Girlfriend and I were out on the town last night. I had just found a rare parking spot on the left side of a one way major street close to where we were going, so I carefully parked and got out to pay the meter, feeling pleased with my luck. When I turned around, I saw that girlfriend was opening the passenger door directly into oncoming traffic. Time slows down, I can see that door and SUV going 35mph are clearly going to connect. Amazingly, it's just an ever so slight, glancing blow (I guess off the front side of his rear wheel well), as girlfriend was "just opening the door to look for traffic"... Well she found it.
The result, very luckily, is just a small nick and a very slight dent in the lip of the door. The other guy didn't even stop. I suspect (?) it would have been our fault, legally, but I guess he figured based on the sound that it wasn't worth it. If she had opened it a fraction of a second later, and the door had touched inside his wheel well, or if any number of variables were different, it would have been a very different story. Glad she's fine (minus feeling guilty and shaken at a close call), and glad my car's "fine".
That being said, of course, we new owners are all really sensitive and proud of our beauties, and we don't want them to be less than perfect. What's the best approach to fixing this? I wonder about just getting some touch up guard from the dealer, and perhaps using a rubber hammer from the inside of the door edge to push the lip back out.
I'm reasonably handy (though I haven't done this before). Would a body shop be able to do more than what I could manage myself with a few hours and some elbow grease? Are there any special tools they would use? Could I just buy the special tool for less than the cost and hassle of taking my car in to someone?
