Owning this HHR has resulted in me getting more moderate exercise. Why? Because I'm too scared to park the thing near any other cars! In store parking lots I park at the furthest end away from the store, where no other cars are and hoof it up to the store. At my first job teaching at high school, I've got a safe parking spot, but I also teach at a university at night. So far I've been going home after the first job and swapping cars out, taking my piece of junk 1997 Cavalier to the college. That's not going to be practical all the time, though, so I found a distant parking lot by itself on the college campus I think I can safely leave the HHR in. It'll mean a huge walk to my office and classroom, but it beats worrying for four hours whether or not the sides are getting dinged. The college parking spaces are incredibly narrow; it's almost impossible to get out of your car without your door hitting the car next to it. The lot I found was mostly empty on the second day of classes, so that's a good sign. I'd also worry about leaving it alone like that, but it's adjacent to the campus police department, so I think that'll lower the likelihood of someone deciding to vandalize or break into the car.

Anyway, I'll be racking up the walking miles, all in the name of paranoid worry about paint and body dings!

 

Well, it's pretty much a win-win situation. You'll be getting exercise and your car has less of a chance of getting damaged.

 

Same story here... I dread parking lots and park out in East B....well you know where



Goose

 

I’m paranoid as well… I drive my 99 grand am with 120000 miles on it to work most of the time and drive my HHR when I’m home or on weekends.



Fred.

 

It's not worth owning anything thats going to bring your life more anxiety and anguish then already present. Things like cars and for me bikes are the very things I use to relax and get away from the hectic side of life.
I don't worry about them. If they get a scratch or ding, I still enjoy the ride.

It's just a car. Drive it. Enjoy it, pamper it mechanically. But don't obsess over it. You will get a ding or two if you use it for it's intended purpose. You will get chips in the front. Tree sap, bird crap....acid rain.LOL. Drive from the inside out not the outside in.

(Another reason I buy used...someone else anguished over that first ding)

 

Save your car! Ride your bike to work

That's what I do. But not really to save my HHR. I ride because I love to ride and it seems wasteful to me to take the car when I live so close to where I work. Heck, depending on wind direction it can actually take me less time on the bike than if I took the car.

 

You don't have to tell me about obsessing over an HHR...I am actually known around my area for being a freak about my ride. But that's o.k., I would rather be picky and park in the back 40 than have some idiot hit their door on the side of my ride.

 

oh thank goodness i'm not the only one doing this. i'm a counselor at a university and pay extra to park in the reserved faculty lot then with the students. i can go 'visit' it when i take walks or know if i park it in the structure, i can park it in a shaded area with lots of room on either side.

yeah, i know it is a car, but i love my little Blackie!

 

The university parking lot is insanely tight. If you have a decent sized car on either side of you, you many times have to shimmy out of your car to get out, often holding your door against your body to try to avoid hitting the other car. I admit a couple of times I've smacked the car next to me by accident with doors of my Cavaliers when I drove them to that job. It's very easy to do by accident or out of carelessness. I park in a faculty lot, but the spaces are that kind of narrow, and after 5pm the lot is open to students, too. I have to leave my car from 3-9pm, so that's a lot of time where it can be victimized! I was as careful as I could be with the Cavaliers, but didn't fret too much over tiny marks...the HHR is a different thing, however!

Also, beyond the door flinging, I've gotten other marks at the college: my '02 Cavalier picked up a scratch on its roof where someone took a pen or a key and scribbled squigglys there...the mark looked liked what you do on a paper to get a pen to start writing when it is being stubborn. The hood also got a lovely set of scrapes on it from someone setting a box down on it (I think) and then rotating/scooting it across the paint when they picked it up again. Lovely. If the HHR got something like that, I'd go ballistic and then some...