alexmtl

There's a special place in HELL for people who use their bumpers to park...

That they have a piece of junk they don't care about their own car is OK. But don't ****ing scratch mine!! Yesterday again some d*ck must have had a lot of problem getting in or out his parking space and scratched my rear bumper several times. Not super deep, but anyways enough to ruin my evening.


So our cars have active blind spot assist, active lane assist, automatic high beams and everything, why didn't the german engineers decide to tackle this problem? I mean how hard is it to keep the parking sensors active or semi-active when parked and use the horn when someone gets too close ?

I'm guessing this has to do with battery usage and maybe pedestrian that could trigger it, but come on, this should be nothing the germans can't fix.

Mikegpr03

I smell patent

bluejae

sucks that happened to you...

you've got an interesting idea but i can only imagine the number of heart attacks that could cause by someone just walking by... =P

also... by the time your car honks, that car will likely have hit you already... and you still wouldn't know who did it...

what we need is dash cams... front and back at least... records while parked when there is motion or when there is impact...

alexmtl

Dash cams are nice but they can't prevent the hit. I'd like to avoid the disappointment I have when noticing new scratches on my car... and also avoid the hassle to file something with the police that get associated with your car report when you try to sell it (happened to me on my previous car..).

Pedestrian could be filtered out by checking how many sensors are reporting proximity, checking the movement of the direction + possibly using the active lane assist camera for the front or parking camera for the back (I guess?). BTW those two cameras could also be used to take pictures for the police in case of hits...

I'm a software engineer so if I knew what it takes to code that for a car I'd gladly to this.. But I'm pretty sure it would involve making hardware too for the control unit.

BuckeyeBenz

I use the bumper bully for the rear and the bumper blocker for the front of my car anytime I'm parked on a street in NYC and when in my public garage. NYC garages are notorious for parking cars very close to each other to maximize space and sometimes can hit other cars.

I highly recommend these two whenever parallel parking where others come and go. They will greatly reduce the risk some idiot scratches your bumpers!

https://www.bumperbully.com/

https://www.bumperblocker.com/

Dan

alexmtl

I want a custom one that says "I bought this ugly thing because you a**holes can't park"

tfthach13

This may be a bit crude to say, but those park assist/blind spot monitors are for people who don't know how to drive or those too lazy to check their blind spots, mirrors, etc.

Roswell

LOL, funny

Nice find BuckeyeBenz, but I would imagine installing these everytime you park would be time consuming... plus I'm sure some idiots would be tempted to key your car just to **** you off.

alexmtl

Yeah the rear one is quite easy to install but the front one... Not so easy.
Also it's an invitation for everyone to bump your car which I don't like too much, but I might buy only the rear one and optimize the way I park to leave space on the front...

Also I looked up on ebay and you can buy parking sensors control units, or complete parking sensors kits, so assuming you plug those to the right wires (those active when the car is off?), it should be possible to prototype something.
Also some kits have electrical specs so if I find someone with electrical engineering background I could calculate just how much it would drain the battery... It could also be combined with a motion sensor to reduce the electrical usage, but that would imply body modifications to the car which I don't like.

BiturboSF

I was going to mention this since I've been seeing a lot of these bumper protection things in my city. Call me evil but I would love to buy one of these and attach something sharp on it so every time someone bumps into my car they would be messing up there own bumper 10x worse lol

Diabolis

That sucks. It has happened to me a few times on my other cars.

I'll gladly calculate the loads on the system for you, but I am afraid that it's not a feasible idea for a number of reasons. Let's assume for a moment that you have solved all of the technical challenges, built the system and actually have high-res camera footage of the car that bumped you. What do you do with that information? The police would likely laugh at you behind your back and probably tell you that is happens and that they don't have time for such trivial matters, which is true. Your insurance deductible - if you make a claim, which I wouldn't suggest - is likely going to equal the cost of the re-spray of the bumper cover, so you're still out of pocket for the repairs. Last but not least, how do you prove that the person that you have footage of bumping into your car was the one that actually scratched it? They will likely claim that the scratches were already there, which you can't disprove. Vigilante justice (assuming that you can find out who they are and where they live)? Not worth it.

I do feel for you - I also get quite p!$$ed off with a$$h01e$ out there that do this kind of thing, but at the end of the day you really have no feasible recourse. The bumper mat just invites people to notice it and "test it out", especially on a nice car. And, what about door dings or even someone keying your car? Having the evidence is one thing, but the real challenge is being able to (legally) do something with it for what for the large majority of people is a small, insignificant issue.

I am not suggesting that it's somehow OK or that you you're building a mountain out of a molehill - only that it's going to happen no matter what if you live in a big city and park your car in public places, and that spending your time, energy and money on an issue that is both "trivial" by society's standards and that you can't do anything about even after you're spent your time, energy and money to collect the evidence is an exercise in futility. Accept the fact that it happened, and instead of trying to fight it spend your money on a nice evening with your lady friend or call your friends and buy them a drink or two (and don't drive afterwards). It's ultimately a lot more cathartic.

Guilty

Recently a hit and run cost my insurance $8400. They messed up my whole passenger side and had to replace both of the doors. NYC is a bittttch.

alexmtl

Haha my thoughts exactly! If only that was legal...

Sh*t, and I'm here complaining about my scratch... Hope they didn't raise your insurance fees after that...


I understand your point, but I don't want some kind of recording device. I mean if that can be added, fine, but what I really want is to use my own parking sensors to help the other guys so they don't bump into my car. I want a preventive device rather than a dashcam.



I've just learned that apparently it's not so easy to turn on the lights of the car because they are controlled by their own control unit with a single cable going to it with multiplexed information. So I guess I'd be left with some kind of external box like the LED information we have turned backwards towards the outside of the car. Diabolis, could you help me out with the formula to calculate the time I could use a device before battery runs out?

nycphotography

3 of these screwed to the metal backing bumper on each corner of the car, 12 total per car.

Mount them using a tap and die, and threaded rod, so they can be unscrewed and replaced when bent beyond use.



Of course the solutions is uglier than the scratches. *shrug*

Honestly the ideal solution would be parking radar to activate front and rear parking cameras when motion detected in a closing direction within 6 feet distance. Then record footage until 120 seconds after motion stops, storing it w/ a flashing indicator only if an additional motion impact (ie bump) is detected.

Then you can retaliate, er, report to the authorities, at your leisure.

Diabolis

Alexmtl - car batteries have a capacity rating in Ah (amp-hours), which tells you for how long a battery will provide current at a particular load. If for example you have a 75Ah battery, at a steady 1A current draw the battery will last for 75 hours whereas with a 5A draw it will only last for 15 hours until it is depleted. You would need to measure (or calculate) the current draw of the load - the device that you're building - and dividing the battery capacity (Ah) by the current draw (A) will tell you how long the battery would last (h). This of course assumes a constant current draw from your load throughout its operation, which would be a reasonable approximation if you're only powering up a few LEDs now and then, but not the case if you turn on your headlights or horn when someone approaches the vehicle. And, keep in mind that there are other loads on the same battery (ECU is always powered on, car alarm sensors, keyless entry, etc.) so yours would not be the only draw from the battery when the vehicle is parked and your system activated.

EDIT: I see that you have a 2013 APX car - mine has a SECOND battery in the trunk (I am assuming it is a second battery and that the one under the hood on the passenger side is still there). If you are going to connect anything electrical to the car, the one in the trunk is much easier to get to and work with as the terminals are fully exposed and you have lots of room to play with (there's even enough room to place a reasonably compact project there).

alexmtl

Haha yes I need some of those on the BumperGuard! It'll go very well with my message
Recording is a little harder but yeah if my warning device is not useful enough to prevent bumps then that's something I'll have to consider.

Thanks a lot! That's actually dead simple.. I should be able to get an approximation quite easily that way.

Good to know about the second battery too, I'll check it out!

Diabolis

Anytime. FYI, the (trunk) battery in my car is 95Ah.


EDIT: Does anyone know if this is a secondary battery or the only one in the car? Is it perhaps only there on cars with the premium audio package (h/k - surround & subwoofer)?

OC6.3AMG

On a Lexus? Now I've heard everything.

Guilty

Yep lol + $500 ded. I didn't know the doors were made out of gold either

alexmtl

So it seems that Valeo has a solution for that!

http://www.valeoservice.com/html/croatia/en/actualitesdetail.php?wid=1555156379484570D2AC354

Now it's probably not compatible with or sensors (I guess), but it does seem to prove that it's very doable