How to Help Yourself Park in The Garage Without Hitting The Wall

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By desolator144
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Do you have bad depth perception, are elderly, or are just bad at parking in your garage without hitting something? Well there's a simple solution for helping you park perfectly every time.

Difficulty: Moderately Easy

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

string or rope
tennis ball
large nail
knife
hook screw
drill

Step 1

First you need to park the car at the perfect position in your garage. You'll probably want to have someone help you from the outside so they can tell you how far to go up.
Step 2

the basic idea

Once it's perfect, you need to somehow get above the hood of your car and find the perfect spot to hang a string down. The basic idea is to put a tennis ball on the string and hang it from the ceiling so you'll know to pull up until it just barely touches the windshield of the car. Do that every time and you're set. If you're having trouble picturing it, see the poorly drawn diagram attached to this step. So you'll want to move the string around on the ceiling and let it hang down completely straight until it's about midway down your windshield in front of the driver's side.
Step 3

a hook screw

Once you have the correct location, either mark it with a pencil or just take out the drill and drill a small hole right away. Once you have the hole drilled, twist in a hook screw. They look like the image attached to this step. This is what you'll tie the string to.
Step 4

how the nail works

Now you need to cut a small slit in the tennis ball with a knife or blade. It has to be big enough to get a nail entirely inside the ball but not too big that the nail will slip out. For the basic idea of how a nail and string suspend the tennis ball, see the attached diagram.
Step 5

Tie the string onto the hook screw in the ceiling and pull the car back in to the exact same spot if you took it out to do the drilling. Now you need to get the height correct. Cut the string so that when the tennis ball is on the end, it will just barely touch the windshield about halfway up.
Step 6

Now tie a nail onto the end of the string and stick the whole nail inside the cut you made in the tennis ball. Make sure it's stable and won't fall out then double check to make sure you cut the string to the correct length.
Step 7

Now back out the car and pull it in until the tennis ball rests against the windshield and tada, you're parked in the exact correct spot and will be every time in the future. No more bumper shaped holes in the garage wall!
Step 8

It's worth mentioning that if you don't want to put a hole in your garage ceiling or don't want a tennis ball hanging down all the time, there are alternatives. Look online for garage parking assistants. There are motion/distance sensing ones with lights that tell you when to stop and pressure sensing ones too or just stop bumps that you place in front of the tires so when you feel your car hit them, you stop. My favorite is the laser that you mount on your wall and aim at a certain spot on your dashboard. Then when it senses you pulling in, it turns on and you pull in until the laser is aligned with that certain dashboard spot. The tennis ball option is a lot cheaper though.

Comments

cb4me said

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on 10/3/2009 We had to do this when the kids started driving. Great instructions!

gahazeleyes said

on 6/15/2009 Very good information. Thank u

poshadornment said

on 5/30/2009 I used to know this and forgot it. Thanks for the breakdown in describing how to do it.

dlcass said

on 5/30/2009 I LOVE this article. You must have written it JUST FOR ME : ) I'm such a terrible parker. I'll have my hubby rig one of these up ASAP. Thanks for such wonderful, clear instructions.