A strange act of vandalism

I had left my car overnight in a multi-storey hotel Car park in Nottingham. The morning after I discovered that somebody had prised off the cover over the passenger door lock and it was nowhere to be seen. Tomorrow I'll have to call my dealership to see if I can order another in Barolo Black and am resigned to my car looking unsightly for a little while.

I was wondering whether someone had tried to break into my car or whether it was just some random act of vandalism. If you were going to try and break into the car then surely they would smash a window?

It's definitely been forced off not fallen off, you can tell by the plastic clip that is left which is damaged. (which could necessitate further expense).

Very strange, keen to hear peoples thoughts.

These action sicken me.

Were there any cctv cameras in there?

(16-12-2012 10:12pm)Evo-king Wrote:  These action sicken me.

Were there any cctv cameras in there?

No I checked and unfortunately there aren't.

It just seems a very weird thing to do. No dents, no scratched just a prised off lock cover. It occurred to me that if you were going to try to break in to the car without smashing a window, perhaps this would be the entry point......

See how much this costs me tomorrow morning......

A real pain, it's painting the part which is going to cost.

Part no for the left hand door is LR025407 in primer, £4.88 + VAT approx. There's also the gasket underneath LR034461, £1.68 + VAT approx. If what the cover attaches to is damaged, that seems to be rather more difficult to replace, LR025541, £10.81 + VAT approx.

The parts then are cheap, the labour to paint and fit (depending on what's actually required) expensive.

It may be that they were trying to steal your car, but were disturbed?

I've had a similar problem with my passenger lock cover although not related to vandalism. It started when the passenger opened the door and in doing so knocked the lock cover off. Not a problem as we just picked it up and clipped it back in place. However, this then started becoming more frequent and it was noted to get sorted on the first service. Unfortunately after a long journey I noticed that it had fallen off so my dealer arranged for a replacement to be obtained and after this was painted they popped it in the post to me. This sadly did not cure the problem so it was concluded that the gasket the cover clips onto was faulty - the lugs were not formed correctly - so a replacement part was obtained. Since this has been fitted everything has been fine.
A bit of a pain I agree but my dealer was very good in getting everything sorted out for me and all was done under warranty.

Agreed, more likely it was already damaged and it just fell off, and no foul play at work here... and should be a warranty item!

(17-12-2012 02:21pm)PhilSkill Wrote:  Agreed, more likely it was already damaged and it just fell off, and no foul play at work here... and should be a warranty item!

My lock cover flew off last week when I was hosing down the car, clipped back OK, just put it down to another badly designed piece of cheap plastic.

Tony

the more i read these posts, the more i think there can't be anything that can go wrong.... do other cars have any issues with plastics in there cars???
And i also keep feeling that hopefully, i don't have any of these problems....well, now, i have been WARNED, and so are YOU!!!

(17-12-2012 02:24am)mark_n Wrote:  A real pain, it's painting the part which is going to cost.

Part no for the left hand door is LR025407 in primer, £4.88 + VAT approx. There's also the gasket underneath LR034461, £1.68 + VAT approx. If what the cover attaches to is damaged, that seems to be rather more difficult to replace, LR025541, £10.81 + VAT approx.

The parts then are cheap, the labour to paint and fit (depending on what's actually required) expensive.

That was pretty much spot on Mark. In all about £40 including painting and fitting.

Hopefully sorted by the end of the week. Considering how small a part it is, it looks really unsightly.