Aston Martin – Driveway Issue

I went for a test drive and brought the car home to check the clearance in the driveway, I pulled in at a 45 degree angle while checking the valence and all looked good. Alright! No problem. I only pulled in far enough to clear the valence. I didn’t see a need to pull it into the garage and I was in a hurry to get the car back to the dealer.

My driveway profile (shown below) requires a car with a short overhang thus the Vantage was preferred over the DB9.

So, I bought a Vantage and pulling into the garage from the driveway was the problem. Using the illustration below, you’ll see what I’m talking about.

  1. Pulling in from the street, I slow down.
  2. Positioned at about a 45 degree angle to clear the valence, I start pulling into the driveway.
  3. A little torque is required now to accelerate and at the same time start uphill. The LSD locks up so both wheels are pushing now.
  4. Still going uphill and the LSD is still locked, I begin to turn to align to the left bay of the garage. As the turn begins, the left wheel begins to slip since the LSD is locked up and I’m now turning, the outer wheel must spin faster than the right wheel. This slipping requires substantial energy so I need to press down on the accelerator  pretty far.
  5. Now, I’m lined up for entry into the left bay of the garage. The car is straight now and the wheels can turn at the same rate. LSD is still locked. The car starts to enter the garage and the ground at this point is level. more importantly, the left wheel is no longer slipping. but the accelerator pedal is still pressed down quite far.
  6. Now I enter the garage with the accelerator pedal pushed down and the car accelerates quite nicely. I have about 500ms to hit the brake to stop in time before nailing the Equipto cabinet at the end of the space.

So, that’s the problem. Sometimes it went well and sometimes it was nearly a disaster.

Then, I discovered something that helped slightly which was to coast in at a speed fast enough to eliminate the need for accelerating up the driveway but slow enough to keep from scraping the valence. That reduced the power I needed but still required quite a bit to make the left wheel slip.

I needed a nose lift or I’d end up hating the car.

Discovered when I bought the car November 2018