Those are hard to come by and they are $250-300.

 

That much? Wow, I've never priced them out before.

The ones I've seen are just a plain old plastic rod but I didn't find a good picture of one. Unfortunately, it appears that most of them require some drilling or cutting of the bumper to mount.

 

For my parking space at work I always back into the spot and there is a black plastic dot on the wall. I know how far to back up per where that plastic dot is with the back of the hatch window! Works everytime.

Cat :x

 

Tennis ball and a string works fine in my garage, total cost was about $1.

 

The tennis ball setup doesn't work for parallel parking.

 

have someone stand right in front of the car many times to get yourself familiar w/ the distance between the driver's seat and the object right in front of the car. after some practice you can eyeball it. it's like learning to cook - no seasoned cook uses measuring spoons for ingredients. it's all in the head.

 

It took me a little while to get used to not seeing the front end but there is a reason for designing it that way...believe it or not. The front end tapers (which make it invisible to the drive) but does so for pedestrian safety. That way if you smoke the person stepping off the curb in front of you they tumble over the car instead of being sucked under.

 

I always figured:

If you're sitting in the driver's seat, look at the left mirror's bottom edge. Where you see pavement behind that roughly lines up with the front of the car.

Worked perfect in the EJ, but in the Fit I gotta allow about 3" extra.

Or, alternately, you could drive a rear-steering 4-ton lift vehicle at speeds exceeding 10 mph with sometimes less than an inch clearance on every corner when turning into storage lanes, and really appreciate how doggone easy it is to park a Fit.

 

Erm, not to "encourage" to be off topic but just replying....

 

interesting...where did u get this info?

 

Giggle is right. I read the same thing from honda's own material about the front end design that minimize pedestrian injury. I don't remember exactly where I saw the info. I do remember seeing a detailed description of Honda's ACE body structure as well as other safety features, along w/ illustrated drawings. Probably from the Japanese Fit site. I don't know Japanese but a typical Japanese writing contains enough Chinese characters (Kanji) for me to guess the meaning.

 

This is the reason for the high hoods on all new Hondas and virtually every new model from other major manufacturers. One of the pedestrian safety requirements is a minimum gap between the engine and the inside of the hood of 10 cm (4 inches). Pedestrian safety through vehicle design - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Personally, I dislike the look of this on regular cars because it makes them tall, appear bulky and reduces downward field of view ahead of the car.

 

I can't see the front, even if I stand up. I usually just stop to where I feel it's safe. Lol!