How do broken down cars get out from multistory car parks?

Mankysteve

With great difficultly is what the block who picked me up the other week when my car broke down.

Most brakes down you'll still be able to roll the car. Still have some brakes.

skivenov

The RAC have a few smaller vans (VW Tranporters and Merc Vitos), that can get into a lot of car parks that the 3 Tonne transits can't.

The AA have a motorbike patrol around here that they use in the first instance for car parks. I had a chat to the guy once while I was borrowing a spanner after one of the mirrors on my bike worked loose. He said almost all of what they go into car parks for is lock outs and flat batteries, so stuff you can do with a bike.

Failing that it's carry your tools, push it out or outsource to a contractor who's got a little van.

londonTiger

it's not just the low ceiling but also the fact that the spiral that goes down may be very difficult to manouvere when the rocovery vehicle is towing down.

The westfields carpark tend to have higher ceilings but not sure if the'd be willing to drag a car downhill down a spiral.

skivenov

Ain't too hard, stick it on the solid bar and get the customer to steer down, while you go steady. Or if they're none-to-confident, call for a second patrol.

For the most part, visibility is so much better in a big van.

As I'm told though, 9 out of 10 times, it's a lock out or a flat battery, which is easily sorted with portable tools.

tiger_eyes

Shame - I was picturing them disassembling the car, taking all the pieces down to the bottom, then reassembling it from scratch ...

andy111

colino wrote: »

It may have changed, but years ago AA didn't recover from car parks. When my Dad returned to his car, a Princess 1.7 (told you it was years ago) and after trying to select reverse, no gears, just the gearstick floating about. The attending AA patrolman diagnosed a "broken gearbox" and while Dad had Relay, said he had to get it from the 5th floor to the road so they could recover it. Dad plus helpful passers-by pushed it out of space and to the downramp and he freewheeled it from there. Fun.
When it was recovered home, didn't take long to find real fault and replace the 20p gear-change roll pin.

That's appalling, (admitting to having an Austin Princess I mean).;)

They were one big, ugly unreliable baby.

AdrianC

It'd get to be really fun in an underground carpark, where you have to go UP the ramps to exit...

colino

andy111, that wasn't the worst of it, he then bought an Ambassador!

TrickyWicky

OddballJamie wrote: »

GoJak may be the brand name but it's basically a dolly, used for moving furniture and large items for many years.

No, you're wrong. They are technically skates. The only difference is that GoJaks have a jack whereas most skates you jack up the car yourself and then lower it onto a skate like this:



In the motoring world, this is a dolly:



You drive / tow / push the front of the car onto it and then you pull it along with the cars rear wheels still on the road. Only legal if the car is taxed, MOT'd and insured though otherwise all 4 wheels must be on a trailer for it to be classed as goods.

With skates / GoJaks you put one under each wheel and you can move the car in any direction you want - forwards, backwards, left, right etc. They are NOT suitable for towing as you have no directional control of the vehicle.

Dollies only do backwards and forwards. They ARE suitable for towing as you DO have directional control.

vikingaero

I broke down in an underground car park in Central London. There was no way anyone could push the car up the ramps on go-jaks. The AA had a Escort van and I had to wait 4 hours for it to turn up which was fine as I could eat/shop.