The case of the mysterious dent

Nearly every car gets one at some point and car owners are helpless to stop it. I'm talking about that mystery dent. Maybe it's a ding on your door. Maybe it's a newly formed bowl on your bumper. Maybe it's a half-moon-shaped dent on your quarter panel. The shape and location may be different but there is one common trait among all of these occurrences: The origins of this mystery are shrouded in the mists of the unknown.

As with any good mystery, we are forced to answer questions based on the evidence.

Question 1: How did it get there?

It's anyone's guess, really. Maybe it happened at the grocery store parking lot (where chaos reigns supreme). Maybe it happened in the church parking lot (aren't there supposed to be angels there?). Maybe it happened when you slipped into your local Big Box Store to buy toilet paper because it was on sale. Maybe it was a mysterious gravitational anomaly that occurred inside your car, pulling part of your car into itself. All we can be sure of is that we don't think it was there eight weeks ago when we last washed the car. But eight weeks is a long, long time.

Question 2: Who did it?

If you can't answer the first question, it's not so easy to answer this question. But we WANT to answer this question. We want to find the culprit! So we ask our spouse and our teenage children if they know what happened and then maybe we blame our teenage children's friends because, well, they are teenagers after all. We glare around every parking lot we park in. We look at the garden gnome out of the side of our eyes to see if it has moved at all.

Question 3: What can I do about it now?

Whether or not you find the actual culprit doesn't matter. (It is a mystery dent and maybe there is a little allure to not knowing who did it… do you think James Bond knows how every dent appeared on his Aston Martin? Not likely). You really have two options.

The first option is to do nothing. That's easier, isn't it? You've got enough to do between work and home and driving your aged mother to bingo every week. But there's a wee little problem with that. I call that problem: "The attack of Mr. Rusty." You see, the paint on your car isn't there just to make your car look pretty. It's also there to form a magical protective barrier around the steel that your car is made of. (Sort of the same principal as why the library laminates your library card). But when a mysterious dent appears, the paint is imperceptibly cracked. When that happens, air and moisture attacks the steel in a way that I never really paid attention to during science class… but the result is rust. Bad, ugly, stinky, dirty rust that slowly eats away at your car until it is just a dusty heap.

The other option, of course, is to get your car fixed right away at Boyd Autobody & Glass. It can feel a little annoying to fix your car since you haven't found anyone to blame, but getting your car fixed makes sense: It keeps the rust away. It helps to preserve the value of your car and the safety of its occupants. And more importantly, it shows your kids' teenage friends (and maybe your garden gnome) that you won't be intimidated by some mysterious little dent.

Is your car an investment?

We all know the "rule of thumb" that your car loses half its value as soon as you drive it off of the dealership lot. Cars depreciate and unless you own a nicely restored classic car or antique car (you know, from the years when they looked GOOD), you're pretty much guaranteed that you are going to lose money on your car from the moment you purchase it.

For this reason, personal financial experts will tell you that your car is not a good investment… After all, investments are supposed to make money, not lose them. But your car might actually be a better investment than you think.

Cars depreciate. That part is indisputable. But cars are an investment in other ways:

1. Cars are an investment in making money: Your car enables you to get to and from work regularly so you can earn an income. A small portion of that income goes toward maintaining your car, but much more of your income goes toward all of the other things that we need in life.
2. Cars are an investment in saving time: Public transportation is good for the environment and a nice alternative when you don’t want to drive or fight for a parking spot downtown. However, there are many times when you need to get somewhere a little faster than by bus and a car can get you there. And since "time is money", saving times means that your vehicular investment is that much more worthwhile.
3. Cars are an investment in convenience: Have you ever shopped for groceries then had to walk all the way home? It's not very pleasant, especially in particularly hot or cold weather. Along with getting you to and from the grocery store quickly, your car makes your life more convenient.
4. Cars are an investment in safety: When you drive, you're literally hurtling down the road in a cage of steel and glass, zooming by other cages of steel and glass. Buying a car means buying a high-tech safety device that you can move your family around safely in.

For these four reasons, your car IS an investment. Sure, you probably won't "buy low and sell high" as you would with shares of a company on the stock market, but investing in a car means investing in yourself and your ability to make money, save time, enjoy an easier life, and travel safely. Those are important and worthwhile things to spend money on.

Since your car is an investment, it makes sense to take care of it. After all, your house is also an investment and you take care of that. To take care of your vehicle investment properly, you need to do two things: First, keep the car's mechanics well-tuned so the engine runs smoothly and will last a long time. But a tuned engine is only the first step. Earlier in this article we said that your car is a high-tech cage of steel and glass. You need to keep it maintained so that it will last as long as the engine does. At Boyd Autobody & Glass, we can help. From fixing major fender-benders to tiny door dings and glass chips, we can help to prolong the value of your investment.

Preserving your car's value

Several Ways to Preserve and Improve the Value of Your Car

It's said that cars lose half their value the moment you drive them off of the lot. While that might be an anecdotal estimate at best, the truth is that cars devalue every time the odometer clicks past another number.

Just because your car will constantly depreciate doesn't mean that you can't manage its depreciation and help to minimize the loss of value over time. Here are some tips to do that effectively.

• Keep the inside of your car clean. You probably keep the cup holders wiped clean of coffee rings, but a key area where cars can deteriorate on the inside is completely unseen: Carpets in the foot-wells build up with dirt and debris. It's often wet and it tends to get ground into the carpet, damaging the carpet fibres and the deteriorating the metal below. Rubber floor mats help but vacuuming out your interior regularly will significantly preserve the floor of your car.
• Keep the engine tuned. This might seem like a "no brainer" but the cost of not doing it is even higher than you might think. Keeping your engine tuned will not only improve gas mileage and ensure that your car runs longer, but it also helps to keep your engine working less. The less efficient your engine operates, the harder it has to work to travel the same distance; and the harder it has to work, the more wear-and-tear will degrade your engine.
• Slow down and pay attention on the road. I can't stress this one enough. We live in a time where everyone is in a hurry and there are so many distractions (in the car and on our minds!) that keep us from giving 110% to the road ahead. By checking your speed slightly, and putting your problems aside during the trip, you'll increase your chances of arriving to your destination safely and with an intact car.

• Watch for wear on your paintjob. Your car's paint helps to protect the metal body of your car. But when that protective barrier is breached, you will start to get rust. Wash your car and take a close look for door dings, scratches, and paint chips, and deal with them immediately. And, from time to time, have your car detailed and waxed to help add to the protective barrier.
• Watch for trouble spots. Use a site like www.lemonaidcars.com to find out some of the typical top concerns for the car you drive. Deal with those problems right away.
• Rent a car for other uses. Sometimes you need to tow a trailer or haul something heavy or messy. Rent a car for those uses to help maintain your vehicle as a people-mover only.

You may never be able to increase the value of your car but you can improve it, or at least preserve it, to slow its depreciation.

Take care of your car with these simple tips!

Hey blog readers! Here's a great site to help you take care of your car! Save yourself lots of money and time (and headaches) and keep your car safer, too.

http://www.familycar.com/carcare.htm

It has several sections depending on what you want to do with your car...

• I want to keep my car for as long as possible and I want it to look and run great.
• I want to keep my car for as long as possible with minimum cost.
• I keep my cars for 3 to 5 years, then trade them in.
• I have a leased car -- I want to keep my costs to a minimum when turning it back in.

Check out the site... It's worth a look!