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Garage Mishaps

Joined
12 April 2003
Messages
1,524
Location
Fort Collins, CO
Most of my life I've been able to handle the simple logic that is using a garage, laughing at folks who do otherwise. Last two years that hasn't been the case, so I have a couple stories to share, luckily none involving the NSX.

Please do share YOUR stories - where YOU (not wife/sibling/friend/stranger, are the bonehead). This is about sharing, AA-style - I assume they talk about their problems, not those of others.

My first two stories are kind of boring, but I find the third pretty entertaining in retrospect.

Oops #1:
I hopped in my Accord, put it in reverse, proceeded to start backing out. At that moment I remembered the first rule of using a garage, "The door should be open before you enter/exit." Luckily I remembered this rule just before impact, so with reaction time I hit the brakes soon enough where the door was barely dented, and only on the inside.

Oops #2:
After finishing several trips to move groceries from MDX to kitchen, I walked back to the garage and hit the button to close the garage door. The next time I operated the garage door (opened it maybe an hour later) and walked around the back of the MDX I was surprised to see the back hatch open. Sure enough, I had managed to close (and later open) the rear hatch with the simple push of a button. Who needs a power-lift gate when you have an automatic garage door opener?

Oops #3:
I'm about to leave the house the other day and my wife comes out to chat a bit before I go. I roll down the window, we chat, I roll it back up and proceed to back out. Problem is I failed to notice that the tip of the emergency release cord from the garage had fallen inside the area of the window...so when I rolled up the window I pinched it in. I've done this several times closing the door on the cord, which is pretty annoying the cord makes a weird sound (and scuffs up the door's rubber weather seal) as it pops loose. Never had this problem with cars as they're not as tall as the MDX.

Apparently the window has a better grip on the cord than a car door (knot on the end of the rope probably helps). As I backed up the cord was pulled hard enough to release the door and, given my direction of travel, pulled in the correct direction to close the door. Now picture that...the garage door and MDX are now physically linked in a distinctly incompatible way. The farther back the MDX moves, the more the door closes...and as they meet, the opposing forces increase.

The top of the MDX now has a distinct area of fine scratches (from dirt on bottom of rubber seal on bottom of garage door being pushed with quite a bit of force against the roof) and is missing an antenna. The cord actually broke/snapped/failed from the force of everything, so I avoided dents in the roof, ripping the entire antenna assembly off, or having something else in the equation fail (I'm glad the cord was the weak link). Luckily Acura/Honda engineers these days for stuff like this, so I think this is only going to cost me about $20 (#9 in the diagram below)...plus a little bit of polishing compound.

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Time for your stories.
 
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I was pulling the front suspension on my '73 455 SD Trans Am (this was in 1980), which required compressing the coil springs and some brute force manipulation of the lower A arms.

Sitting on my ass and using my feet to push down the A-arm, the spring compressor slipped off the coil just as I yanked it out. Hit me right on the sweet spot on my chin, knocking me out cold.

I woke up about half an hour later, flat on my back.
 
I drove into (where "into" means "colliding with") my garage by forgetting that my bicycle was on a rack on top of my car.

I so lucked out. I hadn't tightened the clamps on the rack hard and it slid back. Nothing got damaged (much).
 
Done oops #2 on my Odyssey, but stopped the garage door after the hatch moved about 2 inches of travel. Got some dirt from the rubber seal on bottom of garage door. Left a minor scratch about 2 inches long that I was able to rubbed out.

Back car out to driveway, stopped car to check for something, and close garage door. As the garage door was coming down, I said to myself, I'm not far enough out. Before I can react, the garage door was on my front bumper. Since the bumper has an angle, the rubber holder at bottom of the garage door dug into the bumper a little. Left 2 1/8" notches on the bumper.

No more mishap since then.
 
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4 years ago I was out for a ride on my gixxer when my GF's 16 year old pulled in the garage {her 2nd week to drive}, when she hits the gas instead of the brakes. Right throught the back of the garage she goes. My bike sets right in front of her car. It was my lucky day. Unfortunately not hers. :rolleyes:
 
I drove into (where "into" means "colliding with") my garage by forgetting that my bicycle was on a rack on top of my car.
Watching that once made me fearful of it. Now every time I have a bike on a rack I put something (like trash can) in the way just inside the garage doorso when I return I remember not to pull in. Occasionally I've almost done the opposite: Started to load bike on car when still in garage. :redface:
 
4 years ago I was out for a ride on my gixxer when my GF's 16 year old pulled in the garage {her 2nd week to drive}, when she hits the gas instead of the brakes. Right throught the back of the garage she goes. My bike sets right in front of her car. It was my lucky day. Unfortunately not hers. :rolleyes:

LOL, guess I should've read the whole post.:rolleyes: :redface:
 
A few years ago, my girlfriend and I are making our way home from a little long weekend summer camping/climbing/cycling excursion in SW Colorado. We have her mother's Subaru. Gear in back, bikes on top...good to go. So after a long drive from from Telluride to Glenwood Canyon, back I70 towards the front range, we decide to stop off in Vail (the highway rest area of mountain resort towns :tongue: ) for a breather and some grub. I pull off one of the interchanges, and head toward the parking garage.

(do I need to finish or do you know the ending?? :tongue: )

As I approach the garage, through the sunroof, I take a moment to admire the new front suspension fork on my girlfriend's Gary Fisher. As I creep forwards in 1st gear, I glance ahead and slightly upward to see the "7'5" max ride height" sign closing in on me, my girlfriend's mother's vehicle, and my girlfriend's shiny new bike. At 20 feet away, and closing not very fast, it dawns on me... I'm not going to fit me, the car, and the bike through that oriface without some spatial adjustments. And then I keep driving. And then I hit the goddamn roof of the garage and forcefully remove from the Subaru 2 bikes, a rack, an antenna and some paint.
 
Opened the garage door to pull my bike out for one of those happy 6k mile valve checks and I like a little fresh air when I'm admiring Mr. Taglioni's fine work. I only pulled the bike out part way as the cars were parked in the driveway. I finish up about 2 hours later and go in to get a glass of water. Inadvertently, I hit the garage door switch on my way in. I realized instantly what I had done and bolted to stop the door with my body from coming down on my bike. I still have a nice bruise on my shoulder, of course it only happened last week.
 
Does closing the garage door with the 1 opener remote in the car that is in the garage count? At the time, there wasn't any access to the garage other than the overhead door (my parents house and I was visiting for a long weekend).
The original home owners had sealed the doorway between the garage and inside the house. So I broke through the drywall, and trimmed the opening for a door and installed the door.
Mark
 
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