No matter what its size, a car-friendly garage will make parking simpler, loading and unloading a breeze, and it'll help doing some regular maintenance easier, too. Here are some helpful pointers on how to optimize your garage for your car.
- Nail scraps of carpet or pieces of an old tire to posts and other obstructions that your car – or its flung-open doors – might inadvertently crash into or scrape against.
- To save your car and the garage wall from damage install a simple parking guide. A tennis ball hanging from the ceiling will do the trick. First, run a length of string through the tennis ball. Next, park the car in its ideal position. Now, hang the string so that the tennis ball is just touching the centre of the windshield (or the back window if you prefer to back in).
- Positioning a car in the centre of a narrow garage to allow for enough room for open doors on both sides can be a challenge. One way to make this task easier is to use a strip of reflective tape as a guide. Cut the tape to match the width of your car and put it on the back wall of the garage in the perfect position. Line your car up with the strip as you drive in and you'll have a perfectly centred park, every time.
- For your safety you should be certain that your front and rear lights are always in good working order. Fix one mirror to one of the inside front corners of your garage and another to an inside back corner and set them so that you can see a pair of lights in each mirror. That way you can see at a glance whether your lights are working.
- To check for engine problems, line your garage floor with newspaper and park the car on top. Later, when you drive the car out, check the newspaper for drips and stains. Dark greasy droplets could mean an oil leak. Clear oily stains could result from leaking brake fluid. Red drips could indicate a loss of transmission fluid. Greenish puddles are likely to be escaped coolant.
- Until a leaking car can be fixed, protect the garage floor with a homemade drip pan. Lay a sheet of corrugated cardboard on a large baking tray and slide the tray under the source of the leak.
Remember these helpful pointers and optimizing your garage for your car will be a much easier task.
