Parking sensors

Parking sensors might help...

Mine is almost like that. You can see the first few inches of the bonnet if you're tall like me, but where the leading edge of the bumper is is just guesswork unitl you get used to it.

Heh. friend of mine tried to grab the wheel of my VW bus because he was convinced I was driving into a lamp post. Couldn't get his head round there being no projection at all in front of the windscreen.

David Taylor wrote on 19/07/2009 :

OK!

Mine has four sensors at the rear. A small graphic LED display lights up when you select reverse, which indicates any 'returns' it picks up and their distance from your bumper. It also indicates which side the 'return' is from.

It first triggers at 0.7m and counts down as you reverse towards an object 0.7, 0.6 down to 0.1 then flashes P when you are a couple of inches away. The display also sounds a pulsating tone, which pulsates faster as you get nearer to the object, then becomes continuous at P.

It suffers false positives if the ground is rough, curves up, or there is a close object off to the side, but you can mentally filter these out because they will remain always longer range indications. It is also possible for it to miss an object if the object is vertical, narrow, located between two sensors and at very close range (less than

Being certain of being able to reverse up to another cars bumper and stop 2" clear, makes it so much easier to park and unpark making parking very much easier than risking guessing at the length of my car.

In message , Conor writes

And I bet you have a notice on the back which says: "If you can't see my mirrors, I can't see you".

No I haven't. I've had some straw grasping bollocks given...

Indeed but the car you're parking behind hasn't.

Eh? You said you needed sensors because you don't know where an object is in relation to your vehicle but now you're saying that you actually know that you can ignore it because its picking up a close object off the side.

Are you sure?

So it'll miss a pole like the ones in the local car park that are placed along the middle of the rear of every parking bay.

In short, it's useless.

So if the space they're trying to get into is so small that they need to get within a couple of inches of the car either side to get in, how did they know it'd be big enough in the first place?

According to Harry's post here: Message-ID:

His can't pick up a narrow vertical object that's close and inbetween two sensors, such as a post directly in line with the middle of the car....

Nope.

It's specifically the front, not the sides, that's an issue, because of the shape and visibility of the bumper.

However they may be driving 12" from other objects such as roadside railings, oncoming vehicles on narrow roads...

So how do they drive out of the parking space without hitting the vehicle in front then? Are you claiming that the people claiming to "need" these sensors spend all their time smacking the car in front as they pull out of a parking space?

No because its utter nonsense, thus proving that they are capable of judging where the front is and its down to sheer laziness.

Sorry Conor, you're wrong.

For a start, I didn't say need, I said that some cars "some cars might benefit", meaning it might make things /easier/.

In the car concerned, the front bumper is longer in the middle and curves away towards the corners. Also, generally in a average car park, if you driver forwards into a space, you want to pull forward as far as you can, but you aften have enough room to come out fairly straight (as the aisles are quite wide), so avoiding clouting the cars either side is pretty easy. Avoiding the bollard at the end of the space less so.

Both the people mentioned are perfectly capable of judging with enough accuracy to park their own cars, and I'm perfectly able to park mine. I just think that it would make it easier for someone not used to the car- you started the thread with:

You may have a point with some cars- a friend has a BMW with front sensors, even though most of the bonnet is visible (at least, it is if you're my height) and the front of the car that isn't visible projects little beyond that. Come to that, if you really can't see, you could get out and look, but that doesn't negate the fact that some cars might benefit from front sensors. I don't in a million years think they're essential- I've never had them.

A few in my street could do with them if the scuff marks on the corners of my bumper are to go by.

MattF

So nowhere near as bad as old cars with proper bumpers then.

Again, we're back to incompetency.

And? Until the late 90's, virtually ALL cars had bumpers that stuck out way beyond what they do now.

That's not the front that's the sides.

If I don't see one on a large truck I regard it as implicit anyway. If you are unlucky enough stop close behind one in a small car and he has to back up a yard or so . . .

No definitely worse. The last car I owned with proper bumpers was a Mk2 Golf. The edge of the bonnet was visible, and the bumper stuck out about

I think we'll have to disagree on that. I don't see how the inability to judge the last few imches would make anyone incompetent. It's better to be able to judge it, but driving on the road you shouldn't be that close anyway :-).

My plastic bumper is pretty deep. I'm not running out with a tape measure, but that, and the prtion of bonnet that can't be seen from the drivers seat is quite a bit. Certainly, between the two, the Mk2 Golf made things easier.

Actually, on the subject, I hadn't realised quite how crap the visibility from my Leon was until I drove the Lupo today... Thick pillars, letterbox view at the rear etc.