Parking a bigger car

[Anonymous]

Don’t park in compact spots.

[Anonymous]

Please take some parking lessons OP.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The only thing you’ll have to pay attention with the larger car is the height. Most spaces here are large enough. I have a civic and a pilot, and the only difference I find is in height - some garages with low ceilings don’t accommodate the pilot as well.

but if you’re getting something larger like the sequoia or Yukon or Denali then you may also need to pay attention to width of space though most garages have a mix of spaces.

A newish honda pilot is tiny...not much larger than a CRV.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You are not a good driver and parker if you are worried about this. It's the same as parking any other car, you go in the middle of the space. If a space is too tight, you find another one.

The bolded is important. You need to accept that a larger vehicle won't fit in as many places. You need to get comfortable with spending more time looking for parking and being willing to park further away. Alternatively you could get comfortable with taking a smaller car on road trips. When I was a kid, people did road trips all the time with four people in a sedan or station wagon, so unless you have more than 2 kids, you might want to re-evaluate if you really "need" a bigger vehicle.

[Anonymous]

I downsized and just rent a big SUV for longer road trips.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Backing in is a next level skill. Not everyone is able to master it.

Oh please. It's dumb and completely unnecessary. I see more people struggling to make the angle while backing in than just pulling in and getting it over with.

The true idiots back into the angled spots

[Anonymous]

I drive a Jeep Rubicon. I can get that thing into any parking space.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Backing in is a next level skill. Not everyone is able to master it.

How did you learn

MAGA school on Fox News

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You are not a good driver and parker if you are worried about this. It's the same as parking any other car, you go in the middle of the space. If a space is too tight, you find another one.

The bolded is important. You need to accept that a larger vehicle won't fit in as many places. You need to get comfortable with spending more time looking for parking and being willing to park further away. Alternatively you could get comfortable with taking a smaller car on road trips. When I was a kid, people did road trips all the time with four people in a sedan or station wagon, so unless you have more than 2 kids, you might want to re-evaluate if you really "need" a bigger vehicle.

You mean these? These were huge:

[Anonymous]

I am currently adjusting from a Forester to now a Sienna. I am a pretty confident front end and parallel parker, but the length of this van is definitely an adjustment. I definitely have to be choosier about spots now, and often end up farther away than in the past. I don't love backing in to spots, but maybe it's time to give that a whirl.

[Anonymous]

We have a compact SUV and a minivan. My spouse and I don't have a vehicle that is mine vs theirs, instead we pick which to drive based on where we are going. Long trip = minivan. Driving into DC and street parking = compact SUV. You may find yourself making similar decisions if you have more than one car.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:For gods sake please don’t back in

Backing in forever and ever unapologetically amen.

I truly don't get this. I would be nervous about backing in to a narrow area with cars on either side that I could scrape. Going forward, easy. Backing into large area, easy. How did backer inners get the nonchalance about backing in?

Backing into a narrow spot is as easy and often easier than going in forward. If driving forward is easy because you know where your front wheels are and how the front of your car pivots about them, backing up is easy because you know how the back of your car pivots about your front wheels. You just get used to it. I was forced to become proficient at parking in tight spaces because I had to parallel park on the street in San Francisco, nyc and Boston before the day of backup cameras. And I lived in Asia and had to park so close to other cars in garages that I had to climb out the back more than I care to remember. I had one nightmare garage situation for 6 months where I had to back up a narrow spiral ramp. I hated every second of it. In general, I think drivers in the U.S. are accustomed to huge parking spaces for their huge cars and they are not as skilled at parking because they don’t have to be. If you ever see a valet in Asia, you will be amazed.

If I hadn’t been forced to park in tight quarters, I wouldn’t have learned on my own. It’s not a skill I set out to learn, but now that I have it, I prefer to park backwards when no one is behind me and when I don’t have to access my trunk. And for all the people who hate drivers who park backwards, I’ll bet they are never annoyed when they are searching for a spot in a full lot, and a car vacates a space by pulling forward neatly and efficiently.

[Anonymous]

Get one with a 360 degree camera. I have that on my midsize SUV/crossover (Lexus RX) and it has made parking easy, even in tight DC garages in older buildings. With some of these there is zero margin for error.

It’s also helpful for pulling into tight parking garages where you see the curbs and wall around the entry ticket machine are covered with scrapes from other cars constantly hitting them.

In many SUVs the 360 camera is an upgrade and sometimes only comes on higher trim levels, but it has saved me money by not having to repair scraped rims and scuffed panels.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You are not a good driver and parker if you are worried about this. It's the same as parking any other car, you go in the middle of the space. If a space is too tight, you find another one.

The bolded is important. You need to accept that a larger vehicle won't fit in as many places. You need to get comfortable with spending more time looking for parking and being willing to park further away. Alternatively you could get comfortable with taking a smaller car on road trips. When I was a kid, people did road trips all the time with four people in a sedan or station wagon, so unless you have more than 2 kids, you might want to re-evaluate if you really "need" a bigger vehicle.

You mean these? These were huge:

Literally my car in high school. But I was in the sticks so parking never an issue.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Always back into the spot so you can easily get out without hitting anyone.

+1
I also always park far away.