The Hippo Dictionary of Dings and Dents

Dings, dents, and scratches. Like death and taxes, these unpleasant eventualities are all but unavoidable - but that doesn’t mean you need to live with them.

Read on for Hippo’s definitive dictionary of the most common dents and dings that you might encounter on your car ownership journey, and then check out our advice for how to deal with them when they happen.

The Trolley Ding

What it looks like:
A small indentation, usually no bigger than a R5 coin. A plastic trolley is unlikely to cause additional paint damage (thanks, Woolies), but a metal trolley might just take a little chip of paint off in the centre of the indentation as well. Talk about adding insult to injury.

Where you’ll find it:
Commonly on the back or sides of your car. The part of the shopping trolley that is most likely to hit your car is the top front corner of the trolley basket, which is about 80cm off the ground. If you see a ding on your car at about that height, then you know for sure that it was a trolley.

How it happens:
Anything from a careless shopper to a particularly strong gust of wind can propel a rogue trolley into your car. If a parking lot is the Wild West, then unguarded trolleys are its tumbleweeds.

The Stone Chip

What it looks like:
As the name suggests - little bits of paint, about the size of a piece of gravel, missing from your car. In most instances, a stone chip will penetrate the outer colour layer of your paint, exposing the cream-coloured primer coat beneath.

Where you’ll find it:
Usually on the bonnet or front bumper of your car.

How it happens:
You know that scene in Star Wars, where the spaceship goes into warp speed and you see the stars streaking past the window? That’s what the front of your car sees when you drive on the highway, except instead of stars, the things streaking past are little pieces of gravel.

At high speed, those pieces of gravel get thrown up by the wheels of other cars and transform into mini projectiles - and when they hit your car at that velocity, they are very capable of taking off some paint.

You can also get stone chips from driving behind construction vehicles that are transporting rocks or gravel, or from driving in an area with roadworks, which results in more road debris in your path.

The Parking Blunder

What it looks like:
The tell-tale signs of a parking blunder are a set of rough and streaky scratches, usually exposing the primer coat under your paint. If your parking blunder involved another vehicle or object (like a pillar or bollard), you may also see a bit of paint transfer, which means that paint from the other object embeds itself into the scratches.

Where you’ll find it:
Front and rear bumpers are where it’s at.

How it happens:
Ever heard of park assist? Some people haven’t - but even those folks have rear windows and turnable necks. Odds are you know exactly when, where and how a parking blunder happened, but we’ll let you keep pretending that it wasn’t you at the wheel.

The Door Dent

What it looks like:
A small dent that looks like it was made by a sharp, pointed object. Expect some paint loss as well.

Where you’ll find it:
Usually on the sides of your car, on the lower half of the doors.

How it happens:
You probably had the great misfortune of parking next to someone who either has young children or spatial awareness issues. Either way, a door was opened hard and wide, and it collided with your car. Those sharp, pointy edges at the bottom of car doors were practically designed to create these kinds of dents.

The Mystery Scratch

What it looks like:
Just a random scratch that definitely wasn’t there yesterday. If you run your fingernail over the scratch and it doesn’t catch, then you’re dealing with a surface scratch. Lucky you! This means the scratch only affected the protective clear coat of your car, and that’s an easy fix. If your nail catches in the scratch or you see white paint peeking through, then the scratch has penetrated the colour paint layer and is quite deep.

Where you’ll find it:
Usually where you least expect it. The unusual location of the mystery scratch is 90% of the reason why it’s so hard to figure out what caused it.

How it happens:
Honestly, who knows? If we did, it wouldn’t be called a mystery scratch. It could be anything from a careless cyclist to your own handbag, or a hundred other possible things.

The Nasty Scratch

What it looks like:
Like somebody used a sharp object, like a key or a screwdriver, to send you a little message. This kind of deliberate damage almost always goes beyond the protective coating and deep into the paintwork. Ouch.

Where you’ll find it:
The bonnet is a favourite spot, but doors are also popular.

How it happens:
Have you made an enemy recently? It might be time to check your conscience. If there are actual words carved into the paintwork, that might provide a clue or two. Either way, someone felt wronged and decided this was the only way to make it right.

I’ve been dinged. Now what?

The happy news is that almost all of the scratches, dings, and dents outlined above - with the exception of extensive damage caused by something like The Nasty Scratch - will be covered by scratch and dent cover. Nice!

Why opt for additional scratch and dent cover instead of claiming through your regular car insurance? Great question! Scratch and dent cover typically handles repairs in the range of R3000 to R5000 - small potatoes in the world of car insurance. But here’s the catch: when you claim through your main insurance, you’ll likely face an excess fee, which could be around R3500.

Imagine paying R3500 in excess for a R3000 repair - that’s a losing game! Plus, filing that claim might cause your premium to creep up. So, when you do the math, it just doesn’t make sense to use your regular car insurance for minor dings when scratch and dent cover is designed for exactly this kind of thing.

With Hippo, you can get an average of 7 scratch and dent cover quotes with one search, from known and trusted insurers like Budget Insurance, First for Women, Auto&General and more. Scratch and dent cover on a 2020 Volkswagen T-Cross, for example, will cost you anywhere between R99 and R329 per month, depending on the insurer and plan that you choose.

An alternative strategy that some people follow is to allow scratches and dings to “add up” until there are so many that they make a worthwhile claim from their car insurance. This approach reminds us a lot of those sticker booklets you get at the grocery store, where you collect a sticker every time you shop and eventually pay 20% less for a set of steak knives.

While this might seem like a thrifty solution, there are multiple reasons not to go down this road. For starters, who wants to drive a car covered in scratches and dings for that long? It’s not exactly a good look. Most importantly, leaving repairs for later invites all sorts of additional problems like rust and corrosion to take root. Before you know it, a little scratch or bump can turn into a serious issue - and a serious cost.

Long story short - there’s little you can do to stop dings, dents and scratches from happening, but a lot you can do to make them less painful. Just hop onto Hippo and get a set of obligation-free quotes for scratch and dent cover today.