If you’re a driver, you know how frustrating car dents can be. They can’t be quite considered as severe damage, and are minor in shape but are still so annoying and impossible to unsee. There are plenty of common causes of car dents at every corner, from the parking lots to natural disasters and roadside factors. Let’s review these causes in detail and all the ways you can fix them.

Car Doors

A very common cause of car dents occurs in the parking lots. The two most common factors that cause car dents are other car doors and grocery carts. Damage by other car doors is yet another good reason why you should choose to park away from other vehicles. Whether it was intentional or not (but it most commonly isn’t), people can often open their doors carelessly and slam them into your car door, causing a dent. Whichever the case, you are better off parking in an empty parking lot far away from other vehicles to prevent damage. If the damage does occur, it’s usually very mild and oftentimes you’ll be able to fix it in no time.

Grocery Carts

As we’ve previously mentioned, two of the most common parking lot woes of cars are car doors and grocery carts. Grocery carts can sometimes be difficult to handle and may end up straying right into your car, causing a nasty dent. In addition to this, the shape of the grocery cart makes it so that it will also most likely scratch your car as well. Grocery carts are the most common cause of minor car dents because more often than not, pedestrians are so careless with them, and don’t believe they could cause damage until it’s too late. These car dents might be on the trickier side to fix, and consultation with specialized services for repairing dents that have no paint might be a good idea.

Hail Damage

Even though most car dents occur in the parking lot as a result of reckless or miscalculated pedestrian behavior, there are still some prevalent causes that fall into the “Nature department”. Hail damage is often gruesome, and also scrapes the paint of the car. As the founders of PDR CANADA Paintless Dent Repair note, hail damage requires specialized tools to be brought back into its original shape. This is why, for more complex dents, a visit to the specialized service is advised because you can do more damage if you attempt to fix these car dents by yourself. Specialized car dent repair services also have specialized tools that can help massage the dent into its normal shape without causing permanent damage.

Falling Trees

Another common cause of car dents that comes from natural causes, so to speak, aside from the aforementioned hail damage is damage by falling trees. Falling trees are a common consequence of more prevalent storms and can cause minor damage to some extreme cases. Falling trees do often cause more serious dents on the top of your car, and will oftentimes require professional care to have them repaired. Since the roof of the car is a very wide surface, it’s quite tricky to put it back into its original shape without having it deform in the meanwhile. This is why it’s necessary to have the professionals use specialized tools to “massage” the dent from the lower side to finally correct it.

Collisions

Another common cause of car dents is of course collisions. Be it collisions with other vehicles, or collisions with road debris, or accidental bumping of traffic signs, they all can leave a nasty dent. In most instances, vehicle collisions cause much more than dents, but some such as rear-end collisions most commonly cause only minor dents. (Minor as opposed to more heavy collisions). In addition, to rear-end collisions, collisions with any roadside debris almost always causes some dents, and depending on the type of debris, the paint can also come off. The good news is that in the modern world, there are plenty of tools and professionals that can whip any car dent back into its shape.

It appears that car dent causes are at every turn and no one is safe, not even in parking lots. Even though this sounds quite dramatic, car dents do happen all the time, and some of them you can fix on your own with boiling water and a little push. However, oftentimes the dents require professional care to prevent additional damage, and because of the experience and specialized tools required to straighten them out.