Phantom dents in door

[JPodz]

kind of hard to explain, but I'll give it a whirl.

I have what appear to be phantom dents in both the driver and passenger side front door.

I didn't notice it until this morning when I went to warm my car up a little bit, but there appears to be vertical "dents" in the same spot on both sides of the car where you might normally get dinged by another car door.

However, after running my hand over both sides, there is no physical difference in the door, but looking at it you can see the reflection change as if there was a dent there.

Does anyone know if there's any support beam inside the door that might make this happen?

[Winkle]

Not sure what you mean, could you take some photos and post them?

[Em-squared]

Ok, I suggest one of two possibilities:

a) they are, in fact, door dings, where the person may have lightly tapped your car and you can see it but the dents are not deep enough to feel. After having someone hit my Elantra bumper, I had such a thing happen.

b) it is actually a manufacturer defect.

Yes, pics would help. Honestly, it may be one of those things that very few others besides yourself would notice.

[markjenn]

If they're completely identical side to side, then this effectively rules out someone dinging your car.

So you're either looking at something that is part of the design or perhaps some kind of defect that damaged the doors identically during mfg. There are definitely designed-in character lines and creases in these doors, but nothing I'd ever confuse with a door ding.

Yes, pictures would help.

- Mark

[JPodz]

I'll try to take some pictures this weekend. It will probably be hard to tell though, but I'll do my best.

To be honest, I've never noticed this before, with multiple hand washings, etc....it's only something I've noticed in the past week...ie. a new issue.

I'm also not the only one that has noticed this....but its definitely not physical dents.

I'll see what I can do. They're not built in body design lines or anything like that.

[Datsun240Z71]

I noticed a similar "crease" in the front passenger side door of my wife's Elantra sedan. It's almost unnoticeable, and I've only seen it in certain lighting conditions. It's near the bottom of the rear section of the door (near the trailing edge) and appears to be from the pinchweld where the door skin is attached to the door frame. About 1.5 inches tall, and I think getting a picture would be impossible it's so slight.