Overhead Clearance Bars in Car Parks

[solmanic]

SWMBO parked in one of the Mater Hospital car parks here in Brisbane on Friday. The overhead clearance bar said 2.0m and we know for a fact that our car is 1.95m, but the bar hit the roof and has left scratches down the middle. The reason we KNOW the car is 1.95m is that her regular park in the city is 1.97m - we were extremely careful when we tested THAT one out last year!

So either the indicator bar at the Mater has dropped, or it's just positioned incorrectly where there is a slight ramp under. Either way I'm extremely ****ed that it has now damaged the car and the scratches are through the paint so it will have to be repaired. Incidentally the car didn't come close to hitting anything once it was IN the car park.

Surely this has happened to others on here so I'm interested to know how people have resolved the issue. I rang the Mater car parking number yesterday and reported it so the attendant has the incident on record. He was apologetic, which was nice, but am I correct in expecting the car park company to pay for the repair? Should I notify my insurer and nominate the car park operator as the "at fault" party and let them follow it up? It's possible the repair may not require the entire roof to be re-sprayed so perhaps I should keep the insurance company out of it. My only concern is that years ago when we had a new car delivered with scratches on the roof they insisted on repainting the whole roof, not just a touch up.

Oh, did I mention that I am really ****ed off about it? And it's just typical that we swapped the Defender for the G Wagen so we could fit in more car parks and here we go hitting the roof on one! BTW we never once hit the Defender's roof, but then I did get pretty tired of trying to find on street parking.

[ramblingboy42]

I would be tempted to back there with an accurate tape measure and a camera and photograph the height of that bar before they adjust it.

offer them the option of settlement for repairs. if not hand the photos on to your insurance company.

if the insurance company pick it up it will cost you nothing as they will persue default against the parking company.

[discovery39]

Did you get a photo of the offending bar?
Your Insurance company would probably have more clout than you would in dealing with things.....

[solmanic]

No photo and she didn't get a receipt but the attendant agreed it would be on their surveillance camera footage as there is one pointing at the entry. I'll be talking to the manager tomorrow so we'll see if he puts up a fight or is prepared to admit they have a problem with the bar height or position.

[Pinelli]

Is the floor angled at the point where the bar hangs, or is it along a flat surface? Geometry can come in to play here, and I've had a similar issue (although thankfully no damage) in a car park in townsville. The Disco plus roof racks was just under the height indicated by the bar, but because the bar was hung at the bottom of a ramp, the angle that the car was at when it went under the bar meant that the roof racks hit the sign.

I keep thinking it would make a great question on a maths exam, but never got around to writing it up :p

[solmanic]

Yeah, the bar was over a change in downward grade. Be that as it may, this is not the correct placement for a height indicator bar (I know, I've designed a few car parks).

[Homestar]

Was it paid parking? If so, check your ticket - it usually has a disclaimer about damage, but if you can prove they are at fault, then you may have a chance. A accurate measurement of you vehicle and the offending bar (as mentioned) would be a good place to start.

[frantic]

I would take a photo ASAP and check the height ,as some have mentioned it could be positioned wrong , OR it could be a victim of drunk/ idiots jumping up and swinging off it which could bend or stretch the bar or wires holding it up. The local shops have had to replace their height bar as well as the wires several times ,as the skateboard kids like to swing off it.

[solmanic]

No ticket unfortunately as the machine swallows it on exit. I'm not too worried since there will be video footage. Even if the operator conveniently misplaced that, then my wife had a passenger and a couple of stat decs would suffice. We only have to demonstrate our car is under 2.0m and I already checked that. Stock wheels & tyres and it's basically new so there's nothing else they could dispute.

Besides, they even state the minimum height of that particular car park is 2m on the Mater Hospital website.

[debruiser]

Can't help you with legal stuff but I know how you feel, I had shorty for about 30min when I did this in townsville! stupid down ramps with height markers!

[SPROVER]

I had a very similar problem a few years back. Although the situation was a bit different, it doesn't hurt to talk to the manager. My Disco 1 was lifted and I knew it wouldn't get into most car parks. I was visiting my GF relatives at a very well known hotel here in the City. I left the Disco with the parking attendant and specifically told them not to park it in the under ground car park because of the height.

Any way after about an hour I came back to the Disco and picked up the keys. I thought I would check the top of the Disco just in case. And what do you know? There was a small dent in the roof and a nice yellow scrape from the height marker. :mad: They didn't even tell me what had happened. When I pointed it out to them, they blamed the new guy who had just started! :eek:

To cut a long story short, they knew it was there fault and all I had to do was get 2 quotes to have it fixed. Found the most expensive places and passed the quote to hotel manager.($1200) Within 2 days the money was in my account. When sold it still had the yellow scrape mark on the roof:wasntme::D But with the lift you couldn't even notice the dent or yellow paint. So good luck with it!

Cheers
Chris

[Fred Nerk]

Don't bypass your insurance company. In most cases you are supposed to let them know that you have been in a collision. Notify them, tell the insurance company the name of the at fault party and let them sort it out. This is no different from any other crash.

[Jojo]

Ahhh, the Martyr...
Which car park did you/she use? I never had a problem with my Disco there (and I have been parking there many times), in the main parking building at Raymond Tce, that is. If I recall correctly, there was ample headroom for the truck (I even had a roof rack fitted). But, be it as it is, if the sign says 2m, then you should be entitled to receive compensation. Good luck!

[BMKal]

I had an interesting experience with a work Prado a while back at a well known hotel in Perth I was attending a conference at.

First night there, I left it parked out front as, with all the lights and other crap on the roof, I thought it would be too high for their underground carpark.

Second night - they didn't want it left in the same spot as they had a wedding going on and wanted the room out front left for limo's etc. They offered to "valet" park it for me. I warned them about the lights etc on the roof and they assured me that it would fit where they proposed to park it.

About 10 minutes later, they phoned me in my room and asked me to come downstairs. Prado was parked out front with all roof lights / roof bar etc mungreled where idiot hotel employee had driven down ramp at speed and wiped it all off.

Hotel management was very apologetic - they paid to have entire roof bar / lights etc replaced (and I ended up with better - lower profile - lights than I started out with). :angel:

[solmanic]

Ahhh, the Martyr...
Which car park did you/she use? I never had a problem with my Disco there (and I have been parking there many times), in the main parking building at Raymond Tce, that is. If I recall correctly, there was ample headroom for the truck (I even had a roof rack fitted). But, be it as it is, if the sign says 2m, then you should be entitled to receive compensation. Good luck!

It was the one at the medical centre in the bit between Vulture & Stanley streets. Yes, all the other car parks there are well over 2m. About to ring the manager and see what goes down.

[loanrangie]

Had a similar experience in a supermarket carpark, entry height was 2.0m and my 2" lifted RRC with roof rack fitted easily, on exit i drove carefully out but the height bar on chains made a lovely scraping noise all along my newly powder coated full length rack.
There was a slight incline about 1m from the height bar which was just enough to point the nose up for the rack to hit.
At the cinema 3 weeks ago i purposely went to the carprk with the highest clearance as i had roof bars on ( plus 3" lift, 32" tyres ) and just cleared the 2.1m entrance height.

[DieselDan]

Hope you get it sorted!

I actually managed to get myself stuck in a supermarket underground carpark once.
Over the summer holidays from uni, whilst I was back at home, the local supermarket had put protective cages around all the pipework hanging from the ceiling in the underground carpark. They hadn't lowered the height bar at the entrance though, just re-written over it with the new height.
First trip to the supermarket at the start of the new term and I got my Lightweight properly wedged underneath one of the cages!
After letting the tyres down a bit, I had to sheepishly ask all the people in the queue behind me to reverse back out of the carpark so I could get out :(

[Tombie]

We had worse years ago...

Boom gate at a car park lowered as the vehicle was entering and carved along the side of the 4wd.

The parking company (that Dennis the Menace knows) denied all responsibility and the legal battle that would ensue would cost us more than the repair.

If I had been in a financial position at the time to waste cash fighting I would of, but alas, no.

They will claim no responsibility, park at own risk etc... however, if you can provide evidence you should be ok.

[Greatsouthernland]

I'm not too worried since there will be video footage.

.

Don't wait too long to get this as some systems overwrite unless an event occurs or a request is made, even then, this may not get to the right person...even then they could get funny about privacy and ownership and the only way to get it is a letter of demand fom lawyer...so would be MUCH easier to pass it to insurance company straight away.

Good luck! It sucks how they always seem to put these at a change in grade / start of ramp...

[uninformed]

Funny how some of these places have the height warnings and height bars down inside the carpark in one way entrances. I hit one in Aus Fair and could not back out, so had to drive over curbing and out through the bottle'o to get out.... dumb designs!

I have also had the hinged boom gates come down on my roof, drop behind truck cab and snaped it off between tray and cab. I just picked it all up and took it to the guy in the booth. He started to go off and I laughed, when he asked why I was, I said, should we continue further so I can make a claim for damages to my car??? needless to say I parked for free that night.

[Alex 110]

Funny how some of these places have the height warnings and height bars down inside the carpark in one way entrances. I hit one in Aus Fair and could not back out, so had to drive over curbing and out through the bottle'o to get out.... dumb designs!

I have also had the hinged boom gates come down on my roof, drop behind truck cab and snaped it off between tray and cab. I just picked it all up and took it to the guy in the booth. He started to go off and I laughed, when he asked why I was, I said, should we continue further so I can make a claim for damages to my car??? needless to say I parked for free that night.
I had the same thing happen - I passed under the overheight bar no worries & then ripped off the boom gate with my roofrack.
In the same carpark I had to be very careful which lane I took on exiting as they had an aircon box covering half of one lane that was well below the "minimum height".
Had them close early on my roof too. Fortunately no damage, but I was still kinda p****d off
Alex


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[UncleHo]

There is a nortoriously low railway bridge on Wynmum Road at Moringside in Brisbane Qld,and many years ago(in the 1950's) there was a Circus (Worths I think) travelling to a new venue,and the truck carrying their Elephant got it wedged under the bridge,this caused a major problem, as it is a very major road,and a well used rail line,the Circus staff with a vet in attendance let most of the air out of the truck's tyres,and tried to reverse the vehicle out with the very agitated bellowing animal on board,this got worse whenever a train passed over head,the circus had got a bloke to stand up by the railway line to flag the trains down, the old steam locos so as not to spook the elephant,it provided several hours to us primary school kids :D I remember it took a fair bit of skin off the animal's back, the whole thing took about 3-4 hours.

[discovery39]

There is a nortoriously low railway bridge on Wynmum Road at Moringside in Brisbane Qld,and many years ago(in the 1950's) there was a Circus (Worths I think) travelling to a new venue,and the truck carrying their Elephant got it wedged under the bridge,this caused a major problem, as it is a very major road,and a well used rail line,the Circus staff with a vet in attendance let most of the air out of the truck's tyres,and tried to reverse the vehicle out with the very agitated bellowing animal on board,this got worse whenever a train passed over head,the circus had got a bloke to stand up by the railway line to flag the trains down, the old steam locos so as not to spook the elephant,it provided several hours to us primary school kids :D I remember it took a fair bit of skin off the animal's back, the whole thing took about 3-4 hours.


Sounds like a lot of Clowning around.............

[mojo]

I park the D4 in the China Town carpark in the Valley. It has a max height sign of 1.95m, which is only just higher than the D4. I wasn't keen to try it, but saw a few other D4's/D3's parked in there and gave it a go. It's scary driving under the clearance bar.

I've been using it for a few months now, but still crap myself every time I drive in ... :D

[DiscoMick]

I banged a roof rack on a shopping centre car park down ramp height bar a couple of years ago, and couldn't back out because of cars behind me, so had to drive over a concrete median to get out.
Annoyingly, you often find the height is fine for most of the car park, except for one spot, so they sign the whole car park, when better design could have raised the height for all the car park.

Sent from my GT-P5210 using AULRO mobile app

[chopper]

Minimum height posted on the bar probably refers to minimum height in the car park . The bar is probably a tad lower than the minimum height for obvious reasons ( a bit like a SWL ). Just imagine that the bar is identical to the lowest point in the car park and you "just" make it under and you park and let out 4 to 6 fat passengers and then leave all by yourself and then get stuck going under the lowest beam in the place . You could drive the town car to town and save the mud plugger for outer metro duties.

[Basil135]

Don't go counting on the video footage. Chances are, they will not had it over without a court order.

As it is their property (the footage), they are under no legal obligation to supply you a copy, and depending on their internal procedures, they DVR may over-write within 7 days.

I would send them a letter, advising that you are going to be advising your insurance company, and could they please retrieve & hold the footage in case it is required later on.

That way, IF it ever goes down the line, they would have a hard time explaining why they can't produce the footage. ;)

[Don 130]

No ticket unfortunately as the machine swallows it on exit. I'm not too worried since there will be video footage. Even if the operator conveniently misplaced that, then my wife had a passenger and a couple of stat decs would suffice. We only have to demonstrate our car is under 2.0m and I already checked that. Stock wheels & tyres and it's basically new so there's nothing else they could dispute.

Besides, they even state the minimum height of that particular car park is 2m on the Mater Hospital website.

Might not be entirely relevant, but isn't it law that a receipt be provided showing GST paid for any good or service?

[Blknight.aus]

go through insurance.

having the bar scrape and then not hit anything in the car park is a lot better than vice versa.

in the event of perentie VS Fire main where the clearance is advertised incorrectly. The perentie wins.

[Mick_Marsh]

I would have thought owner onus applied in car parks.

Might not be entirely relevant, but isn't it law that a receipt be provided showing GST paid for any good or service?
Only if requested.

[Aaron IIA]

I have had the boom gate come down between my brush guard and front guards. The vehicle stalled after going through a big puddle just before the carpark. It would not re-start. Being an upward incline, I had to persuade the waiting cue that we all had to back out.
Aaron

[FeatherWeightDriver]

:mad:

See: http://www.aulro.com/afvb/showthread.php?p=2143736

2.05m roof line should have fit in a 2.1m space, but apparently not!

My scratches / dings are strange - very back of the roof, but the bits that are scratched are not the highest part of the roof.

Only way I could think of it happening is if I was bouncing on the suspension at the time (speed humps?), but I doubt I would have been driving in to something that low at any real speed.

I didn't hear the impact, but I may have been "testing" the stereo at the time.

[solmanic]

Well I got some photos of the car park entry and a measurement of the bar. It is actually 2m but that is directly above the pavement below. The problem is that some numpty has put the bar directly over a negative change in gradient where the down ramp meets the floor. If you measure the height correctly (as indicated in the Australian Standard) the actual height of the bar is waay below 2m. The measure is meant to be perpendicular to a chord across the change in gradient equal to a vehicle with a 3.05m wheelbase. So not only are they clearly at fault, but they will have to move or re-label the bar.

I have spoken to the manager who seems reasonable and emailed him the photos & info. I'll find out tomorrow what the procedure is for repairs.

[solmanic]

The car park are talking to their insurers and will get back to me.

HEY! I just noticed my user title has been changed!!! :Rolling::banban:
Maybe I should change my avatar to something less provocative, like a swastika.

[George130]

Good luck

Only ever hit once in a multi story and that was in a Pajero. Speed bump made the back just scrape the fire pipes but not set them off.

[Didge]

Round my way we have numerous open air car parks that have those bloody stupid height bars! Why? The only thing you can hit is the damn bar or the clouds. I tried one that I thought was light weight but it wasn't :( - popped a spot weld on the roof :(