# I HATE Rock Trucks!!!!! (long)



## mde83 (May 16, 2005)

I have the worst luck with these freakin rock trucks!!!

I just got my 05 325i about a month and a half ago. It only has 1700 miles on it. This morning, on my way to work, I saw a rock truck about 1/4 mile ahead of me. He was in the left lane (2 lane bridge). It looked like he was passing someone, so I quickly slowed down and got in the right lane. But he apparently was not passing anyone, just riding in the left lane. So I decided to gun it and pass him in the right lane quickly to avoid and rocks he might be dropping. Well, I gunned it and about 3/4 of the way up to him the idiot finally decides to get in the right lane. Now I am only about 10 car lenghts behind him. As he is getting in the right lane and I am quickly getting into the left lane, he drops about 100 pebbles off the back gate of the damned truck. If course my car is pelted with them. 

I slammed on the brakes to get way back, but I am unbelievably pissed at this point. So I decide to quickly catch up to him (in the left lane) and I wrote down the license plate number, the company name and phone number (which was printed on the truck). As I am doing this the rock truck decides he wants back in the left lane, but I am beside him now writing down the information. So he slows down and so do I (because I am still copying the information). This pisses him off and he lays on his horn and flips me the bird. Of course I do likewise (good thing I did not have a gun...j/k).

I pulled over in a parking lot to inspect the damage. It was less severe than I thought because the pepples were apparently really sand nuggets (sand marks on my car). But nonetheless I have about 5 (maybe more) small rock chips in the bumper, 2 or 3 on the front of the hood, 1 small chip in my headlight cover (Xenon if it matters) and some marks on my windshield (I don't know if the windshield is chipped - I don't think it is). 

I called the trucking company and read them the riot act. I should have been calm, but I was beside myself at this point. I explained to him that I knew the law about this (because it has happend to me twice in the past) and if the rocks come off the truck as opposed to the truck kicking up the rocks from the road, then the Company is liable. Anyway, the first thing he asked is if I was following too close! Then I lost it and explained (yelled) the situation and my history with rock trucks in an effort to get through to him that I am ultra careful when I encounter these stupid trucks on the road. I exchanged the information with this guy, who reversed course and seemed fairly concerned, and he told me he would talk to the driver and his insurance guy and get back to me. 

As of now he has not called back. The thing is that I probably will not get this fixed anyway because I do not want my whole bumper and hood repainted for a few rock chips. I am quite a bit calmer than I was this morning. I am not looking to screw them, but I think they need to be held accountable on principal. I mean this happens to people ALL THE TIME. So I figure when we talk again, I will tell him that I will take the car to get an estimate and let him know. I will actually take the car to the dealer and ask them how much to repaint what needs to be repainted and replace the headlight cover. Then I will turn that in to them and see what happens. I am sure to repaint and replace the cover will cost $1000 at least at a dealer... If I were to get a settlement maybe I would use that money to get a clear bra. 

Do you all think that is reasonable? I am starting to get more angry the more time that goes by that the guy does not call me back. If I don't hear from him by tomorow morning I am going to call them again. In the meantime, when I get home from work (I am on lunch break now) I am going to rinse off the front of my car and get a better idea just what the damages are other than what I could see this morning.

Any feedback or experience with this type if situation would be most appreciated.


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## Rob325_in_AZ (Oct 22, 2004)

I was struck by the rock monster twice in my first few thousand miles (one resulted in replacing a windshield) and the other gave me a nice chip on my hood. 

I certainly understand being disgusted. My perspective now on these things is that nobody notices these things except me. Everyone else will think you have a spotless, beautiful car, and not even notice unless you point it out to them. 

I have a friend with a brand new Audi A4 who was upset when he got his first scratch. I showed him the little tiny dings on mine to make him feel better, and he had never noticed any of these, always thinking my car was pristine.

Next time you see a beautiful clean car, take a closer look and you'll probably see lots of these kind of things.

All that said, I do think they (the gravel trucks) should be held accountable. Where I live, they are required by law to have a tarp covering the back. :dunno:


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## mde83 (May 16, 2005)

Rob325_in_AZ said:


> All that said, I do think they (the gravel trucks) should be held accountable. Where I live, they are required by law to have a tarp covering the back. :dunno:


Well he did have the tarp on the truck covering the load. Usually when this happens it is due to one of 2 things. When the front end loader loads the gravel truck, there is usually somebody responsible for taking a broom abnd sweeping off the back bumper of the truck before the driver takes off. In fact it is usually the driver's responsibility to make sure this is done. When they do not do it, it is usually the pile of residual gravel and dirt that flies off the back bumper and gets deposited all over the road. The other cause is when the truck has too big of a load and the gravel is piled up higher than the back top part of the tailgate. Even with the net/tarp in this case, the gravel still flies out of the back of the truck.

In my case this morning, the rocks/sand came off the bumper of the truck.


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## thrillhill (Aug 21, 2002)

Sounds like you were following too close to the truck. Why did you do that?


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## mde83 (May 16, 2005)

thrillhill said:


> Sounds like you were following too close to the truck. Why did you do that?


thrillhill :violent: 

Yeah, next time I see a rock truck in front of me I guess I should just pull off the road entirely. No kidding, I may very well do that...


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## Rob325_in_AZ (Oct 22, 2004)

mde83 said:


> thrillhill :violent:
> 
> Yeah, next time I see a rock truck in front of me I guess I should just pull off the road entirely. No kidding, I may very well do that...


You could, but I doubt it would do much good. After my early experiences, I became rock-truck shy. In fact I followed _all_ trucks at a great distance because there is so much gravel on the sides of the highways here in AZ. Oddly, I didn't notice much difference. Still got hit by little tiny rocks. 

So finally decided to just try my best to be careful, but not be obsessive about it. Dings are a part of having a daily driver as opposed to a garage-queen. If you have bad damage, then I guess you'll have to bite the bullet and get it fixed.

I really sympathize with you though. On principal, I would like to see them held accountable.


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## MR325iT (Feb 21, 2002)

I hate gravel trucks.

I must rant about it sometimes, because when my kids are in the car, they shout "daddy! gravel truck!" every time there's one on the freeway. The next generation of automotive neat-freaks is already well-trained.

On the road, all I usually do is go wide around them and try to get by as quickly as possible. I just don't have the time or frustration tolerance to chase down the drivers and make calls. Increasingly, I look at small rock chips as normal wear and tear, something I have little power over.


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## mde83 (May 16, 2005)

MR325iT said:


> I hate gravel trucks.
> 
> I must rant about it sometimes, because when my kids are in the car, they shout "daddy! gravel truck!" every time there's one on the freeway. The next generation of automotive neat-freaks is already well-trained.
> 
> On the road, all I usually do is go wide around them and try to get by as quickly as possible. I just don't have the time or frustration tolerance to chase down the drivers and make calls. Increasingly, I look at small rock chips as normal wear and tear, something I have little power over.


I agree. Its just when you have a NEW car, and first BMW especially, its such a great feeling to have a "flaw-free" pristine vehicle. Now it is flawed...

I am a total car neat freak though. So much so that every six months I actually jack my cars up and get underneath them and detail the undercarriage. I wax my cars at least once a month and put multiple coats of wax (Zaino) every time. I know...I am really messed up.

I still am going to pursue this issue with the truck company. If nothing else comes out of it, hopefully, at the very least, the guy will have a talk with the driver or the front end loader and they will be more careful -- for a couple days at least...


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## Mr. E (Dec 19, 2001)

I try to be careful of trucks in general. What pisses me off most though are the rock trucks with big signs that say "Not responsible for broken winshields." WTF?! Like hell you aren't! :liar:


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## LmtdSlip (May 28, 2003)

Yep, have lost three fog lights and one hood dent to rock trucks in the past 18 months.

It dosent seem to matter how far behind them you are....


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## mde83 (May 16, 2005)

Well the guy at the trucking company never called me back. When I got home from work, I washed the front of my car. There are probably about 12 rock chips on the front bumper. 11 of those are so small they are the size of a pen point and you would not notice them unless you were ME. The 12th one is about the size of an eraser head and is right to the outside of the passenger fog light. To this one is noticable even from 5 feet away.

Other than that, the front of the hood only has 2 very small chips. However, the windsheild has 4 small chips. They almost look like dust on the windsheild (a reference to size), but they are definitely chips. 2 of them are in the driver field of vision and the other 2 are in each of the bottom corners of the windshield. In addition, the passenger headlight cover has a farily noticable chip in it.

I am going to call the jerk from the trucking company tomorrow morning and tell him that he should at least pay for the windsheild and to touch up (by a professional) the larger chip on the bumper and replace the headlight cover. If he is nice I will tell him just to give me $400 and call it even. If he goes for that I will use that money for a clear bra. If he is an ass and refuses to accept responsibility, I will tell him that I will be in contact with my lawyer and will sue not only for the aforementioned damage in actual cost (windshield, headlight), but for the repaint of the bumper and hood as well. I am sure all of that would cost well over $1000 at the dealership or the best body shop in town. And I will actually go and get the estimates and present them to the trucking company. In actuality I will probably not contact a lawyer for $1000, it would not be worth my time...but he does not know that. Plus I do not want my car re-painted at all.


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## Rob325_in_AZ (Oct 22, 2004)

If you end up not getting it done professionally, I would suggest getting a touchup paint kit from the dealer and just dabbing it over the bigger chip on the bumper. It will never match the original glossy smooth texture, but it will be less noticeable than exposed primer. I've done this a number of times and up close it's fairly obvious, but 5 feet away you don't notice. Especially on the lower surfaces of the car where there isn't as much glare from the sunlight.


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## mde83 (May 16, 2005)

Rob325_in_AZ said:


> If you end up not getting it done professionally, I would suggest getting a touchup paint kit from the dealer and just dabbing it over the bigger chip on the bumper. It will never match the original glossy smooth texture, but it will be less noticeable than exposed primer. I've done this a number of times and up close it's fairly obvious, but 5 feet away you don't notice. Especially on the lower surfaces of the car where there isn't as much glare from the sunlight.


Yeah touching up the larger chip "by a professional" was just something I was going to tell the trucking company a-hole. If I do anything with it at all I will just touch it up myself.

So the deadlers do sell a touch up paint kit? What is in the kit besides the pait and a small brush?

The chips on the windsheild are bothering me now, because I absolutely hate a dirty windshield and the 2 chips are right in front of my line of vision. This WILL drive me nuts over time. I have had older cars that the windshields were just sand blown to heck and back and were all hazy and pitted. I can remember wishing that a rock truck would send a big old rock into my windshield and crack it so that I could get a new one (from my insurance company). I know I could have taken a golf ball and hammer and created by own cracked windshield, but I am too gutless to committ insurance fraud...


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## Terry Kennedy (Sep 21, 2002)

mde83 said:


> So the deadlers do sell a touch up paint kit? What is in the kit besides the pait and a small brush?


Yes. It is a bottle of paint and a bottle of clearcoat. Other possibilities are the Autosharp pens from Autovisuals (I think they're a board sponsor). There is also a touchup system (paint not included) from Langka. While I haven't used any of these products, I will be doing an article on them sometime this summer.


> The chips on the windsheild are bothering me now, because I absolutely hate a dirty windshield and the 2 chips are right in front of my line of vision. This WILL drive me nuts over time.


BMW glass seems to be particularly soft and prone to pitting. From your description, you might just be able to put a drop of superglue on each and then polish them down with glass polish. You can get chips professionally repaired ($35 to $50 each), but that is generally only needed when they have started to spider.


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## mde83 (May 16, 2005)

Terry Kennedy said:


> Yes. It is a bottle of paint and a bottle of clearcoat. Other possibilities are the Autosharp pens from Autovisuals (I think they're a board sponsor).


I am defintely interested in one of these 2 products. Especially the pen. I have seen, in passing, some threads about it on this board. I am going to have to do some reading to see what people think of it. Thanks.


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## cwsqbm (Aug 4, 2004)

thrillhill said:


> Sounds like you were following too close to the truck. Why did you do that?


Are you following too close when you try to go by in the other lane? I've been hit by rocks while still farther than two seconds behind the truck. In Illinois, it looks like the police has finally become militant with the truckers, as I now see trucks w/o covers pulled over all the time. When I got rid of my Saturn (at 230k miles), the hood was so bad it looked like it took several hits from a shotgun at long range. It almost looked like hail damage, but they were acquired one at a time, and the metal roof was fine.


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## stewthebassman (Nov 10, 2004)

MR325iT said:


> The next generation of automotive neat-freaks is already well-trained.


My wife is already pissed at me 'cause my 3 and 4 year old girls are the same! They even have their own Junior Wash Buckets with cute toy shaped sponges and chammys with froggies on them!

Oh, and I follow trucks at great distance too, but when you're on the road all the time it's gonna happen.


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## mde83 (May 16, 2005)

stewthebassman said:


> My wife is already pissed at me 'cause my 3 and 4 year old girls are the same! They even have their own Junior Was Buckets with cute toy shaped sponges and chammys with froggies on them!


Now that is CUTE.


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## Tangent (Jan 18, 2004)

I hate those damned things. They are the sole reason why any new or freshly painted car of mine will get a clear bra installed. What really irritates me is that they also tear the **** out of the roads. My drive in to work used to take a beautiful winding road that was very recently repaved and was always free of traffic. Now not even a year after the repaving the road it already torn up because a gravel company opened up half way through there and the traffic is a PITA because they naturally pull out in front of 60mph traffic the moment they see a 3 carlength opening. Nevermind that if they would have waited 5 seconds they could have had perfectly clear road, no, they need to to pull out in fromt of the 5 cars in the pack so they could proceed to pepper them with rocks and slow them to 45 mph.

I understand that alot of car drivers make trucker's lives hard, but to be fair a very large percentage of truck drivers are major assholes too. I can't even describe how livid I would get on the drive home following the detour I hat to take while the nice road was getting resurfaced. It was a 2-lane each direction highway through a relatively steep windy road. 65mph limit, and that really was the max you'd want to drive with other cars around. Of course trucks would be stuck doing 20-25mph. I can sympathize with their inability to go faster up the grade. What I do _not_ sympathize with is the pecker-head truckers who would ignore the huge "Trucks right lane only" signs and pull out at 26mph so they could spend the next 3 miles passing the other truck doing 25.


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## TeamM3 (Dec 24, 2002)

... then GOD created Langka and all was good in the world :eeps:


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