A warning tale...

The slightly larger rear tyre and track width caught me out this evening when I managed to get the F-Type wedged in between the kerbs on the entrance to an underground carpark. The fronts fitted with a good two inches to spare each side but the rears being a couple of inches further out got trapped at the end. With a one-way barrier behind the car at that point I had no choice but to intentionally further kerb both rear wheels or abandon it till the morning and see if the operators could lift the barrier so I could reverse out. I figured seeing as the wheels were already kerbed at that point and it was the final foot of kerb I had nothing further to lose.

2/3rds of both rear wheels are badly kerbed as a result. They are the 20" Storm forged black/polished alloys, so it is the polished edge to the rim that has been destroyed. Cosmetic damage only I think, I don't believe any structural damage was caused. Thankfully the almost new tyres appear ok.

I am very peeved off at the carpark operators though because the entrance sign said width limit 6ft 6 inches, which is a few inches wider than the bodywork width of the car with the mirrors in. The kerbs were clearly set at less than that. I'm also peeved that they narrowed the kerbs right at the end once you have already committed to entering the carpark so you have no option but to continue onwards. There was no need for it either - the carpark was open plan with loads of manoeuvring space. I'll investigate if the fact the width was clearly signposted at greater than the kerbs allowed gives me any redresss against the operators.

On the plus side, I was impressed that I managed to line the car up completely dead-centre. It's hard to judge the front corners of the car and I managed it perfectly that time!

I have yet to see the damage in daylight so I'll look forward to that in the morning. And I'll look forward to booking the car in to have the wheels stripped and refurbed while relieving me of a suitably obnoxious amount of money for the privilege.

Thinking of ways to prevent this happening again, I wonder if fitting aftermarket cameras under the front valance at the junction with the wheel arch liners and connecting them up to the display when the front parking sensor button is activated and the vehicle is not in reverse might be a good idea? That way I could see both front wheels. Not as a permanent video override, but replacing the standard reverse parking camera video signal which appears to be a simple analogue signal. Maybe even one covering each wheel so I could combine the feed into the four corners of the display to get a 'wheels down' view when moving forward with the PDC button activated and the camera mode active.

I'll crack my multimeter out next weekend and have a play to see how the PDSTAT/PDC ILLUM (LED signal) wire is used as that would make it simpler than having to eavesdrop on the CAN bus. Interfacing with the touch screen looks simple enough from the schematics as the rear camera module outputs the signal to the screen directly. It's worth a shot. I've attached the relevant technical docs to this post in case anyone else wants to chip in with some advice on how it could be done.

 

Sorry to hear that, very frustrating and unnecessary by the sounds of it. I have used a mobile service here who do a range of repairs including paintless dent removal, minor paint touch ups etc and he also does repairs to kerbed wheels as long as the damage is only cosmetic. They are wizards and do an amazing job. Maybe you have similar people there. These guys come out to your work and do it in the carpark.

 

Dave, I feel your pain, so sorry to hear of your issues.


Don't know why but certain car park operators, fast food drive thoughs etc, all seem to have these extremely narrow lanes with high built up kerbs, just waiting to scratch / damage your pristine alloys.


I refuse point blank to use them, not because I can't drive, I'm a damn good driver, but even the best get caught from time to time. I refuse to put myself in that scenario and get stressed about it


Hope you get it resolved soon and for much cheapness...

 

Oh geez man, I can feel your pain just reading this story. Sorry to hear this

 

Having had a think about it I'm wondering if the best option might be to nab some wing mirror assemblies from an XE or XF with the 360 degree parking cameras and swap them over so I can have neatly mounted wide-angle cameras in the wing mirrors. The mirror caps and glass are all interchangable so the mouldings themselves might be too.

The OEM camera systems on those models use standard LVDS between the cameras and their control module and there are plenty of aftermarket modules that can use them directly as inputs or even convert them. I could even run one aftermarket camera from the front hidden behind the grill and use the input from the OEM rear via the back of the touchscreen so I have all four sides of the car covered and feed it into one of those Chinese panoramic camera modules that use the 4 camera inputs and stitch them together into a top-down view. (They self-calibrate by using patterned cloths/tape placed around the car so it knows how to stitch the images together.)

I could then feed the output from one of those modules into a NAV TV module as the front camera video. That module replaces the OEM rear camera screen with its own switchable front/rear toggle screen, so I would be able to toggle between rear only (with the OEM configurable overlays) and 360 degree top-down using the factory touch screen.

I could just fit a NAV TV and a front camera, but I'm not sure a front-facing camera would help to avoid situations like this evenings where you need to check very close wheel clearances and slow speeds. The obvious thing is to test that out first, and if it isn't good enough look at adding the mirror cameras too.

Jag really need to offer 360 cameras on a car this awkwardly wide. They do it now on all their other models but as far as I can tell the 2016 F Type still doesn't get it as an option.

 

Wow . . . I don't know how anyone ever survived in the world a few decades ago. I can't believe I've made it into my 6th decade.

 

I can't believe I was successful before cell phones, but it was a pain to always carry quarters. Those of us not into our 6th decade would have had a breakdown!

 

Whilst I get the sentiment, particularly with a car like the F Type, it's a bit like having airbags. Hopefully you'll never need to use them but if you do find yourself needing them it is always useful to have them there. I rarely use the rear view cameras in any car (mainly because I forget they are there) but when I do it is for a quick visual check before looking out the windows again.

Sadly in the UK we have an issue with carparks having tiny spaces and manoeuvring areas designed for 1960's cars that were 2 feet narrower than the ones we drive today with all their side-impact protection. Even newly built carparks keep the tiny spaces. The general standard for a space should be a minimum of 2.4m/8ft wide, yet many underground and multistory carparks restrict that even further. Having kerbs set to less 6ft is silly, but if an operator wants to do so they can but they should not errect signs stating the maximum width is greater than the kerbs allow. The whole point of having the signs outside the entrances is to allow you to judge if your vehicle will fit.

There is a multistory I park my XJL in near my office that has different coloured kerbs at the base of the entrance ramp each time I park there. The colours change depending on which car has scraped the kerb that day. I can get the XJL in easily enough because I am used to judging the clearance so don't get caught out, but there is zero visibility of the kerb at all times because of the steep decline.

Driving on the continent where they use the wrong side of the road is painful without front cameras. Carparks are built in the same way with high kerbs but you typically have a kick off in the wrong direction at the bottom of ramps which always catches me out as it is the opposite to what I'm used to.

 

UK - yes. France: on the three occasions (so really not statistically significant...) I've parked in French supermarket car parks the spaces were wide enough fully open the doors on both sides. Something to do with the realisation that people need to load shopping and children. Would that we could manage the same in the UK without resorting to the special access bays...