[bones007]

Back in September while on a little road trip in the UP of Michigan, The wife and I were traveling down US 2, weather was only in high 50's low 60's that day. As we were running down the road the traffic was light just a pick-up was in front of us, all of a sudden BANG, it sounded just like a rock it the top of the cabin, I immediately looked around to see if anything or anyone threw something at us. Seeing nothing I thought about the thread of the K member fail and the next party store I pulled in and climbed under the trunk and looked for problems. I found nothing , so wife and I looked all over for a nick or chip or dent, found nothing, We just shook our heads as we could not find the reason for this bang and continued on our way. Fast forward to today, Car gets parked for winter and today I opened the garage door and out of the corner of my eye I see a small dent , about a foot in front of the gas filler cap, you cannot feel it , and it is a small dimple in the metal. only way you can see it is looking down the side and see the wave in it. the paint is not affected , I know this was not there this summer. Could a weld from the factory popped and deformed the panel ? who knows , I tried to take a picture of it but it would not show up. Anyone else ever have a sound of a rock hitting the car and found nothing? :4-dontknow:
Weird story but true...

 

[HemiMetal]

It's possible you might have hit a road gator back in September and it reached back and bit your Challenger, but I think you would have noticed the dent long before now.

Is it possible the dent you discovered may have been a more recent parking lot ding and you're associating the two incidents now?

EDIT: Just noticed that you wintered the car shortly after the September incident, so you just might not have noticed the "gator bite" when you put her away for the winter. Many years ago when I had my 1988 RX-7, I ran over a strip of tire tread on the highway. The RX-7 (like our Challengers) was rear wheeled drive, so the tread got caught in the rear-wheel spin, flipped up and smacked my rear quarter panel on the driver's side, leaving a nice palm-sized dent

 

[bones007]

That's the strange part, the road was clear , at first I thought the pick-up in front of us threw something , but I had my eyes on it when the bang occurred and nothing came from that direction, when the bang happened we both looked up, because it sounded just like we got hit right in the center of the roof... sounded just like a big rock, the wave in the panel I never noticed before and I wash and wax her myself , and I tend to stay away from cars in parking lots, the wave looks like a defect in the panel, and it could have been from the factory that way, but funny I never noticed it before now.... they maybe unrelated, but just a strange coincidence? anyway the loud bang is still unknown...

 

[cdahl383]

The two might not even be related. You might have gotten the small dent at one time and ran something over that hit the underneath of the car at another time. Hard to say now.

If it bothers you enough I would call a paintless dent repair place and have them pop it out for you. Should be able to do it for under $100 and it'll look like new again.

I had a small tree branch fall on my hood back in the fall on a windy day (wasn't even under a tree!) and put two small dents in my hood, no paint damage. Had a guy pop both out for $85, looks like new again, could never tell they were there.

Another time I was driving home from work on the highway and I heard a big bang! Didn't notice for a couple days but then saw on my passenger fender a big nasty scrape right down to the metal. Must have been a stray rock or something that hit at the right angle. I had to have some body work done to that unfortunately, but it turned out really good, can't really even see where it was now unless I pointed it out.

You never know what you're going to encounter when you drive on the roads. You try to keep your car as nice as you can, but it's inevitable that at some point you're going to get a scrape, dent, ding, scratch, or something from the road. As long as you keep up on fixing them the car will always look great though.

 

[callou2131]

Was it anywhere near a golf course??? I got nailed on the roof of my Mustang while I was driving to the church to get married, lol. Loud bang, didnt see anything, then I noticed the golf course. Put one hell of a dent on my roof.

 

[cdahl383]

^ That would suck!

 

[vin57]

Sounds like I wasn't the only one that got the mystery big bang. Happen to me about 5 years ago...going down the freeway about 65MPH and BANG, sounded like a cannon went off next to me, have no idea where it came from, $600.00 to fix, insurance covered it.

good thing I had the cover closed inside the car, now I always keep the cover closed if I'm not going to open the sun roof.

 

[Dirtkicker]

^ YIKES!!! That would have been scary. Especially if your cover was open.

 

[Garfield411]

Sounds like I wasn't the only one that got the mystery big bang. Happen to me about 5 years ago...going down the freeway about 65MPH and BANG, sounded like a cannon went off next to me, have no idea where it came from, $600.00 to fix, insurance covered it.

good thing I had the cover closed inside the car, now I always keep the cover closed if I'm not going to open the sun roof.

Had that same thing happen to me when I had a Mazda 626. Loud bang and the sound of a glass cutter running across a pane of glass.

 

[Sweden]

Jesus, it hurts only looking at that one!!!

 

[bones007]

Wow, I thought i had problems... was that caused by a rock or was it like some of those tempered shower doors that just shatter for no reason?

 

[TikiMan]

I've been hit by a golf ball in a rental car one day driving past a golf course.

 

[vin57]

Wow, I thought i had problems... was that caused by a rock or was it like some of those tempered shower doors that just shatter for no reason?

Don't really know, it was a beautiful day, general consensus a rock.

 

[Bubba J]

Don't really know, it was a beautiful day, general consensus a rock.

this may or may not be related (probably not), but, many years ago at the dealer I was working for, I was walking across the parking lot, the rear window in the car beside me exploded. it was parked 20 ft across from a wall, so no way anything shot at it, and I was the only one there. turns out we just installed that glass an hour before, they think it was under torsional stress, and perhaps the sun heated it enough to expand a little, causing enough stress to pop it. it was a wagon, so the theory is the owner warped the gate a bit somehow and caused the stress on the glass. don't know if maybe your sunroof track bent a little from opening or closing and resulted in stressing the glass until it popped at a random time. just a possible theory.

 

[chrisnarron]

Yes that sun roof would suck