curb feelers

Hey, Bob...Just because *you* aren't interested in "bikini clad dash ornaments" doesn't mean the rest of us aren't. BTW, all passengers should be wearing a seatbelt while the car is in motion, bikini or not.

 

Has anyone developed an "electronic curb feeler" that uses ultrasonic sensors like those employed in wireless backup alert systems? No doubt this would cost slightly more than $15, but at least there wouldn't be any 1950's style wire rods sticking out from the side of my 21st century Prius.

 

My sadly warped mind conjured up a vision that didn't meet safe driving practices. My point was your bikini clad passenger would be safer in the seat with their seat belt on, not lying around on the dash..(or the hood, which is way too flimsy)

I will attempt to keep these visions to myself in future..

 

I don't do much parallel parking but the low front end (on the 2010, at least) has caused me to scrape the top of one curb already while parking straight-in.

Given my inability to judge the actual front bumper location, I found myself more often parking about 3 feet away from the curb in front.

My solution was to take an after-market back-up sensor kit and place one sensor on each end of the lower grille about 6 inches up from the bottom. I attached the controller power wire (normally attached to your back-up lights) to one of the high beam lamp fuses.

My kit has a little display with range to target and an indicator showing relative distance from each sensor, left or right. It also has a beeper which increases in speed based on proximity. I mounted that in the little well between the top of the steering column and the dash with some double-stick tape, snaking the wire to the controller under the hood.

As I pull forward into a space, I turn on my high beams and watch the range indicator, pausing every foot or so to make sure it has a lock on the curb. When the display reads 1 foot and goes into its fastest beep, I'm about 6 inches from the curb. It's highly repeatable.

I purchased my kit through a friend, but I just found almost exactly the same thing by Googling "backup sensor kit." They are under $100 for a 4-sensor kit. Some actually market these as front bumper sensors, so I'm not the first to think of using them this way.

I tried to use them as blind-spot sensors on another car, but they work best when moving very slowly. The range jumps around a lot otherwise. That's also why I kept them switchable so they are generally only on when parking. Still, I think you might use these with a couple of sensors on the side near your wheel well. You just need to figure out the critical distances from each sensor to keep from scraping.

 

You do realize this thread is four years old? If the OP hasn't figured out something by now, the damage has been done.

Tom

 

Yeah, but I'm a new Prius owner that just scraped my right front bumper on a curb and my "curb feeler" search term brought me to this thread! So I thank the Gentleman for his timely post!

ED

 

Yea.....they were ugly way back when and they're ugly today.

 

I think curb feelers just tell the world that you don't know how to drive.

 

Somewhere, I have a photo of a Prius with curb feelers - got it at a Prius meetup I went to...

 

What about spring-loaded suicide knobs for the steering wheel, with cheesecake pictures under the cap? Are those in the catalog?

I have contemplated screwing a flag bracket to the front bumper. It could hold a wand that I could see from the driver's seat that would mark the forwardmost projection of the bumper.

But the clash between that sissy wand and the cheesecake suicide steering knob would destroy the Feng Shui of the whole car, which would probably cost me 10 MPG.