Car Park Challenge...
OK then, you asked for it.

This one was dreamed up by a couple of colleagues and myself in the days when I (occasionally) worked in Liverpool. The rules go like this:

1) Drive into a large (the taller the better) multi-storey car park.

2) Park on the very top level, and go off and do your shopping/work/whatever else people do in Liverpool.

3) Return to your car and drive to the very top of the first ramp.

4) Take your car out of gear.

The object of the game is to see if you can make it all the way back to the bottom without using the engine.

Sounds simple, I know... but you have to make sure you get enough momentum going from one ramp to take you to the start of the next one. The feeling you get when the car is just slowing to a halt as you reach the next ramp and then starts moving again is unbeatable!

There are different 'grades' of car park too. Ones with a big spiral ramp would be a '0', because they're piss-easy. The further apart the ramps are the higher the grade. This game even used to have it's own theme tune. It was some cheesy 60's library music I found on an old CD, can't for the life of me remember what it was called though.

On a serious note, some people have been known to turn their engine off. This is NOT a good idea as, depending on your car, you may lose your power steering and brake servo.

Now, you might be sitting there thinking "What a load of childish bollocks", and you'd be right. However, I bet you £20 and a packet of Jaffa Cakes the next time you're in a big car park, you *are* going to try it!
(mellotron never could get the hang of Thursdays, Fri 9 Jan 2009, 12:25, 26 replies)

Click!
Genius!
( SpankyHanky, Fri 9 Jan 2009, 12:29, closed)

You owe me £20 and packet of Jaffa cakes.
I can't drive.
( Monty Boyce, My cheese game is strong, Fri 9 Jan 2009, 12:41, closed)

I cant drive either
... which would probably add to the excitement of wanting to have a go at this... I'd probably get on the local news for causing a huge fucking pile up in a multistory carpark.
( SpankyHanky, Fri 9 Jan 2009, 12:45, closed)

Get yourself one of these
ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/41myEs5tR7L._SL500_.jpg

Feet off the pedals now!
(mellotron never could get the hang of Thursdays, Fri 9 Jan 2009, 12:55, closed)

A pushbike would be good fun too!
It sounds like quite a good test of bike handling skills, although with a bike, you'd have to change the rules to not use the brakes as well, and a spiral one becomes quite difficult because of the speed you'd build up.
(cheesehead, Sat 10 Jan 2009, 11:14, closed)

YES!!!
I love it!

Think we could dream up enough 'events' for a whole "Car Park Olympics"?
(mellotron never could get the hang of Thursdays, Sat 10 Jan 2009, 19:37, closed)

I used to do this with my first car
it was a 1ltr Peugeot 205 that didnt have a built-in steering lock so I could turn the engine off. Had to watch out for pedestrians though because they dont hear you coming.
( Colonel Dracula Two manky hookers and a racist dwarf, Fri 9 Jan 2009, 12:45, closed)

The perfect solution!
Lying in wait, like the killer cars of Paris
(Super Oaf Petit filous?, Tue 13 Jan 2009, 9:28, closed)

Carparks are too small
I use Sheffield. Its hilly terrain allow you to get from one side of the city to another.
( willenium Fist bump for verification, Fri 9 Jan 2009, 13:11, closed)

Hehe
I can get from Crookes to Penistone road in Hillsborough without using my engine.

Well I did it once anyway.
(powervator and NONE SHALL PASS, Fri 9 Jan 2009, 13:23, closed)

Crookes.
where clutches come to die.
( willenium Fist bump for verification, Fri 9 Jan 2009, 13:31, closed)

I agree
I used to have to park daily in Crookes. I'm blaming that for my now shitty worn out handbrake and new clutch. Thanks Uni for putting the old legal block on a fucking nearly-vertical embankment.
(Lex scripta, Fri 9 Jan 2009, 20:08, closed)

I was once one of three passengers
in a Mini that got back from the Avon free festival to Winchester on £2 of petrol - I'm absolutely not lying.
( Monty Boyce, My cheese game is strong, Tue 13 Jan 2009, 16:50, closed)

Excellent!
I have already done this and I almost spanged my bumper on a scope.
(powervator and NONE SHALL PASS, Fri 9 Jan 2009, 13:21, closed)

I do this
To get to my house its 50m down one road 25m down the next, then 15m along my bit of road which is a bit uphill then turn into my parking space.

I can't build up too much speed as there are lots of cars so the road is a bit of a slalom and there are loads of cats which I can't run over as the wife will batter me.
(Yellow Car is now red, Fri 9 Jan 2009, 13:27, closed)

As a gold standard final for this
Milton Keynes station carpark. Those that have been will know.
(Leonard Hatred briefly did some work on, Fri 9 Jan 2009, 13:57, closed)

Yes that is a doozy!
Very tough, especially the morning after a night before...
(Galahad is out of his gourd on yellow bentines, Sun 11 Jan 2009, 14:36, closed)

Turn the engine off,
but leave the ignition on and you'll still have power to the steering and brakes.
( monkeybananaraffle, Fri 9 Jan 2009, 14:04, closed)

Not in most cars you won't
The vacuum for the servo either comes from the inlet manifold (petrol) or an engine driven vacuum pump (diesel). And the power steering is normally operated by a hydraulic pump driven by the engine.

You will have brakes and steering without the engine but you'll need to apply a hell of a lot more effort.
( K2k6 has a proper job these days, Fri 9 Jan 2009, 14:08, closed)

Yes...
K2k6 is right.

I tried it in my old S3 Land Rover once... try stopping one of those without servo assist!
(mellotron never could get the hang of Thursdays, Fri 9 Jan 2009, 14:37, closed)

So long as you're coasting
an engine going downhill like that will use next-to-no petrol anyway. So you're not saving much by turning it off when you're doing this. But you are highly likely to lose your brake servo with the engine off, which doesn't mean the brakes stop working completely but can get very exciting very quickly.

And when I say "Exciting" I mean watching the point of impact approaching rapidly while standing with both feet on the brake pedal and yodelling in anxiety.
(richardm, Fri 9 Jan 2009, 17:22, closed)

fuck teh power steering
i say for an added challenge man up and drive your car with the engine off to enjoy the 'more authentic' feel of having no power steering/power brakes - takes some real strength, but not impossible on most cars! obviously this isn't practical in certain vehicles such as 5-ton trucks and i'm in no way at fault if your puny arms and legs can't produce the extreme forces needed to successfully avoid concrete pillars/walls/parked cars/etc
(chickensoupforyourface, Sun 11 Jan 2009, 7:22, closed)

carbon Credits
Several times i have managed to go through the Lyttelton road tunnel from the Christchurch side to the port side in Neutral. legnth ?? just under 2 km thanks to the ever so slight down hill run in that direction. FYI its the longest road tunnel in NZ
(welgar, Sun 11 Jan 2009, 7:50, closed)

Talking of tunnels...
Do you reckon this is what that manc twat Ronaldo was doing to make himself crash?
( snee held his breath since, Tue 13 Jan 2009, 13:52, closed)

Etna
Car parks sound fun. However the best I've managed is about 12km, freewheeling down from 2,000m from the refuge on Mount Etna almost to the nearest town (the traffic got dodgy, which was hugely disappointing).

For your information, you shouldn't try this with a new Clio. First of all, you shouldn't really have one, as they are horrible plasticky bits of cack, but (if you are unlucky enough to hire one) as has been pointed out if you switch the engine off, everything goes, but only slowly. So at first you think that everything's fine, then, coming to a corner, the brakes and the steering which were working a while before, suddenly don't. Yodelling? Yes.

The girlfriend still doesn't know why I went somewhat ashen in that descent...
(groover j lazerus, Sun 11 Jan 2009, 20:35, closed)

Top challenge!
Having been brought up on the edge of the Lake District our take on this was to roll from the summit of Corney Fell to Duddon Bridge - essentially a 4 mile, single track road initially over open moorland then through woods - at night, without lights.

It's a winding 4 mile descent and, through the wooded section, you'd be hitting 80mph.

I drove over this road again a year or so and wondered how the bloody hell I'm still alive to tell the tale.
( The Disappointed Caravanner of the year, Wed 14 Jan 2009, 21:26, closed)