Well.. today was not my day.... Yesterday night, I noticed that one of my tires was reading 31 psi whereas all the others were at 37 psi so i pumped it back up to 37 and decided to inspect it further the next day.

After work today, i jacked up the car using the OEM jack and removed the tire to look for nails. I couldn't find anything so i put the tire back on. As i was trying to line up the holes of the lug bolts to the wheel, the jack started tilting and fell over. The front brake rotor landed on the inside of the wheels. The wheel also landed partially on my foot but luckily i was able to free my foot. I was freaking out at this point so i reset the jack as quickly as i could and started jacking up the car again. Once i got it high enough to put the wheel on, i noticed the jack again was leaning to the right and it fell over again! On my third try i tilted the jack slightly left before jacking the car up in an attempt to counter the right tilt it was experiencing and i also had some rhino ramps to catch the car in case it fell off the jack again. I was finally able to put the wheel back on!

At this point i was sweating like a pig and my back was killing me so i stood up to relax a lil... only to see a dent on my fender!...I guess the wheel must have bent the edge of the fender as the car fell off the jack. ::sigh:: Its not that bad of a dent, it doesn't actually even go in that far and the paint is fine, but its near the edge of the fender. How much would this cost to repair and would i be able to do this myself? I have no idea why the jack fell over... i've jacked up various cars multiple times and i always make sure the car is on flat/level ground. Anyways i hope i didn't damage anything else, I drove it around afterwards and didn't hear or feel anything out of the ordinary...

 

Need to invest in a solid jack stand bro, u got me wanting to go buy one right now.

Really sorry to hear that, I hope it works out

 

Be careful....always safety first when working on or under any vehicle!!!!
Make sure you're OK first then worry about the car!
Good luck.

 

Firstly, glad you're alright dude. I'm always super careful when jacking up the car and try not to leave it on the OEM jack (or any jack) alone for too long. If I need to, I'll put a stand under there (like when I pull off the wheels to change/work on headlight bulbs).

That said, do you have any pictures of the damage?

 

Here are some pictures of the damage. I'm hoping it will be an easy fix with PDR for under $100. I'm not exactly sure how it even dented inwards like that as the wheel was sitting inside of the wheel well when the car fell off the jack. There are also some scratches inside of the rim where the brake rotor landed but its not really noticeable so i'm not worried about that.

 

That is an interesting bend, but doesn't look too bad. No solid creases/pokes either. I'd bet a little PDR and work with a heat gun would help a bit.

 

Glad your ok. looks like it shouldn't be hard or expensive to remove. I don't use the facory jack myself, never trusted them after one almost fell on me before on flat ground

 

Did you have the parking brake on?
Depending on if you are lifting the front or the back, the car wants to roll some to account for the change in angle. This pulls the jack off center if you aren't careful.

 

Oops... i think that is why my jack tilted over.... I did not set the parking brake before jacking up the car. I was lifting the front drivers side wheel. I don't think i will be jacking up my car again for a while now... but next time i need to, i will definitely remember to set the parking brake!

 

Chock the wheels too!

 

You got off very easy! I hereby sentence you to 2 months of having to look at that dent as a reminder to use more care before jacking up any heavy item.

Upon release, you can visit your local PDR specialist

 

Rule number 1. Never leave your car on a jack.. That's why they have jack stands..

The good thing is that this is not a crease dent.

What I recommend is to Get a hot glue gun and a blunt object like a hammer (ie anything else that is blunt that you can pull off.)

Apply the hot glue in the area of the dent and then press the blunt side of the hammer on the hot glue area.

Wait about 30-45 seconds for the glue to fully dry to the touch, making sure that the hammer or blunt pulling object has actually adhered to the glue applied area.

Then..

YANK THAT SUCKER OFF AS FAST AS YOU CAN!!!

I kid you not, this should get a major part of the dent out if not all of it out.

I speak from personal experience because this helped get a similar dent out of my sister's Altima coupe when the body shop tried charging her $400.

You're price would be around $250 though, anymore for a dent like yours is robery since no paint was damaged.

 

Thanks everyone for the good info. I will definitely be more careful when jacking up the car from now on. I will get an estimate for the repair first before i try doing anything myself. The dealership also found the nail in my tire which was causing the slow leak and being the lucky person that i am, the puncture is too close to the sidewall to repair... so i'll have to get another new tire at 15k miles. My first punctured tire happened at 5k miles and it was also a sidewall puncture caused by a basketball inflating needle.

 

If you have a Discount Tire nearby get you new tires there.

They sell a NON pro rated 100% replacement warranty for about $20 a tire

 

Unfortunately there is no discount tire nearby so i ended up getting it changed at the dealership. It came out to $146 for everything including road hazard warranty, although i'm not sure what the specifics of the warranty are. Now i just need to see their PDR guy for a quote for the dent.

 

$146 for a P245/45R18 GoodYear RSA mounted and balanced / warranty at a dealer ?

They must have given you a deal of some sort as that would be $211 at my local Discount tire installed with warranty and dealers usually charge much more for tires.

$146 is what the Tire rack wants for 1 tire without shipping, tax, mounting, road hazard, etc

 

Yea, they didn't charge me labor and i also had $35 worth of points in my nissan one to one rewards account.

 

Nissan one to one is clutch

 

Check your wheel studs too. The exact same thing happened to me on my 5th gen and my left front wheel fell off while driving. In my infinite teenage wisdom years ago, I decided to jack the car on an incline without a handbrake. Don't be like me guys.

 

Just an update. Got PDR done at dealership. Took 45min, cost $119. I'm happy with the results.

 

Glad it all worked out for you. Be careful next time!

 

You think you had a bad day this was yesterday and is what happens when someone is texting and runs a stop sign as your turning... estimate to fix came out to 8gs all that matters though is your safety just think it could have been worse

 

Dude. I'm so sorry that happened to you. I feel for you, man. I really do. I'd be heartbroken. Best of luck

 

I'm definitely heart broken I wake up thinking about the drive to work and realized I'm driving a rental I have parts in my trunk and on order for her now I have to wait 3 weeks to get her back