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auto parallel park actually works! (have you used it?)


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We take our 2018 Navigator into San Francisco on occasion. Today on a whim I pressed the magic auto-parking button, and we were all floored as the tech actually worked really really well for us, even having never used it before.

 

Have you used the auto-parking (parallel or not)? Did it work well? did you love it?

 

I'm used to 360 parking cameras, as the Navigator is not my first car to have one, but this auto-parking is a game changer for tight spots in the city with this big car if it works this well all the time.

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Ive used it on other vehicles from a flex to a f150 and everything in between and it does work well. It takes some getting used to as far as trusting it and when to push the button to start scanning. It has worked every time for me. I have not used the perpendicular auto park yet.

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I have used both in my expy, and indeed it works very well. We do not use it often as i usually park it towards the back of parking lots and dont go in cities too often, but its great when we need to. Only thing is atleast for the expy, the dial makes the parking transition awkward. Its probably less so in a navi though.

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I have not tried it yet but glad to hear it works well. The parking in my area cant be compared to San Fran, no where can I would say. I think I wanna try it in an environment where no one is waiting on me to park. So do you press the gas but dont touch the stearing wheel?

The vehicle handles all stearing and prompts the driver (on the screen) when to stop, shift and press accelerator.

I had it on a 2015 F-150 Platinum and it worked great the two times I tested it .... but I go years without having to parallel park. Looking forward to getting much more actual use of the perpendicular parking with our ‘18 Navigator.

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The spot we parked in was a normal spot. It wasn't tight, but there also wasn't any extra room for the big Navigator.

 

I saw the spot coming up, stopped before it, pushed the auto-park button (on a whim really), then followed the prompts. I drove past the spot. It asked me to drive a little further forward than I might have, then asked me to reverse, while it steered perfectly into the spot. When it was in, it asked me to pull forward a little, and voila, perfect parking with no stress.

 

I probably could have gotten it in the same spot, but I might have off-roaded the curb a little, might have had to wiggle into it with back and forth, and I certainly would not have parked it so perfectly. We were kind of floored it worked so well. That feature is a winner.

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It will get into a pretty tight spot. If it's tight you'll have to do the back and forth several times.

 

I tried the perpendicular parking recently and didn't find it very intuitive. The 1st time I tried it the spot it thought it found was off the end of the parking lot and there was a tree in that location. I was shooting for a spot next to my passenger door so I think it "searches" off the rear bumper sensor perhaps. I'll give it another try later just to get a feel for how it works.

Edited by Seijirou
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I tried to use the auto-parallel-park in a more hectic city situation and it didn't work out.

 

I saw the spot, pushed the button, drove past the spot, and it identified it fine.

 

The trouble is, as I was backing up, a city biker came from the rear and decided to continue around my car while I was backing up, then he got stuck because he couldn't make it between me and the car to my right. It upset the auto-parker enough that it cancelled, and then I was on my own.

 

It was also a problem while focusing on the prompts and 360 video, I didn't see the biker whiz up from behind. I only saw him once he was right next to me and showed up on the 360 cam.. might be a reason to use one of those other rear camera views while auto-parking in the city.

 

As for why he thought he had the right-of-way to turn my parallel parking car into an S-turn race course, i don't know. San Francisco bikers have to defend themselves so much from cars sometimes they act like terrorists that can do whatever they want.

Edited by Dave_SF
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It will get into a pretty tight spot. If it's tight you'll have to do the back and forth several times.

 

I tried the perpendicular parking recently and didn't find it very intuitive. The 1st time I tried it the spot it thought it found was off the end of the parking lot and there was a tree in that location. I was shooting for a spot next to my passenger door so I think it "searches" off the rear bumper sensor perhaps. I'll give it another try later just to get a feel for how it works.

 

The perpendicular park assist looks to be a little bit of a gimmick. It only scans the passenger side, and it wont scan the spots (at least in a ford edge I tried it with) unless you are pretty close to the cars on that side of the road....so it always takes 3 steps of reverse/forward/reverse to get it right. Normally the driver (if they know how to park) would swing the car out away from the parking spot and then pull or back into it...this system does not seem to be able to do this.

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The perpendicular park assist looks to be a little bit of a gimmick. It only scans the passenger side, and it wont scan the spots (at least in a ford edge I tried it with) unless you are pretty close to the cars on that side of the road....so it always takes 3 steps of reverse/forward/reverse to get it right. Normally the driver (if they know how to park) would swing the car out away from the parking spot and then pull or back into it...this system does not seem to be able to do this.

 

That's how I park too. I find the 360 camera to make it that much easier. I was trying to figure out the nuances because my wife is not super comfortable parking reverse. I've used the assist a few times on the passenger side now, haven't tried the driver's side. You're right, it doesn't pull forward and out at all first, it actually pulls much farther forward than I normally would before asking for reverse, and then just backs in. It will get very close on the passenger side while doing this but seems to be well controlled.

Edited by Seijirou
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I tried to use the auto-parallel-park in a more hectic city situation and it didn't work out.

 

I saw the spot, pushed the button, drove past the spot, and it identified it fine.

 

The trouble is, as I was backing up, a city biker came from the rear and decided to continue around my car while I was backing up, then he got stuck because he couldn't make it between me and the car to my right. It upset the auto-parker enough that it cancelled, and then I was on my own.

 

It was also a problem while focusing on the prompts and 360 video, I didn't see the biker whiz up from behind. I only saw him once he was right next to me and showed up on the 360 cam.. might be a reason to use one of those other rear camera views while auto-parking in the city.

 

As for why he thought he had the right-of-way to turn my parallel parking car into an S-turn race course, i don't know. San Francisco bikers have to defend themselves so much from cars sometimes they act like terrorists that can do whatever they want.

 

I saw a similar event on a demo video where the system was canceled due to other traffic. IIRC once the traffic cleared they just hit the button again and it resumed. That was just tribal knowledge, the display didn't indicate anything like that.

 

EDIT: NVM, it happened during "park out" not while doing the parking so not sure it will just pick up where it left off while parking.

Edited by Seijirou
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