[gla45life]

Has anyone been brave enough to try out the "parking assist" mode of their GLA?
I am perfectly happy parking the car using the tried and tested techniques I've honed over the past 40 years of driving however, since I paid for the gizmo I had thoughts about trying it out...
... and then I though, hmm..., drive slowly past line of parked cars, GLA spots a space, stop, engage parking mode and sit back (assuming one can remember the sequence correctly)... I am not confident that it will work flawlessly... (Yep, I know it has sensors and that the onboard computer is programmed to avoid hitting objects...) but I'd like to hear of your experiences.
I need to get 2 other cars, park them with a space 1.8 bigger than the GLA and then engage....

 

[roytheboy]

Tried it out a few times to cries of "Come on then; let's see it park itself." It's a hoot! I had a car-load of people both times and it was more entertaining than Graham Norton. The test of your nerve is as it backs up to the car behind ...will you let it stop itself before you hit the brakes? ...how big are your balls?

 

[[email protected]]

Lexus have a similar system which was great for the older driver in the massive LS sedan in the US... the only trouble was that once the system parked the car into a nice little space the old dears couldn't get it back out again and had to call their dealer for help... seems they thought it did both ways out of the parking spot...

 

[roytheboy]

The GLA will get you out as well, if you need it to. Even though I'm perfectly capable of driving a car, I actually find the huge hunches quite difficult to judge with regards to distance from the curb. I may well practice the auto-parking a few more times with the intention of using it regularly, as it does a superb job of parking the car about 2" from the curb

 

[gla45life]

I like the idea of not kerbing the alloys.... I might just pluck up the courage to let it work its magic...

 

[roytheboy]

You know it makes sense

 

[chorlton]

It took me 4 attempts before finally trusting it fully and not braking myself.
After 25 years of parallel parking in my street I'll probably stick to the tried and tested manual parking but who knows....
Can it park in supermarket parking spaces though? Might try that soon when I've got the guts.

 

[roytheboy]

The manual suggests that yes, it can also detect and park in spaces perpendicular to the direction of travel i.e. supermarket spaces, but I haven't tried it yet as this is even easier than normal with the aid of the reversing camera.

 

[Dave Irvine]

Currently I have a B class and that only has the rear view camera fitted. Even with that I find it difficult to put my total faith in what that is showing me (I once used it to judge the distance between my car and one in the parking slot behind and found there was literally just a couple of millimetres to spare !)
I would rather just have the warning 'bleeper' that I had fitted to my previous vehicle.

 

[roytheboy]

Fortunately, the GLA has the camera, the proximity sensors AND the park-assist. The camera display shows various red and white lines to indicate exact distances, track, and the predicted tyre and mirror thresholds. Obviously one needs to get used to the fish-eye lens when really close up to something like a wall, but I for one think its all rather splendid and impressive

 

[bigmouth]

I tried few times, reasonably good.

 

[roytheboy]

We've talked about this on another thread - it works very well