Stupid and expensive mistakes - feeling like crap tonight

[forgodssakes]

A bird shit on the bonnet of my car a few weeks ago in the work car park, I then took ill and I have been off sick from work and I have had various other personal stuff going on and I just didn’t get round to taking it to the car wash until today. I got home and I have realised it has eaten away at the paint, took it the local body shop and it needs a full bonnet respray at £500+. It’s a lease car and goes back in 2 months so I have no choice but to fix it but I feel like such an idiot. Someone please tell me your stupid and expensive mistakes and make me feel a tiny bit better.

I think OP should get some T-cut - should do it. Bird shit does damage the lacquer on a car but not so much you'd need the whole bonnet re-sprayed! I wipe it off when I see it - don't think I have washed my car since Jan 2024, no lacquer removed by bird shit in evidence.

Don’t get it fixed. The lease companies costs for minor damage are quite cheap and you can negotiate them. It will be less than £500. I gave my lease car back with a dent in the roof, 2 scuffed alloys and ripped leather on the door pocket thing and thought it would be about £1000. I amazingly got charged nothing. A friend had slammed the metal bit of seatbelt in the door and dented and scratched/ chipped paint in door frame which looked quite bad and was only charged £140. Pretty sure if they notice it it will be a lot cheaper

Bird poo can be really damaging (daughter of a car dealer here!) and especially in this heat. However your car will be inspected by the lease company and they will just bill you any repairs anyway so I wouldn't rush at it, if you don't repair to their satisfaction they would bill you again. It may be smaller cost via the lease company than what you have been quoted. I agree a whole respray seems OTT.

It very much can require full panels to be repainted, it can’t always be polished out, especially if it was on the paint for a long period.

I drop my car keys down a drain nearby to where I parked. Cost me over £300 for new keys!Annoying thing was that I saw they drain and thought to be careful but still managed to drop them!

Especially if you are a woman driver.

We didn’t offer on a house we now think we want and is under offer…looking like we might spark a bidding war and spend another £75k than we could have bought it for because we couldn’t decide. Just writing this makes me so angry with myself. Humph.

they charge three fiddy

Thought I could stop at a bus stop on a bank holiday Monday to,check my map (I was lost) and ended up with a fine, Been caught my speed cameras as least 3 times. Friend said I could park behind her car but got a park8ng ticket for that! I could go on and on!!

Two emergency callouts on two separate occasions, weeks apart, for a locksmith to open the door. I am usually an organised person and the last one people would say would be caught out twice. I proved them wrong. I meant to organise the hidden key after the first callout but didn’t.

£500 later. It was an expensive lesson to keep on top of these things.

@2025ismybestyear
And the divorce. I'm scarred for life and still single 7 years after we finally split.

I feel your pain OP. A few years ago I had a couple of months left on a lease car and someone decided to walk down our road and key every car for fun. The whole 4 panels on the passenger side needed fixing and cost us over £800, for a car we were about to give back! Even more annoyingly i searched the registration number a few months later to see if someone else had bought it and it had been scrapped. Literally money in the bin.

Every gym I've joined I've stopped going after about four months but still had to pay for the whole year. Mainly because I was to ashamed to admit I'd fully quit my one healthy habit!

I also got shamed into spending £20 on a salt beef sandwich. The man kept on asking if I wanted more meat while he was cutting. I thought he was just being generous and the sandwich was a fixed price. Not by weight.

It was quite nice though. I couldn't afford any other food for about a week so it wanted to be! 🤣

Nope, just badly damaged lacquer.

Moved into lovely house, the biggest place I’ve ever owned. Noticed no shaver socket in bathroom so I can’t charge my toothbrush. Really?? Have never been to a house without one. Searched a bit, no, definitely no shaver socket. Bathroom does have a few unfinished bits (dodgy grout etc) so it must just be an omission. Book electrician to install one. Electrician arrives and suggests installing it in wall next to basin by drilling through from current wiring in the shared wall with our bedroom, as this means no plasticky wiring visible in bathroom. Ok more major than I wanted but sounds good. Electrician installs shaver socket, successful, charging away. Unfortunately means bedroom will need redecorating at some point, on top of installation bill, but we needed it so oh well. I have a shower. Turn my back to rinse hair. I am now facing sideways on to the mirror over the basin. While standing and rinsing hair I suddenly notice that the mirror is a centimetre proud of the wall over the basin. What…? I get out, go to the mirror, pull at it and it opens, because it is actually the door of a mirrored cabinet inset into the wall, with, of course, a shaving socket installed in the cabinet.

DH left a pack of chocolate biscuits out and our Labrador ate them, packet and all. It cost £250 at the emergency vet (obviously it was a Sunday!)

If your lease company uses BCA for inspection be aware they charge for everything. Best one was Mercedes inspection who said as it was raining he wasn't going to bother with a few knocks.

These things happen op. Just suck it up and pay for it I'm afraid.

Also get quotes as you might be able to get it cheaper.

Someone hit my car years ago and I ended up with a hire car. First day and I was the first person to drive this car. I always parked on the road and not in the works car park but thought I didn't wanna risk anyone damaging itesoecially as it had been snowing. It was icy and in trying to park in the carpark, I hit cars on either side when reversing - one being the bosses relatively new jaguar. I took a big hit on excess and a few years of high insurance premiums.

Life is busy. You overlooked this one thing. Don't be hard on yourself.

I remember my mum being dead chuffed at winning 50 quid on the premium bonds (we were pretty skint). Her joy was short lived, as my Dad reversed into the gatepost as he arrived home. At least the 59 quid paid for a new rear light cluster! (This was some years ago)

@forgodssakes if it were me, I’d be tempted to put car through car wash then place a plate under any well known bird pooping tree and scrape fresh poop onto the offending spot on your bonnet thereby instantly concealing it and then exclaim how annoying that a birds gone and shat on the otherwise obviously just cleaned car on my way to return it. ‘Clean’ getaway guaranteed I reckon! 😁

T-cut, polish and buff would sort that. They are taking the piss that does not need a full spray.

Genius!!

Wait... can bird shit damage a car?! Surely that's a pretty significant design flaw? Think the garage is trying to rip you off OP. I certainly hope so, because my car has bird poo on it most of the time (very leafy car park at work), and I've never given it a second thought!

same thing happened to my car

I think that's good advice.