optionray

Or, does the fiberglass spring back or crack? Any pics? My wife routinely takes the car shopping and i've never seen any door/body dings and was just curious if we have been lucky, or if it had to do with the body being fiberglass.

Blue2015

A ding or a crack would be difficult. However, the paint could definitely chip.

mksz51

Modern Corvettes do not have fiberglass door skins. They are sheet-molded-composite. The paint can chip and the material can dent or crack if hit hard enough.

JCar

But definitely more resilient than sheet metal.
Jeff

ckwhite

People who open their doors on my car infuriate me! I even broke both my legs so that I could get a handicapped plaque to get a wider parking spot!

beachcomber

Now that's funny!

owc6

The rest of us just park out in the hinterlands and come back to find the car surrounded anyway.

Vetteman Jack

And there is always some jerk out there that will test out just how durable the panels are.

Cheech Wizard

Randy G.

grandpawmoses

I had to park at a convenience store on my way home for a loaf of bread (yeah, it's PB&J sandwiches now). I parked far from the door where no one was parked. When I came out all the clunkers were parked around me and not close to the door. It must be some intergalactic law of physics about opposites attracting.

Larry/car

I don't need any help, I can and did mark up my own car, in the garage. I try not to stress, in a year or two I will have another.

BigJoe

Not on my C7 but on my C6 (similar material) I watched once on a very windy day an old geezer lost control of the door on his car when getting out and banged my door HARD. I expected the worst from the look of the hit, but it resulted in just a small chip in the paint. Those doors are pretty strong...

2014C7

So what exactly IS sheet molded composite?

Never did or forgot to ask in my excitement at museum delivery.

irok

plastic

mksz51

Essentially true. Many different formulations with a variety of substrates (including fiberglass) and resin. More stable than fiberglass but not as stable as metal. Panels expand and contract with temperature changes - that has to be a factor in why panel fit on a "plastic car" will never be as good as a metal car.

owc6

That's not the hinterlands, that was the front row. Things like that give the rest of us a bad rep.

EcoBrick Bob

That's stupid. It is much easier to get a handicapped plate by staring at the Sun for a few days and going blind.

Cobraboy

SMC is fiberglass, very similar to traditional fiberglass. It is just supplied ready to go with the fibres and resin and release agent already in the sheet. Once it is molded it is very similar to traditional fiberglass; the release agent does make painting a little trickier, but that doesn't come into this discussion.

BigJoe

Except when it does crack you are left with a very clean crack, almost like a knife cut, instead of the raggedy edges you see with a traditional fiberglass panel. I've seen cracks in both, fiberglass on my 1970 and SMC on my 2000. Fiberglass is repairable, SMC is normally just replaced. Not sure if that is because it is not repairable, though.