Safet

Or how about the rusted minivan that costs less than your xenon lights parks next to your car where the welfare family with 7 kids proceeds to come out the side door and start grabbing at your "shiny" mirrors while you're still sitting in the car.

Safet

One thing I learned:

The more upscale malls, movie theaters etc. have wider parking spots (for nicer cars) while the lower-end parking lots try to pack in as many as they can as close as they can. At the lower-end places, you also have people who don't give a crap about your car and if it gets scratched or not, even intentionally for nicer cars.

Callaway

Unfortunatley,when you take up two spaces in a Benz you send a message out to the general public "I'm a rich ****** that is going to deprive someone else of a park but I'm more important",they don't realise you are doing it to avoid having your car doors hit.

So to the envious it's like a red rag to a bull-and they scratch it!!

I try to park on the end of a line or close to a wall,etc whenever possible to try and avoid trouble and never park next to an "old bomb of a car" as they have less to lose and can afford to be less careful.
Otherwise I just take my chances and have been fairly lucky.

Sometimes I think we bring some of these vandelism problems on ourselves by forgetting that the whole world doesn't drive a prestige car!!

Benzo

Loud and clear. My cats breath smell like cat food.

Safet

Next thing you know we'll be selling drugs to little kids. "And all I wanted was the extra parking spot!"

Benzo

LOL. Pi$$ing my pants!

karl k

Last year, when I was driving a C5, there was a lengthy discussion on the best
way to park, minimizing dings/damage.

Cardinal rule:

NEVER take two parking spaces, it triggers uncontrollable anger in some punks,
who'll key your car.

More tips:

Park at end, so your car is protected on one side.

Park next to another benz or luxury car, hoping the owner will have similar
concerns and show respect.

Park 100 yards away from clusters of cars in a parking lot. I little walk will be of benefit.

Park next to Handicap-designated space.

Z-Dude

I talked to my dealer again today to get an interpretation as to how Parktronic works. He did not know much about it, saying that he only used it on the S-Class. Where I live, we don't do much parallel parking, and, as most of you east and west coasters know, its nothing but corn fields and cows in the midwest....no tight parking spots.

As I mentioned in a previous post, my garage is relatively tight in size. I was toying with the idea of getting parktronic, so I asked the dealer how close to an object do you have to get before the "maximum" warning. To my surprise, he responded with "one foot". Nuts, I have just over a foot of clearance on each side when entering the garage...the damn thing would be beeping all the time...

I was really hoping for approximately 2-4" distance for maximum alarm....guess Parktronic is off the order list....

Accord

Z-Dude, Parktronic only offers a warning for the front and rear of the vehicle, there are no sensors on the sides since our vehicles cannot drive sideways .

Z-Dude

You've never seen me drive in the snow and ice!!!:p

I go sideways all the time

stockseer

funny... to my pleasant surprise, parktronic seems to be working with notable distinction between left and right (frontal) sides. It absolutely differentiated approaching a 'hedge' that jutted more towards the front, and picked-up on one of those cement things designed to damage the front (well, I think so) that nobody can see, no matter how good a driver.

Totally unexpected, last night it 'beeped' incessently at about the same time my Valentine 1 did; and lo-and-behond a police radar trap about a block ahead. Never thought MB intended it to be a radar detector....

cheers...

Callaway

Understood.

My point is,and I am guilty of it myself,is that sometimes we can place a little too much emphasis on our cars which can make others jealous.

That's all!

karl k

Do you have a distronic as well?

If you do and had it active, perhaps your distronic radar generated the beeps, and as someone claimed, defeated the police radar!?

Mr. Xristo

Hmmm. I would prefer a Cartier I am not a Navy Diver anymore, so I have no need for a Rolex

stockseer

nope; no distronic, just parktronic, that's why i was surprised even more so that it went off before the police radar:-}

northbenz

My experience with parktronic on an SL500 that I picked up on European Delivery is that it does indeed detect from the side. In the old part of Munich where entryways were sized for horses, I went through a narrow archway with barely enough clearance for the car and the parktronic began beeping even though there were no obstructions ahead.

MY2003 US Spec SL500 Manual states: "Minimum distance, Center- 8 inches; Corners -6 inches. If you encounter an obstacle in this range, all the warning lamps light up and you hear a warning signal." As to range of the sensors, the Front sensors have a range of 40 inches from the center and 48 inches from the corners while the rear sensors have a shorter range of 48 inches from the center and 32 inches from the corners.

(The beeping increases as you get closer to the minimum distances.)

Now have fun measuring your garage! Also keep in mind that these distances are for the SL500 and may differ for the CLK, but probably not by much.

As to the radar detection ability, the manual does advise that "ultrasonic signals from outside sources may impair the operation of the Parktronic system." (Mentioned specifically are truck air brakes or jackhammers, but nothing about police radar.) Of further note, the manual states that Parktronic is disabled when the vehicle is going over 11 miles per hour. Was the above described vehicle stopped or slowing when the Parktronic detected the police radar?

stockseer

thanks for the specifics! very good to know. As for my speed when Parktronic picked up the police radar, I was going around 35-38 MPH (in a 35..haha), no traffic lights and light traffic (none near me at the time) .. so clearly the Parktronic and Valentine both picked up the 'zap' at about the same instant, and without me slowing or doing anything... nothing I would rely on of course, but sort of interesting in that it did that (fine by me:-}).

karl k

I guess, it was not distronic.

Do you know what type of radar it was? Could it have been a laser zap?

My Escort 8500 gives me this info.