Parking Aids on Amazon Are About As Good as You’d Expect

Owning and driving an older car is pretty cool in a lot of ways. There’s the nostalgia factor, of course, or maybe it’s just more analog and engaging, or maybe you just like the attention you get in it, or perhaps, like most of us at one point or another, buying a new car just isn’t financially possible.

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No matter the reason, we can all agree that technology has made parking new cars a lot easier, be they ultrasonic sensors, backup cameras or 360 cameras. Maybe though, through the magic of Amazon, you can spend a few bucks and make your old car park like a new one. To test this theory, the fellas at Donut decided to order a bevy of gadgets – some cheap, some expensive and some just weird – to try.

Testing Futuristic Parking Tech from Amazon

Some of these gadgets are a decent idea in theory but unnecessarily complicated. The garage parking sensor, for example, could be replaced for next to nothing with a tennis ball and a string. Some, like the wireless backup camera, are actually super good ideas but executed with as little cost and effort as possible, making them basically e-waste.

Some, like the audible backup warning, should never be fitted to any car ever, and the person who turned reground plastic into that trash has a special place in hell. Not that I feel strongly about it or anything.

Would I fit any of these to my car? Well, I wouldn’t drill anything for the ultrasonics, and I don’t want to mess up my car’s looks with the foam bumper things, but I’d consider a higher quality version of the backup camera. My car doesn’t have a way to easily set one up with my current infotainment system, and it’s not something I’d need to use all the time anyway.

What do you think? Would you try any of this crap, and why or why not?