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When I park my car in the garage, the passenger side ends up being close to the wall (garage design, not parking issue).

My passenger (my partner) always ends up slamming their car door against the wall.

How can I stop them from slamming the car door against the wall?

Car door close to brick wall

This image above is an example of how close the car gets to the wall when parked.

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    Er... tell them to get out before you pull into the garage...? Problem solving at its finest, I know.
    – Captain Obvious
    Commented Apr 29, 2015 at 22:56
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    Well, retraining your passenger is a bit more difficult than just avoiding the issue; what an odd question to ask. Tell your partner that if they want to get out of the car in the garage, then they have to stop slamming the door on the wall.
    – Captain Obvious
    Commented Apr 30, 2015 at 0:11
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    @Darren If I had to guess, it's because "How do I change my passenger's behavior" (the question you have in bold) is an awful question for the site. Ignoring that, your question just becomes "how do I protect my doors from damage", which is too obvious to require a life "hack" - answers that address that just end up degenerating into everybody's favorite choice of arbitrarily soft things to place between the door and wall.
    – Captain Obvious
    Commented Apr 30, 2015 at 13:20
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    @jamesqf upgrade... smaller... does not compute
    – Michael
    Commented Apr 30, 2015 at 21:46
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    I sympathise; my wife does this every.single.time we get home. I put some clear inexpensive adhesive door guards on the doors. Works perfectly, although they'll need replacing soon. Note, they don't prevent dents if the door is really opened with force; only scratches!
    – Jongosi
    Commented May 1, 2015 at 16:08

11 Answers 11

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Install pool noodles to your wall. Or use pipe insulation.

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    Horizontally, I might add.
    – sourcenouveau
    Commented Apr 29, 2015 at 14:38
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    Just one at the right height is enough. Problem is that the right height will vary a little with passenger weight, tire inflation (and/or temperature), and order of exiting the vehicle. So you probably want two or three. At that point I would go buy every color of noodle I could and make an art project out of it... I'd imagine that common deck screws through each noodle and into the wall would work, sink the screws in enough that they won't catch on clothes, and possibly add a washer.
    – RBerteig
    Commented Apr 29, 2015 at 21:03
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    If you got some poolnoodles as spare, this is surely a nice hack. But to buy them for this purpose is more expensive than a regular rubber bar, which is also more durable than noodles.
    – jawo
    Commented Apr 30, 2015 at 10:59
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    @RobAu if the OP really has that limited space, a full sized noodle will take a large portion of it. They might have to cut them in half for it to allow passage.
    – enderland
    Commented Apr 30, 2015 at 12:01
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    @Jason Although I believe we reached that point already-- there was a question asking what to stir coffee with when lacking a spoon.
    – HarryCBurn
    Commented Apr 30, 2015 at 19:02
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Ask your passenger to get out of the car before you park the car. This also leaves you free to park it right next to the wall.
For the passenger, this has the advantage they can open the door to its stop and easily get out of the car.

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    This is what me and my wife do at home. Just isn't enough space for us to both get out inside the garage.
    – Doug Watkins
    Commented Apr 29, 2015 at 8:24
  • Depending on how wide your garage is you might still end up having a hard time not to bump your own door. Unless you exit through the trunk...
    – Chris
    Commented Apr 29, 2015 at 18:11
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    In a few years, the car will stop and let everyone off before it parks itself in its garage.
    – emory
    Commented May 1, 2015 at 17:29
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My answer assumes, that you already tried simply talking to them and it did not work and also, that you DO want them to exit the vehicle at exact this place.

Since this is Lifehacks, not "How can I train my passengers to behave like I want", I would recommend taking steps that, even in the case of them smashing the door against the wall, the damage will be intercepted or minimal.

You could install some kind of buffer, either at the wall or your door.

A buffer on the car might make your car look ugly though, so this may be an issue for you.

But the big pro is: it not only works in your garage, but in every public parking lot as well. Also, it's cheap (maybe $5-10).

The con of this is that the buffer will absorb the damage for you and in doing so, it will wear off within some hundred usages.

The alternative is a rubber buffer on the garage wall; a far more durable solution and it won't make your car ugly.

A rubber impact bar can be bought in any hardware store for as cheap as the other solution. Compared to the car-bar, this solution is of high durability.

[2]

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  • "The con of this is that the buffer will absorb the damage for you and in doing so, it will wear off within some hundred usages." A few hundred uses is several years (since you won't make contact every time), so spending $5 or less per year to have something which isn't the car door/finish itself absorb the damage is very good value.
    – alroc
    Commented Apr 30, 2015 at 13:22
  • Depends on how often you come home. Everyone knows these people which are driving around all day and this parking often.
    – jawo
    Commented Apr 30, 2015 at 13:27
  • I wouldn't recommend the door buffer. The area it protects is quite small, is not that durable because it has to be thin in order to still let the door close, and what are the chances the door's edge is the only thing that will hit the wall? If the car is close enough to the wall, the panel, itself, is what will hit -- not the door's edge.
    – vapcguy
    Commented May 1, 2015 at 0:21
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Try attaching a (preferably soft) door mat to your garage wall. My granddad used this method and this works very well because you have a large surface where the door can bump into.

If you use screws instead of tape or glue, ensure you cover the screws.

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    You don't need to ensure to cover the screws, it's enough to use something large enough so that the screws are far away from the "point of impact" :)
    – yo'
    Commented Apr 29, 2015 at 18:06
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    I have attached leftover pieces of carpet to my garage wall using double-sided tape. Make sure to cut them sufficiently large to account for minor variations in your parking position. Mine are about 50cm x 30cm.
    – Chris
    Commented Apr 29, 2015 at 18:10
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    @yo' Do you want to take the risk? :)
    – Sebazzz
    Commented May 1, 2015 at 9:31
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My mum had this problem and she found some spare pieces of thick wool carpet that were left over from when they refurbished and folded them over so they were double thickness and then stapled them to the wall . So the car door always had a soft landing - it worked well, no more scratches and dents!

I'm sure most flooring places will sell you some very cheap off cuts (or even give them to you free) if you don't have anything suitable already.

You need a heavy duty type wall stapler ideally or else you can use one of the builders glues or even ordinary screws (but then you need to protect the screw heads so they don't scratch)

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    I agree with using a carpet. But they do not need to be 'spare pieces' - the project can turn out really neat if you measure out the size of the wall and cut the carpet to size. I would recommend glue to stick the carpet to the wall.
    – ahorn
    Commented Apr 30, 2015 at 22:17
  • I use cheap carpet underlay offcuts for this. (The expensive stuff is softer and less durable for wall padding, but it feels much lovelier underfoot!)
    – AndrewC
    Commented Oct 29, 2017 at 1:33
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I make the passenger get out first, but even so, I have flat pack cardboard boxes previously used for various things leaning against the walls of the garage so I don't damage any of the doors myself when opening them in there. I did have to tape them flat - once, one flopped open and I couldn't get out of the driver's side, it stopped the door from opening wide enough.

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Assuming you have a wall on both sides of your garage, you can cut a length of rope a foot or so (the exact length may vary) short of the width of the garage.

Securely fasten this rope to the driver's side wall of the garage. Before letting your passenger out, thread the rope through the driver's side window and instruct the passenger to affix it to the handle on the interior of the passenger side door.

When they open their door, the rope will prevent it from opening fully and hitting the wall.

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  • I had to +1 this as it would solve the asker's problem, even if it's a bit impractical in practice.
    – Johnny
    Commented Apr 29, 2015 at 20:56
  • @Johnny I'm new here, but I thought the point of this site was to give practical solutions to everyday problems
    – Selali Adobor
    Commented May 2, 2015 at 3:46
  • Welcome to the site! Do check out the help when you have a chance. This site is about stubborn problems that need a bit of thinking "outside the box". If our question is…seeking uncommon solutions to common problems; asking for unusual ways of using everyday objects to achieve a certain task or solve a specific problem, so this answer certainly falls within the guidelines.
    – Johnny
    Commented May 2, 2015 at 6:05
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I had some leftover vinyl siding (from having exterior siding installed). I nailed it to the wall (interlocking as you would if you were installing it normally). Works great and now I don't have to worry about how to store the extra pieces (encase an exterior piece gets damaged). It lays very close to the wall, but still provides a fairly soft surface to bounce a door off of. You might be able to ask for some scrap pieces if you see someone house getting sided. Each piece should be at least a couple of feet.

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Buy a smaller, more fuel efficient car? You can also tape a pice of foam to the car door or garage door. Honestly I think most people care more about the dents in their car doors than they do about the massive holes in the ozone layer from driving those huge SUVs!

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    That is very helpfull... maybe the guy drives a Tesla, what do you know ?
    – Laurent S.
    Commented Jul 7, 2015 at 13:15
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The mid 90s BMWs come with a rubber strip of trim that protects the doors (image not mine, but similar). I don't know why more car companies don't do that

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/7e/BMW-E36-convertible.jpg

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    So your hack is to buy another car with the strip on the door?
    – Adam Zuckerman
    Commented May 1, 2015 at 23:18
  • @AdamZuckerman Definitely thinking outside the box
    – Alex
    Commented May 3, 2015 at 9:36
  • @AdamZuckerman That's what I did and it's been working really well for me, so... yes. If you don't like my advice don't follow it.
    – gillonba
    Commented May 15, 2020 at 17:21
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Have you considered the obvious solution of not putting the car in the garage? This not only saves you from dinged car doors, it saves time opening & closing the garage door, and frees up the garage for other uses.

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    I'm sure the more obvious solution is to just have a car with no doors...
    – Biff MaGriff
    Commented Apr 30, 2015 at 22:59
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    @BiffMaGriff ... or a garage with no walls.
    – Atsby
    Commented Apr 30, 2015 at 23:48
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    ... or get rid of the garage altogether....
    – vapcguy
    Commented May 1, 2015 at 0:24
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    No keep the garage, get rid of the car
    – gillonba
    Commented May 1, 2015 at 21:15
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    Why not just demolish the entire property while you're at it. Then you can't knock those car doors into anything...
    – Lightness Races in Orbit
    Commented May 3, 2015 at 13:15

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