We recently moved to a new apartment and were thrilled that we would have a parking space in a garage. However, when we try to get the car into the driveway, it bottoms out, no matter what angle or direction we approach the driveway. The driveway slopes down a hill and the garage is below the house. There is a lip at the top of the driveway and when the front wheels are headed down the driveway and the bottom wheels are still on the street, the bottom of the car scrapes the concrete. Does anyone have any suggestions of how to fix this besides redoing the driveway (the landlords have already said they can’t do that!)? Raising the car? A special ramp? Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Jst drop a few 2 by six boards in the appropriate place to raise the wheels in the dip before the bottom hits the high spot. If the land lord does not want you to leave them there, keep very short ones in your car and just drop them in front of each wheel and pick them up as leave. You may have to experiment with place ment and height till you get it. I have a ditch in front of my house and drop a board or two in when a friend with a low car visits. Other then getting a 4Runner, this is the only temporary fix I can think of. Maybe a steel mess ramp like a mini bridge could be placed there if you volunteered to pay for it. The dip may be necessary for drainage to keep water from flowing down into the garage so just filling may not be an option for someone too cheap to put a culvert in.
I had a pair of steel ramps that I used for oil/filter service. Then came cars with air dams. 1991 Mazda RX-7, 2002 Mitsubishi Eclipse, and 2010 KIA Forte SX. They were not even close to being ramp compatible and all three suffered driveway scrapes. Last week I was snowed in for 4 days as the KIA’s 4 1/2 inch clearance did not work in 12 inches + snow. I think dagosa is suggesting concrete reinforcing rebar mesh. This should be an excellent solution as it would in no way affect drainage. It may need to be secured to the pavement to keep it from bouncing and making noise.
Not knowing how much room there is, but knowing you have tried this but try it backing down at a severe angle to decrease the drop between your wheelbase, as that will give you greater manuverability. @sgtrock21 For sure. Even a few well placed stone, patio bricks or rip rap making a French drain might work even without the mesh.
I’ve seen a sort of wide rubber-like ramp placed in the neighborhood sidewalk gutters used to allow low cars to go over the sidewalk bump without scraping. They have a hole in them for drainage, so they don’t block the flow of water through the gutter. Don’t know who makes these, but they must be commercially available. Have you googled “car ramps for clearance” or something like that.