How not to bang-slam a car door!

Preamble
Almost all of us who own a car and care about it have or continue to face this irritant at the hands of insensitive/non-family passengers. Needless to say that the latter already stand rebuked into place.

Some morons do it with such a vigour that it can send a shiver down the spine of even a built-like a-tank Amby - leave alone a feather-weight M800 that could easily turn over in disgust.

So it was, perhaps, inevitable that some time back one of my close friends and a car lover asked me for a possible remedy to save his beloved possession from such recurring assaults. Unfortunately, it’s somewhat like trying to finding a cure for common cold but this is how the dialogue went…

Ailment:
Dear SKG: Have you ever come across any article on how to close car doors effectively and ‘properly’. I wish to forward it to my friends, aiming especially those who slam the doors with all their might. This is one issue which has irritated me since childhood. SB.

Prognosis:
None that I know of SB but I have some thoughts about it, with myself having been a victim all along. There’s no empirical formula that one can make others follow when it comes to closing car doors ‘properly’, coz the ‘basic’ variables are beyond any one’s control, if not comprehension - viz -

a) I guess it’s been the experience of all of us sensitive types that people who bang them the hardest are the ones who either don’t own cars themselves or care about them even if they did, coz they’re insensitive to the hurt it causes to others who own and care about them.

b) No two car/models’ doors’ will ever require the same ‘effort’ to close them ‘properly’ i.e. without a jarring bang. In fact on my new Baleno, from day one, the driver-side door closes harder compared to the rest due to some misalignment that I’ve not bothered to get fixed coz - i) it’s reasonably rattle-free, and ii) I’m at its wheel most times and by now I know how hard to bang it!

c) In my younger days, when pitted against such a lot, I used to leap out of the car before they could and do it myself for them so that they couldn’t over-bang them, making it look like a courtesy gesture at the same time. Telling them to do it softly before letting them do it would have been rather impolite and above all, a waste of breath most times!

d) The cabins of present day cars are quite ‘airtight’ due to AC and other/dust-free requirements. This requires the ‘last’ door a significantly harder bang to close it ‘properly’ when ‘all’ other windows are rolled up including its own - especially with the AC control in ‘re-circ’ mode.

e) Incidentally, the Santro I have has a small/conical rubber piece mounted on the door/body frame, tho’ vulnerable to getting yanked-off when mulled by crude car-cleaners. Hyundai call it ‘bumper-door-anti-slam’! I really don’t know how effective it’s but it’s heartening to note that at least some OEM has given the matter some thought!

f) Btw, some of the higher end Merc’s have had a push button/electric door closing mechanism now for quite some years, designed not so much I reckon as to take the sting out of a possible bang but as an up market luxury feature.

g) However, during my recent visit to France, I saw that a 1.3 lr Peugeot delivery van, somewhat bigger than our Omni, had a push button on the Dash to enable the driver close the rear sliding door electrically after his cargo was picked up, so that i) he didn’t have to get out on a busy street to manually do it himself and hold up the traffic behind him in the process and, ii) there being no ‘chhotu’ to do the needful in their scarce man-power scenario.

To sum-up, till such time the ‘auto door close’ features trickle down to our affordable levels, I guess we’ll have to just grin and bear it. And where does it all leave us the oppressed minority - back to square one - unless one is prepared to get out and do it oneself as a ‘courtesy gesture’ and hold-up the following traffic in the process?!