Parking a normal size car in a normal size single garage.

Parking a normal size car in a normal size single garage.

Author
Discussion

TommoAE86

2,659 posts

126 months

Wednesday 27th July 2016
quotequote all
Step 1. Put a bit of deep pile carpet on the wall where your doors are likely to hit
- remember to make it longer if you plan on alternating reversing in/driving in front first

Step 2. Park your car in the garage being careful of all edges and the door mechanism


Step 3. BECOME A NINJA! and gracefully fall, squeeze leap out of your pride and joy smile

ukaskew

10,642 posts

220 months

Wednesday 27th July 2016
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Benbay001 said:
Hi.
Does anyone park a normal modern family car of circa 1850mm width in a single garage?
Is it possible to get in and out of a car parked in one without regularly smashing the door on the wall?
Yes, everyday. It's a 2010 Focus (1840mm wide) and I'm not even sure if it's a 'full width' single garage as it was built in 2000 (it's certainly slightly narrower than my parents 1970s garage). It still manages to hold 4 bikes, a lawnmower, tumble dryer, all our camping, biking and gardening gear.

We hang a piece of string with a rubber ball from the ceiling at the exact point where the windscreen touching it means the car is spot on. We also have some rubber matting attached to the wall exactly where the doors open.

105 houses in our road, fairly sure we're the only ones that use our garage for a car.



HustleRussell

24,602 posts

159 months

Wednesday 27th July 2016
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X5TUU said:
HustleRussell said:
I've been looking into this. Seems even my 20 year old 5-series will be very tight in a standard UK garage.
single council garage + Audi A6 (C6 - 2006) = very tight squeeze

the only real solution was to approach it as a dog leg and get around the metal rubbing strip for the up and over door and get as close to the n/s wall as possible without causing any damage.

I used an old memory foam mattress against the front wall to drive into and against as otherwise i couldnt have shut the garage door behind and not have damaged the front bumper.

It is possible, just tight
My BMW is supposedly 196mm shorter and 104mm narrower so it seems it should fit in a standard garage. Thanks, useful information!

iphonedyou

9,234 posts

156 months

Wednesday 27th July 2016
quotequote all
My Scirocco fits into our new build single garage - there's enough room to polish it in the garage but I need to keep the floor fairly clear to do so without too much discomfort.

But for general parking it's no bother.



Edited by iphonedyou on Wednesday 27th July 14:08

ralphrj

3,508 posts

190 months

Wednesday 27th July 2016
quotequote all
Benbay001 said:
Hi.
Does anyone park a normal modern family car of circa 1850mm width in a single garage?
Is it possible to get in and out of a car parked in one without regularly smashing the door on the wall?

Thanks
Ben
10 years ago I used to get an E-Class into the garage of my new build. I fixed some cut offs of carpet to the garage wall to give the car door some protection.

Then I moved to another new build that had, on paper, exactly the same size garage. However, the garage was built with a double layer of breeze blocks in the middle of each wall (presumably to support the roof) which made it impossible to open the door of any car once you had parked it.

phil4

1,203 posts

237 months

Wednesday 27th July 2016
quotequote all
Normal single garage from a 1970's house.

Have carpet tiles (spray glued) onto the wall and used to park my MR2 in there, with no problems, just open the door to the carpet and get out.

Now park the Atom in there, and is much easier, as I park up outside the garage, and then wheel the car in. I've sprayed a couple of measured marks on the floor to give me something to aim for so I know the passenger side will fit. Easy job and takes just a minute.


wormus

14,509 posts

202 months

Wednesday 27th July 2016
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iphonedyou said:
My Scirocco fits into our new build single garage - there's enough room to polish it in the garage but I need to keep the floor fairly clear to do so without too much discomfort.

But for general parking it's no bother.



Edited by iphonedyou on Wednesday 27th July 14:08
Why does it look so sad?

cpjitservices

373 posts

93 months

Wednesday 27th July 2016
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None of my cars have ever fitted in my garage, too tight in the tenfoot to be able to maneuver in. People in the area just use the garages for storage.

alpha channel

1,386 posts

161 months

Wednesday 27th July 2016
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The Alfa? no, the Rover on the other hand (being 6" narrower than the Alfa) fits but I have to have the passenger side up against the wall thanks to the long doors (a late 70's/early 80's bungalow with the garage built by the previous owner... who never used it as a garage). If I'm going to be there long term then I'll add an extra four feet on to it seeing as the rear wall needs a rebuild at some point and I'd really like a workbench in there.

iphonedyou

9,234 posts

156 months

Wednesday 27th July 2016
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wormus said:
Why does it look so sad?
rofl

HD Adam

5,144 posts

183 months

Wednesday 27th July 2016
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Useless PH solution.

Knock the garage down and build one big enough to get a decent sized motor in silly


WRumbled

392 posts

226 months

Wednesday 27th July 2016
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TommoAE86 said:
Step 1. Put a bit of deep pile carpet on the wall where your doors are likely to hit
- remember to make it longer if you plan on alternating reversing in/driving in front first

Step 2. Park your car in the garage being careful of all edges and the door mechanism


Step 3. BECOME A NINJA! and gracefully fall, squeeze leap out of your pride and joy smile
Erm, not sure how a longer carpet will make a difference if you drive / reverse in. Unless you drive in with a LHD and reverse in with a RHD?

The garage I use is non-standard, and is not rectangular in shape, either, more of a parallelogram. As others, carpet on the walls and reverse in getting as close to the NS as possible.

TEKNOPUG

18,844 posts

204 months

Wednesday 27th July 2016
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You need a tennis ball on a piece of string wink

TommoAE86

2,659 posts

126 months

Wednesday 27th July 2016
quotequote all
WRumbled said:
Erm, not sure how a longer carpet will make a difference if you drive / reverse in. Unless you drive in with a LHD and reverse in with a RHD?

The garage I use is non-standard, and is not rectangular in shape, either, more of a parallelogram. As others, carpet on the walls and reverse in getting as close to the NS as possible.
long piece of carpet round the back and down the other side? wink I may have not thought my statement through thumbup

Martin350

3,775 posts

194 months

Thursday 28th July 2016
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This thread reminded me of a photo someone posted on PH a few years ago;








Prizam

2,335 posts

140 months

Thursday 28th July 2016
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The tight fit, or that some one clearly lives in a council flat and owns a Ferrari.


SturdyHSV

10,083 posts

166 months

Thursday 28th July 2016
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Nobody has rolled out the youtube clip of the old man parking his Fiat yet? Shame on you PH.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QksqWRqEfy0

Timberwolf

5,340 posts

217 months

Thursday 28th July 2016
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I stick my S40 in a '70s single garage, it's a little bit tight but not too unmanageable. If nothing else it serves as a good incentive to stay reasonably fit! This is the amount of space I end up with:



At some point I need to take down the horrible insulation the previous owners stuck up and get some carpet tiles to glue on the wall - although that said I've been parking the car there for three years or so and haven't smacked a door into the wall yet.

The main problem with fitting a car in my garage is the brick support pillars halfway down the wall. The Volvo has quite a stubby front and short doors, but anything much larger and I'd be unable to open the door as the pillar would be in the way. Not sure if that's something you could get a builder to fix if necessary - I've done the odd Google search but never found a conclusive answer.

Other problem is that it's not an attached garage, it's in a block... and nobody expects a garage to be used for parking a car in these days. Hence they think it's OK to park across the entrance or use it as a convenient place to dump a van for the weekend; as a result while I don't have too much trouble getting in and out of the garage itself I've had a few occasions where I've had to either make a 96-point turn to line up and inch carefully between two parked vehicles that have left hardly any room to get a car through, or go and find who's decided to just dump their pickup truck across the driveway.

aeropilot

34,299 posts

226 months

Thursday 28th July 2016
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Timberwolf said:
The main problem with fitting a car in my garage is the brick support pillars halfway down the wall. The Volvo has quite a stubby front and short doors, but anything much larger and I'd be unable to open the door as the pillar would be in the way. Not sure if that's something you could get a builder to fix if necessary
What do mean by fix?
If you mean remove them, then that would depend on whether its a detached garage that you can replace the wall restraints on the inside to the outside.
If it's a garage within a block of garages, or semi-detached then you can't really do anything with the supports within the 'party' wall(s).

X5TUU

11,908 posts

186 months

Thursday 28th July 2016
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Martin350 said:
This thread reminded me of a photo someone posted on PH a few years ago;

Just as they rent a council garage doesn't mean they don't live in a nice privately owned house.

The council garage block (12 units) I have a garage in contains some decent exotica including a 911, Renaultsport Spider and a KTM X-Bow ... All of which are owned by people living in privately owned properties ... No need for such conclusion jumping