny though, this is the second brand new, less than a month old vehicle I had that was hit. The other 3 new vehicles I purchased all had flat tires within a month. So, at least I am starting to expect it. Have to say after 2 CRXs one Vtec Prelude and a couple of SUVs this is the BEST car I have ever driven.

 

i purposefully stayed off of the highways when driving to work to avoid stone chips until my nose mask was delivered. it took me forever to get to and from work on the back roads. one of them goes directly under the highway I normally would drive. when going under the underpass, a rock was kicked off of the highway onto the roof of my 8.

moral??? you may avoid some chips some of the time, but not all chips all of the time.

 

I also scuffed my rim pulling into a parking spot. Luckily I was goign very slow and stopped as soon as I heard the grind, so the damage is very minimal and not really noticable. Still kinda sucks though

 

Something for everyone. I've been rear-ended; I've driven over a curb; run over a piece of wood the size of a fire-log and I've found a small scraped section on the edge of the left rear tire. Oh and did I mention the tire with the nail in the side-wall that had to be replaced?

Before you figure I'm treating my car like a beater, I can assure you I'm not. I park half a football field away from ANYWHERE, every time I park my car. I have no door-dings or rock-chips. But oddly enough, my parking habits and lack of concentration explain the curb thing. I parked WAY out in the parking lot at a local grocer. Went inside - did my thing - put my stuff in the trunk - got in the car. The thought of curbs in the parking lot was on my mind, I looked the whole lot over and there were none. I went forward -- slam/bam/damn. I had parked in front of a curbed-off triangle that once protected a tree or something. Just small enough to miss visually and plenty large enough to screw up on. I can't find any broken front bumper supports or any visible gashes. But given that I wash the car weekly and baby it in every other way, it pisses me off royally that I did that.

The fire-log thing came rolling off a trailer just as I changed lanes and there was nothing to do but hit it or the car next to me, so I chose the log. Once again, nothing visible.

Oh, there there was the hail-storm. I'm serious here. Five months and all this stuff. I was going to the in-laws and you could see some weather ahead. Got to a point of no return and good golly, the bottom dropped out. Hail started and persisted for a full five minutes. It was dark by that time and I could only hope the hail was smaller than it sounded. Thankfully it was. No dents.

Fire and flood are about all that's left. I'll keep you guys posted.....

 

Well I intend not to drive my car on the highway till I get the clear bra put on, the oil cooler grill installed and 3 coats of Zaino. :D i don't care if it takes me a week but I'll continue driving my Camry till I feel safe to drive it, if theres any like that.

 

Curb Check!! :D Mine are still ding free.

 

Sux man... happened to my G35 last year... messed up both front and rear rims on the passenger side when I was parking it close to the curb.

I've been extremely careful with my 8 so far, but accidents do happen. I'm sure Mazda charges an arm and a leg for new stock rims...

J

 

No damage to mine yet. About 2 weeks ago I was cruising down interstate behind an 18 wheeler and apparently a wooden pallatte fell off of a truck in front of it and it was crushed by the truck in front of me. It was a scare. But I managed to basically slalom the big pieces and didn't take any damage from the smaller ones.

My work buddies still laugh at me for parking so far out.

 

I owned a Mustang for 3 years and during that entire time I "parked on Venus" but it paid off. Not one scratch other than 2 small flying rock chips near her nose. No door dings or scratches. Let them laugh. It's worth it...

 

I was picking up my girlfriend, and she went to get into the passenger side. Not realizing what she was doing, she reached for the door handle with her keys still in her hand. The sound of a loved one keying your new car is not easily forgotten...

 

A friend of mine told me after I bought the car that I should just go out to the garage and whack it with a hammer so I can get over the horrible anticipation of that first ding. I passed on his suggestion, but after three months of avoiding disaster, a couple of weeks ago I scraped my left front wheel on a curb and wound up with an ugly five or six-inch scuffed spot. I was heartsick about it for a couple of days, but the sinking feeling passed pretty quickly and now I feel as though I've passed an important milestone - I've been dreading the first ding, and now that it's happened and the car is no longer pristine, I can relax a little. I still park on Venus (great line), I'm still careful, but I'm not quite so obsessive anymore. In fact, I looked for the scuff yesterday and was surprised to discover that I had some trouble seeing it. (I'm in recovery!)

I'll get around to sanding and filling and painting at some point, but I can live with it for awhile.

 

I was driving to work the other day going up this big bridge on I-64 and saw all the cars in front of me scattering...lo and behold here comes this 55-gallon drum slowly rolling down the bridge incline directly at me. Cars to the right of me, concrete to the left and me going so slowly (luckily).

Stopped, jumped out real fast and caught the darned thing as it zero'd in on my front end. Luckily it was empty and thus I was able to tip it upright and move it off to the side of the bridge.

Traffic, needless to say, came to a stop. Everyone wanting to see if I got smooshed by either a car or the barrel.

Once we all got going again, just over the crest of the bridge I spotted the pick-up truck that had dropped the barrel and the guy walking back to retrieve it. I should have dropped it over the side of the bridge when I had the chance...

 

Holy Hero Katchoo!!

 

My first was when the garage door spring snapped and fell onto my right rear fender. We have a double garage, two single doors. It was a spring off the other door that broke, swung over and dent, rub and scratch.

 

When I had my Eclipse convertible, I once had the car in front of me kick up a 2' square piece of plywood that slid up my hood and bounced off the windshield and over the top as I quickly moved my head out of the way. Left a nice long feathered scratch on the hood and a nick in the windshield where it hit. Oh well, better that car than this one.

 

I've had my baby a total of FOUR DAYS. Just a couple hours ago I managed to scrape the hell out of my right front wheel pulling into a parking space. I'm still cussing. @#$&!!!!!!!!

 

Had my car since August, just curbed my left rear wheel a couple of days ago. Picked up some sunlight silver touch up paint this afternoon. Put a round disc thing on my drill, smoothed out the rim, and applied two coats of the paint. I think its going to be OK when finished. As an aside, the SS touch up paint is totally different than the Velocity Red paint. The VR paint stays liquid (in the little paper cups I use, the VR melts plastic) a lot longer than the SS. The SS will thicken within minutes. Will post pics when done.