I just went out to eat, and when I came back out to my S, I noticed a perfect child's handprint on the driver's door. I mean, this kid must have had his hand in grease or something, I could hardly even wipe it off!! It was a perfect print too, all five fingers and palm right there.....

Then, the guy I was with noticed that the rear near the trunk had two more handprints, then the passenger side door did too! I don't know what this kid had on his hands, but it was hell to wipe off!!

Unless this was the work of a gang of midget car thieves that were checking my car out - parents, please watch your children and don't let them wander around touching other people's cars...

Rant off.....

 

I hear ya. My neighbors let their kids play outside w/o watching them. They would play baseball with a hard plastic ball which would continue to hit cars, including mine (Not S2K - but that doesn't matter). Twice I asked them to stop, and twice I walked with them to an area with grass that would be much better to play in. I even stayed to play catch with them. Still, time after time
they were back to the cement and hitting cars - no parents around. I felt bad, but they left their bats and the ball out one night so I took them. They had a garage full of toys so I'm sure they were fine. But my car was safe at least.

 

It's cheaper to wipe grease off then to repaint a door. I used to fret about this until someone decided to key the car. I'd rather have handprints.......

besides.....that may have been the "proverbial straw" that sends that kid off to cart driving school and become the next Schumacher.

 

Wow! That is certainly an optimistic statement.

 

I hate to say it... but there are always going to be problems like this. Maybe the parent was distracted momentarily and didn't notice the kid putting its grubby paws all over you car... but more likely the parent just didn't care and has no respect for other people's property.
Kids are probably the least of your worries. My favorites (other than the door ding brigade, and people who can't walk 15 feet to put the friggin shopping carts in the little spot designated for shopping carts) are the people that set things (or themselves) on other people's cars without even thinking about it. I saw a lady get out of her car on her way to the mall, and halfway into the mall decided she needed to dig something out of her curiously large purse/bag thing, so she plops it up on the rear deck of a nicely polished Mercedes and proceeds to rummage through her bag. As I walked by, I said "Nice car". She replied, obviously, "It's not mine." So as I glare at her, I state "Then maybe you shouldn't set your sh*t on it."
I don't understand why people think they have the right to even touch a car if it doesn't belong to them. Maybe I'm just anal, but I was raised to have respect for other people's things. They (most likely) worked hard to get those things, and I don't want to be the one to mess it up.

 

I saw a lady set her kid down on the hood of a buddy of mine's car then put her foot on the bumper and tie her shoe as the kid hit the car repeatedly with double-fisted rattles. I hit the panic button on my remote (my S2000 was only feet away) and I swear that lady swooped her kid up so fast and scurried off looking in all directions...Oh how I laughed. My friend wasn't so pleased. We confronted this lady in a shop and she denied it but turned red enough that her friends started looking at one another sort of knowingly. Luckily there was no appreciable damage done.

Uecker

 

[QUOTE]Originally posted by mxt_77
[B] ... I saw a lady get out of her car on her way to the mall, and halfway into the mall decided she needed to dig something out of her curiously large purse/bag thing, so she plops it up on the rear deck of a nicely polished Mercedes and proceeds to rummage through her bag.

 

You know what I hate the most about people who do things like that? When you confront them about it, they act like you're the one who did something wrong and then proceed to give you shit for pointing out their wrong. I really hate people like that. Makes you think how some people raise their kids and how you can see perfectly grown adults without the slightest clue to what manners and etiquette (sp?) are all about. I'm dumbfounded on a regular basis to how people often lack even the slighest common courtesy for a fellow human being.

 

When I had my Si, I was sitting at a friend's barber shop and I could see the car from where I was sitting. This Caddy STS pulls up and I notice a little head in the back seat, all I thought was here comes a door ding and sure enough the kid gets out and not just with one hand but two hands pushes the door open and boom. They walk in and the guy didn't even say anything so I went outside to check it out and low and be hold if I didn't have a door ding. Come inside, tell the guy his kid ding my door getting and he totally denied it. Long story short, big agrument insued and in the end he admitted to the fact that ding was caused by his son, and even had him apologize for it and paided for the repairs. I don't know what these people are thinking now a days, they just don't respect for others property.

 

When I was a kid, my parents always taught me to be careful opening the doors. They also taught me not to touch other people's cars. All this even though they were not/are not car nuts, just polite. I grew up with a healthy respect for cars, and am not a car nut myself. While I am no Schumacher, I think being respectful of a car is more likely to inspire someone to want to dive it to the limit.