@J.R. As regards to bad parking, parking space width markings have not kept pace with the increase in car sizes. Which have increased in order to incorporate all the modern safety features. With the older cars you mention, smaller than the P6, I also had a Hillman Minx, Ford Cortina, Austin A60, Vanden Plas 3litre, Rover 200, Vauxhall Cavalier, Vauxhall Vectra, Morris Montego, Ford Mondeo, Volkswagan Passats all of which did used to fit in those spaces OK. So in your world, giants are either supposed to just bang their doors into other people's pride and joy, putting dents in them or remain trapped in their cars.. nice. 

Edited 21 March, 20242 yr by Graham Butcher

Parking bay sizes have never changed but as we can all see vehicle sizes and often the corpulence or mobility of the drivers has, the Rover P6 had to be parked carefully within the bay as can be seen whereas the vast majority of vehicles of the day would have loads of space on both sides.

 

Driving a RHD car in France I always park the opposite way as the vehicle beside me on the drivers side (drive in or reverse in), they offload passengers first and park tight to the passenger side so I park with my drivers door to their drivers door where they have left the most space, not because I cannot or do not want to squeeze out but to reduce the chance of them swinging their door into mine.

3 minutes ago, Graham Butcher said:

So in your world, giants are either supposed to just bang their doors into other people's pride and joy, putting dents in them or remain trapped in their cars.. nice. 

 

Are you serious? How do you come up with that conclusion?

 

Do you really park between 2 vehicles and damage their doors or find somewhere easier to park?

10 minutes ago, J.R. said:

 

Are you serious? How do you come up with that conclusion?

 

Do you really park between 2 vehicles and damage their doors or find somewhere easier to park?

Now you're changing things, besides the points that Rooted mentioned, have ever thought that it might be the driver who has mobility issues and needs the extra space to exit their vehicle. 

 

I have on many occasions been unable to find a space big enough to park so I could actually get out of my car, so I have had no option other than to abandon the shopping trip or whatever to avoid damaging other people's cars. 

 

You need to fully consider the other person's reasons for parking like that, often there is a real valid reason other than the one you came up with. 

Edited 21 March, 20242 yr by Graham Butcher

2 minutes ago, Graham Butcher said:

Now you're changing things

 

I changed nothing, it was you that made the assertion and judgement, your words.

 

Clown is appropriate

24 minutes ago, Graham Butcher said:

So in your world, giants are either supposed to just bang their doors into other people's pride and joy, putting dents in them 

 

To be fair that's what's known as 'parking' in France.

For info latest guidance on car park design is for spaces to be 200mm wider and longer - so a standard space would be 5.0m x 2.6m as opposed to 4.8m x 2.4m, with high turnover bays being wider at 2.7m and disabled bays at 3.8m wide as opposed to 3.6m.

2 hours ago, J.R. said:

 

I changed nothing, it was you that made the assertion and judgement, your words.

 

Clown is appropriate

Interestingly the Rover P6 as shown in the photo has a width of 1676mm as opposed to the Mini at 1756mm wide and Superb which is 2013mm wide which is, and an Audi A8 is 2111mm.  The extra width is required to house the electric window winders and the speakers, along with the side impact beams that all modern cars are now required to have by law. The door thickness of the older cars are so much thinner than those on cars today. Manual window winders, no door mounted speakers etc all helped reduce width.

 

Not to mention as well that many cars, Superbs being one of them, also have far longer doors as well. At one time, the Superb boasted having the largest rear doors fitted to a mass-produced car, all of which need more space to open than those shorter door on narrower cars of old.

 

So once a car door is opened on a modern car, the actual space between the inside of door and the cars body is smaller than it is for older cars and the longer the doors are will also further reduce this space. 

 

Car parking spaces have not kept pace with these changes so newer cars will often be seen in car parks, straddling the painted lines as a result. 

 

 

Edited 21 March, 20242 yr by Graham Butcher

3 hours ago, Graham Butcher said:

The extra width is required to house the electric window winders and the speakers, along with the side impact beams that all modern cars are now required to have by law. The door thickness of the older cars are so much thinner than those on cars today. Manual window winders, no door mounted speakers etc all helped reduce width.

 

Eh? Door mounted speakers and electric window motors aren't something new you know? (Dad's MkV Cortina Ghia had them for e.g.)
SIPS bars may increase the width of doors but all that means is that larger speakers can be fitted in the door as a convenient plus of mandatory SIPS. Electric windows and door mounted speakers aren't required by law they're just a benefit of wider doors.

Edited 21 March, 20242 yr by @Lee
Grammar

also the Superb (and possibly other Skodas) need the extra door width to accomodate the water bottles that don't fit in the standard cup holders ;o)

4 hours ago, @Lee said:

 

To be fair that's what's known as 'parking' in France.

 

Spot on!

2 hours ago, Graham Butcher said:

Interestingly the Rover P6 as shown in the photo has a width of 1676mm as opposed to the Mini at 1756mm wide

 

1843 wide.

 

From BMW Mini: "The new MINI Countryman is 4,433 mm long, has a width of 2,069 mm (at side mirrors) and a height of 1,656 mm. So it should fit into most spaces"

 

Yup, it will fit in, no mention of egress though!

 

I am seriously considering a Roomster now, it has the same load carrying width but is 113mm less in overall width.

 

You have chosen a car a full 6" wider than the monstrous Mini leaving you 20cm to get out if parked centrally in a stndard parking bay plus maybe a little more if there is not a clown parked to your right.

2 hours ago, @Lee said:

 

Eh? Door mounted speakers and electric window motors aren't something new you know? Dad's MkV Cortina Ghia had them for e.g. SIPS bars may increase the width of doors but all that means is that larger speakers can be fitted in the door as a convenient plus of mandatory SIPS. Electric windows and door mounted speakers aren't required by law they're just a benefit of wider doors.

Eh? Yes I did know that they are not new, but most cars of the age of the Rover P6 did not have either door speakers or electric windows, not SIPS either.

 

The Rover P5 was introduced in 1958, the P6 was introduced in 1963 and speakers in those days were either mounted in the rear parcel shelf or beneath the dash, radios were only AM. Electric windows were introduced back in the 1980s to mass production cars, so again were not in either of the Rovers as these 2 photos show manual winders and no door speakers, also SIPS was introduced in 1991 by Volvo.

 

Any mention of these in my earlier comments were directly in relation to the comparable widths of the cars shown in the photo that @Stonekeeper posted, against my Superb and were not an indication of anything else.

 

51 minutes ago, J.R. said:

 

1843 wide.

 

From BMW Mini: "The new MINI Countryman is 4,433 mm long, has a width of 2,069 mm (at side mirrors) and a height of 1,656 mm. So it should fit into most spaces"

 

Yup, it will fit in, no mention of egress though!

 

I am seriously considering a Roomster now, it has the same load carrying width but is 113mm less in overall width.

 

You have chosen a car a full 6" wider than the monstrous Mini leaving you 20cm to get out if parked centrally in a stndard parking bay plus maybe a little more if there is not a clown parked to your right.

How have I chosen a car 6" wider than the monstrous Mini when the Mini, going by your figures is 2069mm wide, and my car is 2013mm wide?? For that to be true, my car would need to be 2165mm wide and clearly that is not the case. 

 

Clown feet, yup I'll accept that, I cannot deny I have huge feet 

And now back to the scheduled programming....

 

Here is a video of the worlds cheapest Tesla, its done 450,000 miles and still has 1 years Tesla warranty left on it (assuming it's transferrable to new owner). 

 

Its good in parts and not quite so good in others, and no, I'm not going to do a breakdown of the various points raised in the video, I have other things to be getting on with to waste any more time rewatching it again to make a list of the points, but there are some impressive parts on the car.

 

 

Edited 21 March, 20242 yr by Graham Butcher

5 hours ago, Graham Butcher said:

How have I chosen a car 6" wider than the monstrous Mini when the Mini, going by your figures is 2069mm wide, and my car is 2013mm wide??

 

I was going by your figures and forgot that I had corrected them, my lack of short term memory again

25 minutes ago, J.R. said:

 

I was going by your figures and forgot that I had corrected them, my lack of short term memory again

Well, as you said, the Mini is in fact far from mini when is wider than my car, a far cry from the original. 

My Jag, which is a pretty wide car, or so I thought, is 'only' 2042mm inc mirrors. It's not as wide as a Mini  !!!!!!!!!!!!

Yep, that does indeed make a mockery of the name, I know which of the two I'd rather have 😀

16 minutes ago, Lady Elanore said:

My Jaaaaaaaag,

 

😉

It's only just over an inch longer, too! Mind you it only has 2 seats and is slightly lower, which isn't the best use of space, perhaps. But boy, the mini seriously needs to go on a diet. 

 

Can you "fat shame" a car? 

 

4 minutes ago, Lady Elanore said:

It's only just over an inch longer, too! Mind you it only has 2 seats and is slightly lower, which isn't the best use of space, perhaps. But boy, the mini seriously needs to go on a diet. 

 

Can you "fat shame" a car? 

 

 

There was an image floating around a while ago, possibly a Ford F-150 truck from yonks ago and a modern one.

Point is that the modern one was almost twice the size yet had roughly the same size load bed.

It's like when a young man can see to pee but when he's older and put on a few pounds the thing's still there and does the same thing only it's less prominent. 

That's not necessarily an analogy that I can fully realise  

 

I seem to recall selling an F150 lightning and I think the rating on the bed was only roughly 1/2 ton! I remember thinking there were countless small Japanese pickups with significantly more load capacity than that. Mind you, they didn't have 380BHP and 450lb/ft of torxxx all going through a live axel. It was the main selling point as I seem to remember....oh, and that noise

 

£20k got you a nearly new low mileage one in those days

 

Sorry, exactly off-topic. Now where were we with men's bits? 

Remember the Guinness Book challenges when mainly students crammed themselves into red telephone boxes and Minis?

 

I guarantee you that you would not get anywhere near as many in the new full fat Mini as the svelte original, thats how appalling the packaging and space management is, and that is just the students let alone the car 🤣

 

Can you get an 8' x 4' sheet of ply/OSB/whatever or a bale of hay or 20 Mexican immigrants in the back of the Tesla pick up?

14 hours ago, Graham Butcher said:

And now back to the scheduled programming....

 

Here is a video of the worlds cheapest Tesla, its done 450,000 miles and still has 1 years Tesla warranty left on it (assuming it's transferrable to new owner). 

 

Its good in parts and not quite so good in others, and no, I'm not going to do a breakdown of the various points raised in the video, I have other things to be getting on with to waste any more time rewatching it again to make a list of the points, but there are some impressive parts on the car.

 

 

Missing most important mention whether this 450k MS is still using original battery and motor.  No attempt at SoH read out.

 

I do hope their later videos improve in their EV knowledge base. I look forward to follow up videos with more info on the car.