Date: Tue, 12 Aug 1997 11:16:21 -0700
Sender: Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@vanagon.com>
From: Kelly Bauman <bauman@ican.net>
Subject: Re: beware of parking garages!
I have never relied on the bar height alone but rather the bar height plus
the stated clearance in feet or meters. The owners manual states the
height in both measures. I use 2.1 meters as a minimum height and have
never had problems. Anyone else out there have clearance stories and/or
tips?
Kelly Bauman
Delta, BC
'91 Westy
At 13:13 12-08-97 -0400, Dan Resler wrote:
>Last weekend I attended a conference in the D.C. area where I stayed
>at a hotel with a basement parking garage. Since this was the only
>parking the hotel offered free, I very slowly and carefully pulled the
>van ('87 Westy) up to the overhead yellow barrier indicating the
>amount of clearance required to park in the garage. I jumped out and
>inspected the situation and ascertained that I had about 4 inches to
>spare to get under the bar.
>
>Well, call me naive, but I said "OK - go for it". I rolled under the
>barrier AOK, then proceeded (very slowly) down the entrance ramp and
>made a right-hand turn into the garage proper. As I was approaching
>the ticket-dispensing machine it happened - scraping sounds from the
>roof area!
>
>Oh dear. I immediately stopped and inspected the situation; the garage
>ceiling was smooth so the distance btw. the ceiling and floor was
>obviously narrowing. Well I wasn't wedged in (if I had been it would
>have been let-some-air-out-of-the-tires-time), so I began the process
>of reversing out of the garage. And that was a very tedious,
>nerve-racking experience which wasn't helped much by the fact that
>there were 2 cars behind me that had to reverse out as well!
>
>No real damage was done to the van, so there's a happy ending to this
>tale.
>
>Moral of the story? Don't blindly trust those height barriers at
>parking garages!
>
>dan
>--
>Dan Resler
>
>Dept. of Mathematical Sciences
>Virginia Commonwealth University
>Richmond, VA
>23284-2014 USA
>email: resler@liberty.mas.vcu.edu
>
>
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