Kizashi Club

How often does this happen to you guys? I'm really careful about sloped entrances and such and I still have a few marks on there.

I basically slow to a crawl when there is an incline like my driveway or a garage entrance. In fact, I can't park on my driveway without scraping the front so I back-park because the rear has a higher departure angle.

Scraping is somewhat inevitable, but if you look under the car, there are tabs under the front bumper that take most of the abuse so the bottom of the bumper isn't damaged as much.

Happens all the time. Not the first car I've had with this problem (ahem MR2).

I just take all those dips at a slow angle and it takes care of it for the most part

I also have a Porsche Boxster which is also quite prone to scrapes because of the long nose. But I have to be even more careful with the Kizashi than the Boxster, and still I get scrapes.

The Boxster probably has a shorter "overhang" front and rear- the distance from the bumper lip to the wheels? That can make a huge difference to scraping.

I got caught out doing a u turn into a driveway. The driveway wasn't that steep but I braked hard as the wheels entered the gutter- the suspension compressed and it bottomed out. Luckily it sounded worse than it was.

It's actually about the same in the front (maybe even longer), or at least the Kizashi feel like the Boxster. The main trunk on the Boxster is in the front right in front of the axles.

I hate the brake, suspension compression just enough to scrape scenario. It's like sometimes it's better to let the suspension try to dampen it than the brakes slow the impact. I've actually used the accelerator to put more weight on the back on the Boxster.

I don't know about other parts of the world, but compared to most places I've been to in Europe, the US seems to have the most absurdly sloped road crowns ever. I can't tell you how many times I've parked my car on a street and my passenger couldn't exit the vehicle because the slope was so bad that the door would immediately catch on the sidewalk, not letting them open the door all the way. Or how when driving in the right lane closest to the curb, you'd literally have to turn your steering wheel a quarter turn to the left to keep the car going straight. Or what about the intersections where the dip was so deep that you need to slow to a crawl in order to clear it?! Don't even get me started on driveway entrances!

I just don't understand why they built these roads like that. I don't buy the argument that it's for better rain collection, because Europe gets plenty of rain and didn't feel the need to build roads with such severe crowns.

Because we Americans suck at a lot of things.

I've seen each one of these features (usually accompanied by some scrape marks), but they're not very frequent. It's just that certain cars seem to catch things at the worst angles.