I try and stay away from vans and SUVs because kids tend to travel in them. However, like several of you, when I park out where there are no other cars, inevitably somebody parks next to me. It makes no sense. Twenty other spaces immediately near by and they park in the one next to me.
My biggest body blushes have been road grit - and an orange cone. Ooops!

Ah, 5k clutch drops are fun. :cheers: Clutch and tire smoke....nothing beats it :cheers:

Bill, here's #10...

10) DON'T PARK ANYWHERE ONE MIGHT FIND A SHOPPING CART.

I never take my boxster to grocery store parking lots. Why frequent a place where one is bound to find people who don't care about cars?

I just wish I could afford to live in Germany. People there value their cars and dogs more than their children it seems. A friend who lived there told me a story I've shared on this forum before. He came out of a shopping center to find a man and his 8 year old son standing quietly next to his car. The man said the boy had something to say, and the kid said, through tears, that he dinged my buddy's door and he was very sorry. The man gave my buddy his card and said he MUST get it fixed and send him the bill so the boy could work off the debt and learn a valuable lesson about respecting other people's property.

Now that's the way to raise a child. Pity we don't have any of this left in this country.

While sitting in my car listening to the news, a Yaris parks a foot away from me but for some reason he leaves 4 ft on his passenger side. Of course he hits my fender as he gets out. I proceed to give him the "hey, what the hell man! Watch what you're doing!". The guy turns out to be a priest and apologizes profusely. I felt like an ass.

I truely believe that it is just that we care more about our cars than the average driver. We hand wash our cars and take time to make sure they stay looking nice. And that is why we notice door dings more than other people. I always park on an end of the row or just wind up parking somewhere in whatever lot I am in where I will not get hit by another car door. Like at the Pizza place that I eat at, they have very tight spaces so I just park in the lot next door (a bingo place, that never has traffic until late in the afternoon) on the far side so that other people who don't want to fight the tight parking but are in a hurry don't park beside me and wham. A three minute walk is worth no door ding to me. And the upwind thing is so dead on, certainly here in Kansas. I never ever park on the downwind end of a lot.

Like many of you, I always park far away. The walk is good for you. But.......something I have noticed, no matter how far you park away, or no matter how many empty spaces that there are around you, other people think that my car(s) get lonely and they always want to park next to you. Also, the color red and blue seem to attaract those with the lonely syndrome more than other colors.

U guys got it all wrong
send girlfriend/wife/mistress/kids to do errands
this gives u more time to drive ur boxster
and enjoy the day
Need food --> drive thru
need fuel --> full serve
when u get home
hopefully whomever u sent out to do ur errands did them

Cheers
chris

Both my wife and I park way way away from all the cars. 90% of the time an end spot on the right side of the lane.
its not a guarantee though.

She just got a slight scrape on our aluminum Jaguar, Fortunately there was no dent as aluminum is almost impossible to fix according to the Dent wizard. He said it does not retain its memory like steel does. I was able to rub it out. :)

Sometimes she straddles end spots and I warned him someday some one will key it for spite. So far so good.