Is jacknife driveway hurting our cars?

We live in a home that has a short driveway into our garage with jacknife-type bend to it (most of the homes in the community have this).



The problem is that our cars, a new Prius and an older Corolla, scrape on the bottom when we drive into the garage. It’s annoying and makes us cringe when we hear the scrapes. Is this hurting our cars?



Thanks!

Yes, scraping the bottom of your cars IS hurting them. I would be most concerned about scraping fuel and brake lines, but scraping the bottom of the car will at the least remove all of the paint and anti corrosion coatings and allow your cars to rust in the middle!

You could get one of those plastic/wood deck boards and after experimenting, glue it where it will elevate the front or rear wheels to prevent the scraping. Sounds funny but you will figure it out by positioning the car at the point where the scraping will start. Then put the board in front of either set of tires.

It depends on what’s scraping. Chances are, it’s either the tow hooks on the front or back, or the bottom of the body sides, neither of which are incredibly serious, particularly if it’s the tow hooks. If it’s the body panels, then over time damage can occur. Again, though, it depends where and what is scraping. I’d suggest, at any rate, to follow pleasedodgevan’s advice regarding deck boards.

I don’t know what you mean by a jackknife bend, but I do understand scraping. Not good… not good at all. I had a similar problem when I moved into a new home ten years ago. There was a dip and when the wheels dropped down, something underneath would scrape.

Do you know that concrete is very cheap? I made some wooden forms from scrap lumber and called for the cement truck. I filled in the dip, wife and family working quickly with hoes and brooms to smooth the surface. I’ve not had a single bottom scrape since. Consider doing something similar.

I agree with the others, fix the driveway.

Or… you could get one of those hydrolic lift kits they use on Low-Riders :wink:

Your driveway problem is one of two issues - either you have a hump (or incline) that’s too high (or steep), or a dip that’s too deep. The dip is easy to fix with a filler such as concrete or blacktop. The hump or incline can be fixed the same way, but it’s not as easy - or you can re-grade which is also not so easy.

If everyone on your street has the same problem, you can probably get a paving company to come out and fix all of them for a reasonable price.

Or… you can let your car scrape until either the car or the driveway wears down enough!!! (this may take some time and several cars)

You need to find out what’s scraping. If it’s the tailpipe, a simple solution would be to cut an angle in the end. Any shop can do this really cheaply or you can do it yourself with an angle grinder with a cutting disc on it.