How big is your garage?

[marksmith]

Afternoon chaps,

I'm committing financial suicide and buying a new house. I've found one I like, with a garage (main bug-bear with my current hovel is having to park on the road). Question is whether the garage is big enough to put a car in. I think in reality it won't be big enough to work on a car in (well, might be long enough to do stuff at the front/back, but nothing round the sides) but I want to be sure it's wide enough.

Oddly I don't know anyone with a garage! Anyone here got one? Any chance you could tell me the width and length wall-wall, the width of the door opening, and how easy it is to get a car in? (220 Coupé specifically, but I won't have that forever.)

I know some garages are so small you have to literally press the car door against the wall to get out. Don't want one that small.

Ta everso,
Mark

[Null_Byte]

Crazy huge,

A double (side by side) about 30 foot square with pit, a single just big enough for a car, a tandem (one after each other) with a massive workshop on the side.

All are packed full of rubbish, and I still end up working outside in the rain, I give up


Even if it isn't wide enough to get the car in and get out, it still can be useful to be able to pop the nose in and be working on the engine under cover, you can always roll it back out when you have finished.

[teethgrinder]

Current garage is about 1.5 coupe widths...plenty room for when I did the turbo conversion. I'd imagine a single would be very tight and a PITA for some things though. Luckily mine has a door in the back, so access is easy if suff in the way at the sides.

Not tried the 75 in there yet, though.

[chrislandy]

big.

12ft wide (widening to 17ft at the back) x nearly 30ft long plus a standard sized single garage.

Perfect to use the std garage as a workshop and the larger one for building the cars in

[syzsounds]

This big....

[stefaclese]

When I'm in Birmingham I have a nice wide street with added glass and other sharp things along the edges, and back home in Oxfordshire I have a residential parking area with a lot less sharp objects on the ground. I used to have access to the ex's humungous driveway and had a flimsey gazebo to cover half the car.

Garages are for girls, real men work on cars outside what ever the weather

[marksmith]

Hehe, ok, so everyone is somewhat better endowed with garage (both length and girth) than I am. Has anyone got a garage which is just about wide enough to get the car in and comfortably get out of? How wide/long is that wall-wall, and how wide is the door?

[syzsounds]

20 ft long by 10.5 at the front.
That door is about 6.5 ft across so enough to get an 800 in ( Which is what it was built for) but is now full of crap out of the house.
For the moment, I feel a bonfire coming on.

[RalphG]

Big enough for a P6 and to be able to get out both sides. The drive up to the garage, though, is 6'6" wide at the narrowest point. At the moment there is an MGB GT in the garage.

[Sheaf]

I dont have one

Usually use the parents garage... which is pretty wide (must be about 11-12ft) but dad's got shelves up along one side, and crap/wood/pushbike etc leaned up against the other wall so it's not as big as I'd like. Plus huge tool chests in there.

Mind, with the saxo in there, there's tons of room. Looks really funny in there. The Accord is a bit tight, but still work on either end, and one side pretty easily..

Also, why's buying a house financial suicide? With low low prices now's the ideal time to upgrade surely... ok, they may drop a little more but the interest rate can only really go up too.

[xuk]

Mine's under the house and a standard up & over door fits it (about 8ft ish wide), it widens out a little bit but only a foot or two and is 17 ft long.
Cant use it at the minute coz the drive is on an incline and the cabby is lowered with 15" wheels on

[munky]

too bloody small.

I can work on the front or back if I push the car half out, and one side at a time if I do some super skillful parking.

And its not big enough to fit a 5 series.

[Steve220]

This big

[Din]

This big

Thats just taking the P1ss

Im with Stef on this one tbh

[ptomo]

My garage is this big...





Bit of a leaky roof an cant find the off switch for the air con but no broken glass lol

[Vard66]

Not long OR wide enough for the 800, but plenty big enough for the ZXR.

As most people though, mine's full of shite. Two 200 bumpers, one 800 bumper, a full exhaust for a T-Turbo equipped 800, two exhaust systems from a Yamaha Virago 535, a shatload of Twobe-four, and up in the roof of the garage, where all that crap *could* be being stored, is half an MGB, which apparently Dad still needs, hence the garage needs to be the storing place for all that...

[Roboscot]

I will measure mine for you tomorrow if you want exact figures mate - mine is JUST big enough for the coupe, ie there's an inch either side of the wing mirrors when backing it in and I've stuck a carwash sponge to the side wall for opening the door to get out. Extra room at the back lengthways for shelves and a workbench. In the spring I'm hoping to rip it down and build another one a couple of feet wider.

[mg-richard]

no matter how big your garage is you will always want bigger!

loft space is brill for us rover enthusiasts who like to hoard second hand spares

[marksmith]

Try and get all the replies done in one go

I will measure mine for you tomorrow if you want exact figures mate

That would be excellent, thanks - that's just what I need.

The house I'm considering buying doesn't have any facility to widen the garage - it's right up against the boundary one side and shares a wall with the house the other side, and there's nowhere else to put one. (Plenty of space in the back garden, but no rear access and it's on the side of a hill, so the back garden is 10 metres below the front one! Be quite a steep driveway or a crane

If the car just won't fit in, I can use it for motorbikes - which I may do anyway to be honest - but it would be a real shame for it not to fit in on the odd occasion I want to work on it in the rain. Real men work on the car in all weather, but I got tonsillitis two years on the trot, which I attribute to working on my old Golf for the MOT in February. Out there under it in the snow - not great fun.

I was half joking about financial suicide. Yes, you can get houses much more cheaply than you've been able to for a while. Risk is that they will continue to devalue. Oh well, I want this place to live in, not to make money, so it doesn't really matter. But it would be a bit of a shame.

Ta for all the replies!

[gezmeister]

This big

Not jealous in the slightest

[shen]

This big

nice wheel barrow...i'm jealous too.

Think my garage is roughly same but opening is at far end not long side... no pit though

[syzsounds]

Arrrrgh !! Garage envy ... , Thing is i cant even get my car in there yet due there being a fence in-between the 2 houses.
Soon to be sorted , After a funeral.

[RalphG]

Of course, the alternative answer that I could give is that my garage is big enough for a 2-poster ramp and a 4-poster ramp. There is also enough room for at least two other cars to be worked on. There is also a showroom with 5 cars in at the moment.

[Roboscot]

Here you go mate - my garage exterior dimensions are 16'x8'6", interior width is exactly 7'6" which like I said is just big enough to park with a bit of space to climb out into (the sponge is just in case I bump it by mistake, there's actually plenty of room to get in normally). Deffo too small to work on the car though. The door width is 6'10" which leaves literally 2 inches max either side of the mirrors.

[Dom]

This big

Ha Ha LOL at Steve's 3 modes of transport

Dom

[xuk]

Arrrrgh !! Garage envy ... , Thing is i cant even get my car in there yet due there being a fence in-between the 2 houses.
Soon to be sorted , After a funeral.

Killing your neighbour for a driveway is a bit extreme isn't it

[Punx0r]

Ha Ha LOL at Steve's 3 modes of transport

Dom

Haha, well spotted

Going shopping
Going to pub
Coming home from pub

[Steve220]

But its my parents garage essentially The car is just a space filler at the weekends lol!!! Plus you won't believe the bhp that wheel barrow is running at now.

[Jonny 5]

Plus you won't believe the bhp that wheel barrow is running at now.

Horse5hit Power

[marksmith]

interior width is exactly 7'6" which like I said is just big enough to park with a bit of space to climb out into (the sponge is just in case I bump it by mistake, there's actually plenty of room to get in normally). Deffo too small to work on the car though. The door width is 6'10" which leaves literally 2 inches max either side of the mirrors.

Thanks very much - exactly what I needed to know. Went round last night and measured the garage: the door is exactly 7ft wide. Looking at the construction I think it should be fairly easy to widen it by about 4-5" too - looks like they've just padded it out with wood to use a standard size door.

Shame that I won't be able to work on the car in there, but at least it will fit in without climbing out the sunroof.

Steve220 wrote: Plus you won't believe the bhp that wheel barrow is running at now.

I think I saw that in Max Power. K&N air filter and go-faster stripes and they put out 250bhp, according to Max.

[Steve220]

Steve220 wrote: Plus you won't believe the bhp that wheel barrow is running at now.

I think I saw that in Max Power. K&N air filter and go-faster stripes and they put out 250bhp, according to Max.

I think they've got their maths wrong a bit, its around 270bhp and is capable of carrying 200kg

[xuk]

its around 270bhp

at the front wheel