Yesterday while parking in a grocery store parking lot I had an idea. Presently when you open the doors on vehicles they have a half-way stop and a full-stop. Sometimes when you are parked close to another vehicle and you have packages or maybe you are a plump fellow you need to open the door more than the half-way stop, but you can’t open the door to full-stop because it would hit the vehicle next to you. So, I was thinking, why not invent a door with notches/detents in the hinges that allow you to open the door two inches at a time. That way you could open the door and “click” it to the exact opening you wanted or the opening you had space for. Am I making sense? Or is this idea already on the market?
And then you bump the door getting in and it hits the car next to you anyways. If the door could lock in various open positions then I think most people would complain about the extra step to disengage the locking mechanism to close the door. Maybe it’s just me but it seems people in general are getting lazier and expect that any type of “improvement” will make things easier/quicker not more difficult and slower. Just my 2cents worth.
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I am pretty sure I’ve had cars with multiple detents as well as no detents, just a friction drag. Not something I pay much attention to, though.
I’ve been driving the same car for the last 18 years, and it doesn’t have any of those annoying half-stops and full-stops that I’ve seen on older domestic cars. Maybe that’s why I bought it.
I park at the back of parking lots where most people are to lazy to walk that far so I don’t have a door opening problem.
So whitey, you’re the guy who keeps scratching my finish with your door – just kidding.
My F-150 is a 2016 and it has half- and full-stops. But when I need the door opened in-between the stops I have to hold it while I climb in so as to protect the finish on the vehicle next to me.
I don’t know. I thought you were blaming those stops for dinging other people’s doors. I like having more options.
Or can’t. I went for years with walking pain before it got bad enough that I finally got disability tags. I think it had to get bad enough for me to finally admit to myself that I was disabled. There are millions out there like I was.
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My car is in the shop today, so I can’t check right now, but I’m pretty sure it stops in three positions.
I know exactly what you mean patgurr. Coupes (though rare) are the worst offenders since the doors seem to swing out much wider than in a sedan or pickup. I’m glad someone is thinking this way. I really don’t like coming out to find a new ding in my door.
Nothing to do with the fact that most coupe doors are wider so entry to rear seats is easier.
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Two-door cars usually have wider doors so people can enter to the back seat. Four-door cars have narrower doors than a two-door car because people entering the back seat have their own door. My pet peeve is the inconsiderate people who park and then just fling their door open wide. I purchased a new 4-door Chevy once and when I picked it up it had a tiny scratch on the side of the door. The dealer wanted to paint the door for me. I was afraid the color wouldn’t perfectly match so I declined. They could not believe I was taking a brand new car off the lot with a scratch in the door. But I told them within two weeks I would probably have another scratch on the same door. Sure enough in about two weeks I now had two scratches on the door 
My truck has no detent at all, and my Corolla only has one, at the wide open point. I think what you suggest is a good idea in theory at least, but in practice it would depend on how well it worked at holding the door in place, how difficult it was to move the door when you finally wanted to move it, maintenance & reliability costs, and how much it would add to the price of the car. I wouldn’t be willing to pay much for that feature myself b/c I tend to park in locations where I’m not next to another car. But sometimes I come back and there’s a car – usually a big SUV or truck – parked right next to me, so it would be of benefit then I guess.
Minivan. Sliding doors. Try 'em, you’ll like 'em!
Not sold in the US at first but the BMW Z1 has drop down doors like in the video, you can now import them here legally. It is a cool idea though.
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Yup. The main problem with the design, at least on larger doors, is that you can’t have a normal interior panel on the door - it has to be basically a stretched fabric curtain, otherwise it scrapes stuff as it tucks under the car. Looks ugly.
There’s also the small matter of opening a giant hole in the entire side of the car in a rain storm, though that’s less of an issue in a sun-runabout like the Z1.
Personally, I like dihedral doors best.
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Lately the mark of a good supercar seems to be that when everything is opened, it looks like it exploded:
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That is a truly hideous sight 
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