Aerials on new cars

Shelle

Recently, both Dad and I bought a new car (I bought a Nissan Note Acentra R whilst Dad bought A Toyota Auris TR).

Both our cars are taller than our previous ones and the aerials hit the garage door on entering and leaving the garage. In the past, this has never been a problem. Indeed when I was receiving the handover chat for my car, it was mentioned that the aerial is flexible and doesnt mind hitting garage doors etc.

After just 2 days I made the decision to take my aerial off permanantly as it was making such a racket and really knocking against the garage door. It doesnt matter too much for me as I am deaf and do not use the radio. For dad though, obviously as a hearing person, he needs the aerial and has left his on.

Just a month later though, his aerial is badly marked and the cover has been exposed and is quite flayed. He has resorted to put a towel round it when entering and leaving the garage.

Is it reasonable or unreasonable to expect the aerial to last longer than a month??? Fair enough a lot of people do not put their car into the garage, but does that mean those of us who do use our garages have to have a broken aerial?? If we are not meant to put our cars in the garage, then surely they should say so? The aerial still works at present (although how long for?) but if we were to ask the garage for a replacement, would that be covered under the warranty as reasonable???

I would prefer to leave mine on as well for when I have hearing passengers, but again seeing the damage on dads it makes me reluctant.

What are your thoughts?

brazilianwax

Buy a replacement one that is shorter than the existing one? Should only be a couple of pounds.

Not really the manufacturer's fault - garages come in all sorts of different shapes and sizes. It's just unfortunate that the shape of yours and the cars you chose mean the aerial gets knocked.

Iamthesmartestmanalive

Shelle wrote: »

Recently, both Dad and I bought a new car (I bought a Nissan Note Acentra R whilst Dad bought A Toyota Auris TR).

Both our cars are taller than our previous ones and the aerials hit the garage door on entering and leaving the garage. In the past, this has never been a problem. Indeed when I was receiving the handover chat for my car, it was mentioned that the aerial is flexible and doesnt mind hitting garage doors etc.

After just 2 days I made the decision to take my aerial off permanantly as it was making such a racket and really knocking against the garage door. It doesnt matter too much for me as I am deaf and do not use the radio. For dad though, obviously as a hearing person, he needs the aerial and has left his on.

Just a month later though, his aerial is badly marked and the cover has been exposed and is quite flayed. He has resorted to put a towel round it when entering and leaving the garage.

Is it reasonable or unreasonable to expect the aerial to last longer than a month??? Fair enough a lot of people do not put their car into the garage, but does that mean those of us who do use our garages have to have a broken aerial?? If we are not meant to put our cars in the garage, then surely they should say so? The aerial still works at present (although how long for?) but if we were to ask the garage for a replacement, would that be covered under the warranty as reasonable???

I would prefer to leave mine on as well for when I have hearing passengers, but again seeing the damage on dads it makes me reluctant.

What are your thoughts?

I think you should crash your car into a wall countless times then sue the manufacturer because the bumpers didnt last:rotfl:

!!!!!! get a grip, you 2 have chosen to take a damaging action, you cant blame the manufacturer for that

anewman

Be aware that with the cheap aerials you may get something called bi-metallic corrosion, which in practice means the aerial will screw in, but then the different metals react with each other and corrode, and then you won't be able to unscrew it. Adding a little copper grease to the threads of the cheapie aerial will help.

Tesco (at least the Extra store near me) do a small extendable one for £4 with a choice of two screw thread sizes. I swapped the long aerial on my car for one of these and reception is still fine.

moonrakerz

On a similar note; I have a double decker bus, every time I drive it under a low bridge I rip the roof off, should I sue the maker of the bus or the owner of the bridge ?

anewman

Iamthesmartestmanalive and moonrakerz - OP states the garage that sold the car stated it is acceptable for the car's aerial to hit a garage door. I have a slight suspicion they did not say it is acceptable to drive under a 5ft bridge, or to smack the walls with the bumpers.

Regards aerial working, it will continue to work - the damage will be more cosmetic than aanything, and I suspect if the garage claimed hitting a garage door is fine they may replace it, and may even offer an alternative aerial that's less likely to hit the door. You don't ask, you don't get anyway - worth a try.

moonrakerz

anewman wrote: »

Iamthesmartestmanalive and moonrakerz - OP states the garage that sold the car stated it is acceptable for the car's aerial to hit a garage door.

Common sense says that repeatedly driving in and out of a garage scraping the aerial as you go, 'aint going to do the aerial a power of good.

Do you believe everything a car salesman tells you ?

Inactive

moonrakerz wrote: »

Do you believe everything a car salesman tells you ?

Or anything for that matter....

shown73

Plenty of what are called, "bee sting," jobbies on Ebay, but I couldn't say whether they work as well as the longer ones. Worth a look, perhaps, they seem very short.

anewman

The bee sting one's on ebay seem to be the poound shop ones. The tesco one is extendable.

kitchpoo

Sometimes you can find a manufacturer alternative which is shorter - an example is the Vauxhall Agila - a small, tall car fitted with a 1ft long aerial meant it never went in a garage without catching, but the Zafira had a shorter version - many owners replaced the Agila one with the Zafi one. It may be worth checking others in the range of Toyota and Nissan for this - as this will avoid bi-metallic corrosion.