Was there damage to her door though? I mean, it’s not like being keyed is anything like a door dent from another door. It would be simple to prove since all you’d need to do is set both cars near each other and look at how they touch.
If you set an alarm off with your door, it would have to be pretty thump. Even the most sensitive alarms would still need the vibration to pass through a lot of the car. My alarm won’t go off for anything but a car shaking kick.
And calling the police for a parking lot incident is pretty weak. Unless she’s going to have videotape showing you next to her car it’s going to be a she said/he said situation. She could have taken anyone’s license plate number down.
Come on over to my house and tie a rope to my brand new car and ‘tug on it’ hard enough to set off the alarm, and we’ll see how funny you find it when I call the police.
Also, Crisco on the windshield can damage the wipers. If I have to pay for new wipers to be installed you can god damn count on me filing a report.
Welcome to adulthood. You may want to take a spelling course.
LOL! Ya think!? Of course you could stand there with the rope in your hand and wave hello when she runs out, “Hi, it’s me! The guy who keyed your car!”
I bet you were a tattle tale in school , werent you? If you would call the cops over a practical joke I shudder to think what goes on at your house on halloween, when far worse than a little crisco is put on cars. Oh , and please do both of us a favor and stop picking on my spelling. All you are doing is makeing yourself feel better about being a nitpick,because any typos are intentional.
Oh, I’m glad we have an expert on all car alarms in our midst. Tell us, please, badmana, exactly how much is the minimal force required to set off the most sensitive car alarm on the market?
This was, honsetly, a tap. On the rubber thingy onher door.
Jeez, can’t a guy rant in the pit without someone questioning his unsupported assertions?
I’ve got an alarm on my SUV… I know, I’m a bad, bad person.
Anyway.
The only reason I’ve got the alarm is so I can open the doors without keys, and I can never lock my keys in the truck (which I did WAY too many times on previous cars).
The sensitivity is set too high, though- if you tap the truck in the wrong place (near the sensor), it’ll go off. A loud truck rumbling by will trigger a warning chirp.
Those things can be pretty sensitive. That said, I think the woman’s being OVERLY sensitive her own damn self. I’d contest the charge if I were you, Nogginhead. It really does sound like she’s trying to get someone else to pay for normal wear and tear.
It would serve her right for parking too damn close. However…
I dunno about “normal wear and tear”. In most leases, sizeable door dings are not normal wear and tear, and thus she’ll be charged for it if she turns in the car (I don’t know if she’s leasing the car, but that’s about the only way I could get to a definition of “normal wear and tear”). I was in a similar situation as her about a year ago. My wife’s sitting in her parked car outside a store, on her cell phone. Woman pulls up, throws open her door, and puts a ding the size of a silver dollar in my wife’s car. The person my wife was talking to said “My god, what was that!”. My wife had to run her down, she denied she even hit my wife’s car, until my wife lined up the dent with her door, and showed her the paint coming off her door onto my wife’s door.
$900 later, it was fixed. Did I feel bad about reporting it to her insurance? No (I would’ve felt bad if she had apologized right when my wife confronted her). Regardless, the car is leased, and I would’ve had to pay for it when I turned it in.
And no offense, but I too question your unsupported assertations. I believe that if you hit a vehicle hard enough to set off an alarm, you probably did some damage (maybe not all of it, but some) and she was right to report you. Even the “rubber thingies” are probably painted, and need to be repaired.
A professor at the University of Alabama was killed a few years ago when “jokesters” dropped a rock from a highway overpass. It shattered the windshield of her car and caused her to wreck.
Since you asked, there are laws against “super sensitive” alarms (mostly noise laws). A car should not be so sensitive as to go off because someone walks on by. Or by the rumble of a car passing by (trucks I can see, but not another car).
I have no cite on the laws or the sensitivity setting on the alarm (this is the pit so go ask in GQ if you want the cites). Any alarm THAT sensitive is useless. What would be the point of an alarm going off because someone is running by with a shopping cart?
The radio shop that installed my friend’s alarm on his WRX tested the alarm by bouncing a basketball on his windows. Only a fair hit (rebound more than 2 feet) set off his alarm.
So getting back to your rant, if you tapped her car, you may have caused a very fine dent/scratch with the edge of your door. Pretty simple to determine isn’t it? There’s no need to bitch. If it really comes down to it take your car to the police accident reporting center (if you have one) show them your door and compare it to any damage on her car. Sheesh.
OK, I’m having a little trouble with this concept-- I rant, you question whether I’m being reasonable.
That’s a big problem right there. Of course I’m not being reasonable. I’m ranting.
Then, for no particular reason, since it’s irrelevant, I TELL you that I actually am being reasonable. And you respond that you think I’m not, and imply that you actually believe the object of my rant more than me.
What’s the deal? Are you trying to start a fight?
Or were you parked at Walgreen’s and Trader Joe’s in Arlington Heights, MA, in your cherry, Cherry-red Subaru this week? And that ‘Toronto’ thing is just a ruse? Either way, you’re coming off like a jerk.
How effective are car alarms, anyway? C’mon, everybody, 'fess up. How many times have you heard a car alarm go off and immediately rushed out into the street screaming, “STOP! THIEF!”?
I completely ignore car alarms. I suspect that 99.9% of the general population would not lift a finger upon hearing a car alarm. And frankly, I wouldn’t lose the least little bit of sleep knowing that some God damned yuppie lost his God damned Lexus because I heard his God damned car alarm go off and couldn’t be bothered to get up off the God damned couch to do a God damned anything about it.
