Turns out the m3 does not take happily to autoparking in a garage with pillars.
I was minding my own business and backing my 2-day old m3 into my usual parking spot at work, when the m3 offered to autopark (pre-v10). And i let it.
It tried a couple of times, backed in nicely and then decided it was too close to the right (pillar was on the left). It pulled out - turning sharply to the left and scraped up against the pillar before I could so much as react.
It took out the right side mirror and scraped the right side door pretty badly. I could not open it from the outside. Drove it to the body shop - door has to be replaced.
I looked in the manual and it does say all the legalese - you are responsible, gotta have control, is not effective in the following circumstances etc. But I really was shell shocked when the car, with all its sensors, made contact with the concrete pillar in auto mode.
Key takeaways:
1. dont use the autopark unless you are in an open parking lot. Now I am definitely gun shy to try and let it parallel park. I am going to do what I did when my daughter started learning - put it through its paces in an empty parking lot with cones
2. There should be no way a car with this many sensors should ever make contact with a solid object at parking speeds (of 1 or 2 mph). But it looks like the system turns off its proximity sensors while autoparking - because I received no audible or visible warning before it crunched into the pillar. If so, this is a serious bug and needs to be fixed pronto.
Anyone else experienced anything similar?
I was minding my own business and backing my 2-day old m3 into my usual parking spot at work, when the m3 offered to autopark (pre-v10). And i let it.
It tried a couple of times, backed in nicely and then decided it was too close to the right (pillar was on the left). It pulled out - turning sharply to the left and scraped up against the pillar before I could so much as react.
It took out the right side mirror and scraped the right side door pretty badly. I could not open it from the outside. Drove it to the body shop - door has to be replaced.
I looked in the manual and it does say all the legalese - you are responsible, gotta have control, is not effective in the following circumstances etc. But I really was shell shocked when the car, with all its sensors, made contact with the concrete pillar in auto mode.
Key takeaways:
1. dont use the autopark unless you are in an open parking lot. Now I am definitely gun shy to try and let it parallel park. I am going to do what I did when my daughter started learning - put it through its paces in an empty parking lot with cones
2. There should be no way a car with this many sensors should ever make contact with a solid object at parking speeds (of 1 or 2 mph). But it looks like the system turns off its proximity sensors while autoparking - because I received no audible or visible warning before it crunched into the pillar. If so, this is a serious bug and needs to be fixed pronto.
Anyone else experienced anything similar?