Date: Wed, 13 Aug 1997 01:10:14 -0500
Sender: Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@vanagon.com>
From: ronclay@ldd.net (Ron Clayton)
Subject: Re: beware of parking garages!
Let me add one more cationary note to the good advise about parking garages:
A couple of years ago in Chicago I allowed an attendant to take my Vanagon
up, and then down one of those spiral ramps into a parking garage. ...ever
notice how many vans of all makes have dings and crunches just in front of
the right side rear wheel?? peope who do not drive vans do not judge tuning
radius very well and when in a hurry may not even notice that they have
damaged your vehicle. I was lucky, the garage paid for the repair.
>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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