www.honestjohn.co.uk/news/item.htm?id=4999
Another bit of bizarre research! How was the saving measured and is it worth having, if it exists? I think driving forwards into a space, if one can, has got to be better than juggling backwards and forwards.
Edited by Pugugly on 19/07/2008 at 21:50
|
|
I do more juggling when I have to drive straight in. Reversing is the same but with the benfit of mirrors - first time every time in between the lines! Hate driving into spaces!
|
My ex boyfriend told me this years ago, im guessing cars use more fuel on the inital start up and its better to get going when they are cold.
Thats what he convinced me of anyway! Im sure theres also something about reversed in cars been less likely to get broken into???
|
|
|
I could be the worlds most uneconomical parker. Do i give a a care...no..
Drive around car park looking for well equally well cared for vehicle to park beside, always reverse in, then realise the car beside has child seats in back, drive out and look for another space.
Alternative drive to farthest point in car park, reverse in again, leave car, come back to find some fat blighter in a Jag, well sagged seat, (this in York) has parked beside this well kept old MB and to get his lardy frame out has dropped his door onto my car....grrr..just can't win.
Must get a job coming up with stuff like the link, beats the hell out of working for a living.
Good heavens, the starred word word meant the parking space far away, what on earth triggered the swear filter? {now corrected - wouldn't have happened if you'd have said 'furthest ;o)}
Edited by Dynamic Dave on 20/07/2008 at 23:13
|
Save £100 pounds per year? Thats got to be rubbish.
Was this research conducted by a bunch of people who are all used to reversing into spaces, and therefore take more time to drive forwards into them?
Yesterday I drove into a small car park and had to stop and wait 5-6 seconds while someone reversed into a space; thereby costing me money!
If I have to do that several times a week it could cost me about £30 per year in fuel. Probably.
I drive in forwards in a single quick operation. Then when I leave I have more room to reverse out into so can do that simply and quickly too..
;o)
Edited by Rich 9-3 on 19/07/2008 at 12:18
|
|
|
Alternative drive to f***hest point in car park, ..... Good heavens, the starred word word meant the parking space far away
The answer, my friend, is blowing ...
Funny how indiscriminate filters draw attention to the very words one is trying to suppress.
|
|
|
|
|
If that is the finding/ thinking of an ?Advanced Motorist? I?m quite happy to remain in the lower ranks of motoring.
I would have though more sound advice would be to park near the entrance / exit gate ? and do more walking - rather than motor around a large car park trying unsuccessfully to park near the shop doorway.
I?ve lost count of the times I seen vehicles circling a car park more than once before realising they are wasting their time and petrol.
|
So how are we meant to get our shopping easily into the car when the space between your and the cars either side is too narrow to fit your trolley and the car in the row behind you has reversed upto your back end so you can't open the boot anyway?
|
Like it or not,the fact remains that it is safer to park by reversing in.
On a muggy winter`s day for example, it`s much easier to reverse in with a clear view from the mirrors/ and or side windows. When driving out again the side mirrors and windows will often be misted up,restricting visibility. A wipe of the front windscreen will enable the driver to see forwards immediately, rather than risk reversing with a misted up rear screen/mirrors.
Reversing into a parking slot on a street will enable parking in a shorter space than by simply driving in forwards.
|
|
(Save money by programming a Fisher Price "Baby's first computer" to re-hash vaguely interesting motoring "stories" rather than paying for a normal article written by a proper journalist.)
|
|
What utter rubbish, more than 16p ( 150ml of petrol ) difference between reversing in and reversing out? At 30mpg, that's enough fuel saved to take you down a mile of motorway every time you park. Nonsense.
|
I loathe driving into spaces; it's probably the only thing I really dislike about driving. I just seem to find it impossible to judge where the nearside corner of the car is and always feel like I'm going to scrape something. Much prefer reversing in.
It's primarily a Honda thing, as I never had this difficulty with the Xsara.
|
|
Reversing into parking space has always been easier for me, no matter the vehicle and this is the advice given in the highway code as well. First, it is saver to come out of parking space moving forwards as you are inlikely to run into another vehicle on the street or chip the one beside you and more importantly to hit a pedestrian in busy shopping centres (the old and the children). Moreover your engine is cold by the time you are coming out of a parking space (especially if parked overnight) and surely less manouvre would be required to start your journey moving forward. How many threads in this backroom I have read of people unwittinlgy running into parked or moving vehicles while reversing out of garages hmmm!
|
Reversing into a parking space doesn't mean that you can't leave it going forwards. I was trying to establish why it was thought that reversing into a space saved fuel - not the safety aspects of the manoeuvre!
|
I think other posters have alluded to the most likely answer: reversing out takes more faff and fiddle than reversing in - especially in modern car parks with barely a car's length between rows - and that's compounded by doing the manoeuvre with a cold engine.
Those same, tight, car parks, incidentally, make it very hard to drive even a moderately big (say 4.6m long) car forwards into a space when you need to - as at a supermarket when you want to bring a trolley up to the boot. Going in backwards - with the steering wheels in clear space until the last moment - is much less bother. To poke a stick into another ants' nest, the non-parents who occupy parent-and-child spaces invariably go in nose first and often skew-wiff; they're known chez Beest as the Hard of Parking.
I've found another solution to the trolley-access problem - we have our weekly shop delivered. Haven't pushed a trolley for months. Worth £3.99 of anyone's money, I'd say!
|
I've found another solution to the trolley-access problem - we have our weekly shop delivered. Haven't pushed a trolley for months. Worth £3.99 of anyone's money I'd say!
Seconded. We've started having the weekly/fortnightly shop delivered - very hassle free. Only go to the supermarket on an adhoc basis now and it's become quite a pain-free process.
|
|
I've always reversed into spaces including our driveway, a friend's husband told me it's also better for your gearbox as when the oil is cold it doesn't yet reach chamber for the reverse cog, so when reverse is engaged you wear out the gearbox, simple as that.
|
I always reverse in, especially if I'm in the Landcruiser or Mondeo (estate). In some cramped car parks, it could make the difference between being able to get out or not!
The Yaris is not problem - whatever's easiest at the time.
|
Quick straw poll: how many backroomers habitually enter an armchair or bed or bath - or, come to that, a car seat - going in forwards? (I'm referring to the final seconds before bottom to seat contact is made.)
Thought not.
|
There are 2 ways into a parking space; there is only one way into a chair, unless you climb over the back. Not a relevant comparison.
|
|
|
|
better for your gearbox as when the oil is cold it doesn't yet reach chamber for the reverse cog
Rubbish.
|
When you put it in reverse after start up, do you hear a big crunch?
I enter my seat sideways & then bum on seat, I don't actually notice really LOL
|
Actually what is better is driving in forwards, and out forwards! As my Landrover only just fits a normal space far easier to park away from the shop in a not full area where one can drive through a space to another, thus ready for an easy get away. So drive less far = fuel saved. That much is a winner.
I will always reverse park if I had to, and any thought of fuel saved does not come into my head. I was always taught it's far safer to reverse in, and I still believe it.
Oh and the no-reverse gear Morgan gets pushed backwards in, rather than having to push out with a non-running engine, and then start it in everyone's way etc.
|
|
|
When you put it in reverse after start up do you hear a big crunch?
No, because I wait for the engine to settle down into idle before dipping the clutch and putting it into reverse. It's fast engine/gearbox shaft speeds that cause the crunch, whether hot or cold.
|
Being a bit lazy and still under the delusion that the automobile helps one do things more briskly and efficiently, I much prefer driving straight into a parker like someone in a bad Hollywood movie who always has a space big enough to do that just where they want to. But one seldom can, although when in slobbish mood one can sometimes run the front wheel over a bit of low kerb to help.
Some cars seem to me easy to reverse park and others much more difficult however used to them you get. I also find that I can sometimes make a hash of parking my own car in an easy place even after two or three attempts. Psychomotor variation or something, I think as I walk away from the shed steaming quietly at an inelegant angle somewhere in the middle of the road...
I like the front place in a parking bay because with luck I can drive straight out of it.
|
|
|
>> When you put it in reverse after start up do you hear a big crunch? No because I wait for the engine to settle down into idle before dipping the clutch and putting it into reverse. It's fast engine/gearbox shaft speeds that cause the crunch whether hot or cold.
Just pop it into another gear before selecting reverse and it shouldn't crunch.
|
In a former life I was in a funny bunch of the UK military. We always parked anywhere - desert, forest, urban etc so we could drive straight out at speed if reqd. Nosey parking, as we called it, earned a fine of a day's pay.
It's a habit that's stayed with me....
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
When I park, I'm mainly concerned about how safe my car is from being bumped by other cars. I don't give the fuel cost a second thought. It's completely trivial in comparison with other factors.
Edited by L'escargot on 21/07/2008 at 08:40
|
|
|
