Just wondering if anyone regularly uses Active Parking Assist/ Parktronic? I have had my car nearly 2 years and have used it just twice without success at it put the fear of god into me. The first time the road was quite narrow and as the car swung the front was getting too close to the car on the other side of the road. The second time it just wanted to mount the kerb.

 

i use everytime. it making parking a piece of cake. haha

 

In two years, I've used it a handful of times. One time, with perpendicular parking, I thought the car was going to crush the car next to it. The rest of the time was parallel curb parking and it worked fine -- though I watch it like a hawk.

 

I use it often for parallel parking. I find it accurately identifies parallel spots much more often and accurately than perpendicular spots. As long as you go slowly by lightly riding the brakes, it isn't scary. If you let the car back up on its own, it's too fast.

For parallel spots it identifies the open parking space within one car length. You can pull up next to the car in front of the space you want and activate the system. For backing into perpendicular spots, the system identifies a spot only after you pull up two or sometimes threee cars ahead. By then the car in back of you takes the spot.

 

When I first got the car, I thought it was a gimmick and that I'd never use it. 360 camera with parking sensors was what I needed and wanted.

After showing my friends that my car parks itself, I've began using it more and more frequently. (Only Parallel parking, never reverse)

Every time I parallel park, I use the parking assist and it parks the car perfectly. The car, however, backs in way too fast, so I'm always riding the brakes and slowly park it. Another thing I hate is that it backs up really really close to the other car before it stops and tells you to put the car back into 'D' since I usually stop when I hit the yellow lines on the backup camera.

Even though I use it all the time when I parallel park, I still go very slowly and watch it like a hawk. There's been a few instances where it was going to hit another car while parallel parking.

At night, I tend to park it myself and not rely on the parking assist since all my "close encounters" has been at night. One time it turned the wheel too early and it was going to back itself into the car in front while parallel parking. While the other time it didn't know where the curb was(typical sized curb) and it curbed my rims...also at night.

 

Does this defect the purpose? If you have to watch it like a hawk and ride the brake, you might as well do it yourself.

Am I missing something?

 

I just got towed!!

 

Most people have more issue with steering correctly when parallel parking, that's mainly what the system is useful for. It's not meant to be completely autonomous, meaning you do have to apply break and monitor what it's doing.

 

I am deciding if I should take this option.
I do not do too much parallel parking these days. Is this useful for perpendicular parking ( backing in)?

 

I use it for perpendicular parking whenever I can because it does a better job than I do lining up perfectly between the lines. I'm not kidding... if it backs up all the way in and isn't straight, it will pull up and re-align to be centered. I'm quite impressed with it although it's scary as hell how close it comes to the other cars. Go slow, you can always cancel it.

So far it screwed up only on 1 occasion... it lined up properly but didn't go all the way back, still had about a meter to go.

 

Good to know. I can understand that it can be scary. Not sure if I will get it.

 

Not sure how it would affect resell down the road, some people that would look for that feature would have it and help you sell more quickly. Dunno. I just went downtown and used it for parallel parking. Now, I'm fairly good at parallel parking but I couldn't have done it in one shot in that tight spot, whereas the car did, so I continue to be impressed.

 

Do you mean that with parktonic, you can park in a tighter place then if you do to yourself? How about getting out from a tight parking spot, does Parktronic help?

I bought my current CLK320 new 13years ago and it has been my daily commute since. This CLK is much simpler car, I can concerned on the repair sof all the new gadgets in the car.

 

I've tried to use it, but, am not confident with it.

1. It always seems to go too close to the car it is besides.
2. You have to control it with the brakes, or, it will operate very fast.
3. Apparently it tries to line up the outside of your car with the car beside it. If the car beside it is narrower, it will curb the wheels, which is a very expensive proposition with AMG wheels.
4. It does seem capable in getting it parked in a smaller gap, but, it is scary to watch it happen.

Overall, I do not like using it.

 

What he said....

 

I've had my C300 for about a month and use street parking a lot in urban areas. For me the parallel parking is great, it's worked perfectly every time. I do agree though that it's almost terrifying if you let it handle the brakes, I don't think it would ever actually hit another car with all the sensors but the stops are jarring. Not that big of an issue though, I've got into quite a few spots that I woudl have passed up in my previous car because they seemed too small.

Perpendicular parking is another story altogether. When it works it's great, but you have to move past a spot for it to find it and there's usually someone behind you so backing up in a parking lot with other people around is pretty much a no go. One time I tried perpendicular parking to show it off to some friends it thought there wasn't a car in a spot where there actually was one, maybe reflections or something. Again I didn't think it woudl actually let me run into the car if I followed through but it was 100% wrong.
That only happened once though, and whenever I find myself alone in parking lot I will use the perpendicular parking. It's just not as useful as parallel parking.

 

I rarely go downtown and if I do, I park in parking lots. So, I mainly do perpendicular parking.

I think there is a lot of variables here. Weather, sensor cleanliness, size of the objects along the path, etc. I am not sure if I can trust it 100%.