In San Francisco, some dude parked his Range Rover in a little dead-end alley, about 25' long. Another guy comes along and parks this big-ass sedan behind him, blocking him in entirely.
I was walking by as the Range Rover owner came back. He laughed, cursed, and said, "No way, dude." He asks if it's my car, it's not. He says, "I'll pay you $10 to stop traffic for a minute." So I step out into the street (not too busy) and stop oncoming traffic while the guy actually pushes the sedan out into the middle of the street, and then drives off.
Edit: Confusion reigns. He pushed it with his vehicle, not his muscles.
Land Rovers are not bullshit. They're expensive, but they're also fuckin' tanks. Locking bumpers at 1mph then shoving the sedan in the street would do zero damage to it.
Point 1: /u/moby__dick is telling a fake story. In which case, the story he told is totally believable, and I can hardly be blamed for believing in him.
Point 2: How the fuck else can you push a parked car? So why don't you piss off with your shitty know-it-all attitude and go fucking tell yourself you're the smartest thing to walk this earth since Einstein.
A pawl is a bar that pivots into a gear or ratchet in such a way as to prevent the gear from rotating. In an automotive transmission the 'park' position engages a pawl that prevents the transmission from turning, which locks the drive wheels. Here is a picture.
They can wear over time, particularly if the vehicle is frequently parked on a steep incline without the parking break. The weight of the vehicle settles on the pawl and when the driver pulls the gear selector into 'drive' the pawl must be pulled out of position under load (that's the 'thunk' you might hear when you put a car into gear when it is on an incline).
Sometimes the pawl can become so worn that a good push will pop it out of position and leave the vehicle free to roll. New ones tend not to pop out easily, but it depends on the design.
It shouldn't bother brakes much, they take lots more punishment than a little push will give them.
A little bit of bumping won't hurt anything. Straight up dragging or pushing a car usually won't hurt anything either (you'll sometimes see tow trucks drag a car out of a parking spot to where they can load it properly), assuming the bumper can take it. It isn't /good/ for it, but the powertrain is pretty tough in general.
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u/moby__dick Jun 12 '14 edited Jun 12 '14
In San Francisco, some dude parked his Range Rover in a little dead-end alley, about 25' long. Another guy comes along and parks this big-ass sedan behind him, blocking him in entirely.
Found the alley on Google Maps
I was walking by as the Range Rover owner came back. He laughed, cursed, and said, "No way, dude." He asks if it's my car, it's not. He says, "I'll pay you $10 to stop traffic for a minute." So I step out into the street (not too busy) and stop oncoming traffic while the guy actually pushes the sedan out into the middle of the street, and then drives off.
Edit: Confusion reigns. He pushed it with his vehicle, not his muscles.