So this past Thursday night I took my car a couple of places. After I got back at 11:00 pm I left my cell phone holster in the car. At around 2 am on Friday I went down to get it and to my major displeasure I find some serious damage to the passenger's side of my car. I called the Police and filed a report insisting that it be written as vandalism.

I know the car was not damaged at all when I parked it, so sometime between 11 and 2 someone came and damaged not just my car, but the car next to it as well. Both cars were damaged in the same place. Sad thing is that the other car is not worth as much money as the cost to repair the dent and so the owner will either have to live with it or have her car totaled.

The damage is bad and was obviously done by some rather fat person, probably drunk falling into the side of my car. I am pissed to say the least and I really hope that the person who did this enjoyed damaging my car, because if they are found, they will pay. In Ohio, vandalism which costs more than 1,000 to repair is a felony and I will be pressing charges since the damage is going to far exceed the 1,000 mark. I will also be turning the culprit over to my insurance co so they can sue the person to recoup the repair costs.

I have already contacted my insurance and will have the adjuster look at the car next week. I'll have the car repaired at a local bodyshop that has done all of my work in the past and I am comfortable with and in less than a months time, my Solara will look new again.

I'm just so pissed that at a school where the average family income is in the solid middle class, where people work hard for their possessions, that someone would do this to my car. I'm even more pissed that this was done to another vehicle parked next to mine by someone who was probably intoxicated and since 99% of the quad is freshman, was illegally intoxicated. My school needs to step up their efforts in curbing underage drinking and patrolling the areas around the dorms at night so things like this won't happen. I will be writing emails all next week to University officials, you all can bet on that.

At least I'm only going to be there for 5 more weeks.

Damage 1

Damage 2

Damage 3

Bet you could reach in through the trunk and pop that dent out. No sweat. Just peel aside the lining.

I did that once with a Pontiac G6 I rented. Had no desire to drive a car with a caved in quarter panel.

I told Avis later I'd fixed the big dent and they were like "what dent?" 0_o I told them they should look at their cars when they get turned in.

No dice, this is a 11 month old, 24,000 car with 6,500 miles on it. I will not simply pop the dent out.

It puckered the style lines near the tail light and under the rear window, so they look all screwed up. It also cracked the paint near the tail light and it is already chipping off as we speak.

The car is leased, so that type of damage isn't acceptable to Toyota and popping it out with no repaint or filling to fix the stretched metal isn't acceptable to me.

Insurance is taking care of it and the Police are trying to find who did it. The responsible party will be sued by my insurance company to recoup the costs, I'm sure of it.

I hope they had fun doing that to my car, because they're going to pay big time.

if there were no cameras how will they found who did it?

There are three things working in my favor:

Someone on the first floor who lives along the street I was parked on had to see something being done to two separate cars.

The person who did this is large and probably male.

The person who did this entered a known door in my dorm (probably with their card, which they can track) between 11 and 2.

I have already asked the RD to send out an email to everyone asking for anyone who knows anything to come forward. In the past this approach has produced results. In one case the person said they knew something but would not turn the culprit in, so they were turned over to judicial affairs and when they were threatened with fines and sanctions unless they told, they caved.

Even if they never find who did it, I have taken steps which have resulted in increased police patrols in my area of campus and spoken with the residence life staff so that incidents like this will be discouraged in the future.

Sorry to hear about that man - yeah, that definitely blows. Hope that they catch the numnbnuts that did that and that insurance will do a good job on the repair.

Could it have been a large female??

No, there isn't any such thing here. All the girls are super skinny (literally)

Fingerprinted?

Nope, like I said earlier, it was pouring down rain and had been for hours when I discovered the damage.

I'm living next to a construction site, there is dirt on the car, but the combination of the heavy rain and my wax job left the panel clean as a whistle.

Anyway, the local PD probably couldn't take fingerprints off of something with water beaded on it without wiping it off first, which would destroy fingerprints.

I doubt the person who did this would have prints in any system anyway.

A better way for this person to be caught is for someone who lives on the first floor in the rooms adjacent to the street to come forward and say they saw something at a certain time and then saw someone enter the building. That way the police can pull up the card access system history for that door and see who went through it at a certain time. Based upon a witness description of the person and a person matching that description entering the building, the University could file at least internal charges against the person, which would make me feel better about the whole thing.

That probably won't happen, this is just one of those crimes where it is not likely that anyone will speak up. Let's face it, since it didn't happen to their car, no one cares about this enough to snitch.

Got it all taken care of.

Car was looked at by the adjuster this morning, faxed copy of appraisal to my bodyshop 10 minutes after the adjuster left.

Car is scheduled to be repaired by my bodyshop within the next couple of weeks.

Rental car is lined up for the entire time the car is in the shop.

I feel so grown up. I've done everything involving this incident from filing the police report to arranging the repair and rental car.

That being said, I don't want to have to do any of this again. Life would have been easier if this never happened.

I predict that the identity of the person(s) who caused the damage will never be known. I also predict that the repair shop's principle procedure for repairing this damage will be to simply pop out the dent. It's a pretty simple dent in an area with no tight compound curves or underlying structure. They'll keep the repair simple and low-cost (on their part, labor/materials-wise). When I was a used-car appraiser, I'd allow perhaps $300 for such a repair, but the hit on the trade-in value would be more like $1,000. Mind you, I'm saying this based only on the photos, an on-scene evaluation could vary some. You WILL take a hit on your residual -- which is why a lease is something I'd sell all day long, but never buy.

Well, you're estimate will pay for the rental car I'll have while mine is in the shop. What you can't see in the pictures is that there is stretched metal near the center of the dent and cracked paint near the tail light, which makes the damage more extensive than the photos show, and thus more expensive to repair.

The dent will be popped out, the stretched part filled and the entire body panel repainted. I will also have a rental car for several days because of scheduling conflicts between myself, the body shop and the rental agency. This has already been worked out, I have the estimates and both the adjuster and body shop agree that the panel will be filled and painted, this was already turned into a work order and a check has been cut, the rental car is paid for and this is a done deal.

I have a closed end lease, so no matter what happens to the car, short of it getting totaled, I owe Toyota nothing when I turn it back in as long as there aren't any damages that are beyond normal wear and tear. Personally, I don't really care if Toyota Motor Credit takes a hit when they resell the car, but I can tell you that they won't. Since this was not an accident, it isn't going on Carfax and I'm not required to disclose this damage to Toyota, nor are they required to disclose it to anyone else, so exactly how is anyone to know and give them less for the car because of it?

Well, you're estimate will pay for the rental car I'll have while mine is in the shop. What you can't see in the pictures is that there is stretched metal near the center of the dent and cracked paint near the tail light, which makes the damage more extensive than the photos show, and thus more expensive to repair.

The dent will be popped out, the stretched part filled and the entire body panel repainted. I will also have a rental car for several days because of scheduling conflicts between myself, the body shop and the rental agency. This has already been worked out, I have the estimates and both the adjuster and body shop agree that the panel will be filled and painted, this was already turned into a work order and a check has been cut, the rental car is paid for and this is a done deal.

I have a closed end lease, so no matter what happens to the car, short of it getting totaled, I owe Toyota nothing when I turn it back in as long as there aren't any damages that are beyond normal wear and tear. Personally, I don't really care if Toyota Motor Credit takes a hit when they resell the car, but I can tell you that they won't. Since this was not an accident, it isn't going on Carfax and I'm not required to disclose this damage to Toyota, nor are they required to disclose it to anyone else, so exactly how is anyone to know and give them less for the car because of it?

Any reasonably well-trained and experienced appraiser will, upon your lease turn-in, see the repair work done. It won't matter whether or not it was caused by an accident. Just because you have a closed-end lease doesn't mean you can't be dinged for damages. Your best hope is that the repair is a particularly good one, but few of them are good enough that they cannot be spotted by someone who knows what to look for. And remember, just because it wasn't an "accident," there was still an insurance claim, and that can be discovered if the dealer is savvy enough, and most are.

This body shop is certified to repair Mercedes Benz, BMW and Jaguar cars, so I think that they are good enough to preform what is far from a major repair to a Toyota.

Last summer they repainted my bumper on a warranty claim, and it was my dealer who took the car there, it was not my request. When the car came back, the paint matched so well that the only way I could tell the paint was redone was that the paint was no longer flaking off the bumper and I'm one picky car person.

On a side note, I will tell Toyota that this damage occurred to the car prior to lease turn in because I am honest, but I can tell you already that they won't bat an eye. They'll do the same thing that they did when I turned the Corolla in, they'll go look inside it, walk around the outside of it and sign off saying it is in acceptable condition. The Corolla had half the front end replaced and several mechanical components replaced as well, which they knew about and they didn't give the car any extra scrutiny, nor do they charge me anything.

Ever know anyone who got charged for damages on a lease return for a Toyota? I don't and I've seen some cars returned in pretty crappy condition.