Gadgetory

the method I'm going to show you I like because it's got lots of specific and numbers and commands that are easy to remember if parallel parking spooks you first of all is find your spot the magic number here is five you need about five feet more in the space than you link to your car compact car like this Mazda 3 is about 15 feet long thinking about 20 feet of space pull up alongside the car ahead of you with about 2 to 3 feet of space in between you now you want to back up and here's the most critical area until the back of that car is lined up with about the bottom of your back seats this will vary a bit on cars because they all have different wheelbase overhang and seating position this is the key thing you want to learn about your car but it's about a third of it overhanging that car now go all the way full lock on your wheel aiming into the space so you get 45 degrees in the streets look right out and see it at this point as you're rolling go all the way to full opposite lock and the car should glide right in you've got a backup camera that certainly helps and then just do one forward nibbles to bring in the nose and Center up your space and you're in it's a pretty reliable method without having to do a lot of fuzzy stuff the steps are real clear now after all this parking is a skill you may soon barely need automatic parking Tech has been coming for a while the first system I drove was in a 2007 Lexus LS this car will park itself Lexus Park Assist it took care of the hard part steering while you handled the pedals back then it was cumbersome tentative and you could have made three attempts in the time it took to make one flash forward a few years to the Ford system we showed you in a recent car tech 101 that still just handled the steering but now did it really quickly and well the 2015 Ford Focus will also do this trick for perpendicular spaces and will be able to automatically exit a parking spot which I didn't realize was difficult and they have joined Volvo and Audi among the companies that are moving soon to the ultimate step cars that park without you even being in them and perhaps even able to drop you off and then go Park on their own one day soon even in spots too narrow for you to open the doors once the car is there all these technologies however must be built into a new car so until you're in the market use the steps we taught you