Small single car opening

[Porkanbeans]

There is a single car garage on the other side of my house where I'll be keeping my car when I get it later this month. It's a great garage, extra deep, extra wide, but I do have one beef. The garage door opening is only 8 feet wide as opposed to the standard 9 feet. Pulling SUVs in there gets a little hairy, to say the least. It is extremely difficult and nerve-racking to drive a car into the garage. I probably wouldn't have such a hard time if the approach to the garage was straight rather than the 90 degree angle that is necessary to take.

Are there any products out there or tips you guys have to try and make parking in this damn thing a little less of a pain? I plan on getting either a full size truck or Jeep that would soon be lifted with larger, wider tires, hence my ask for help. Here's a pic for reference:

Thanks!

 

[Luckydevil]

It looks like you have the room to widen the opening if you wanted to.

 

[bmwpower]

It looks like you have the room to widen the opening if you wanted to.

Either that or widen the driveway so you can make a wide turn to line up the truck before pulling it in.

 

[rdnkjeeper]

It looks like you have the room to widen the opening if you wanted to.

That is what I would do.....not too hard either!

 

[Porkanbeans]

Thanks guys. What is the normal process for widening an opening? The house is brick on the outside, but as you can see in the pic, the area to the right of the door has no significant structural pieces.

 

[GSRspeedracer]

What if you set up some mirrors so that you can see how much space you have between the door and the vehicle as you drive in?

 

[autoist]

Those little 'whisker" things mounted on the edges of the door that would trip an alarm when the car touches them....saw somethnig about them in a car magazine at Books-a-Million today

 

[bmwpower]

Is that a header to the right of the opening in the picture?

 

[Porkanbeans]

Thanks for the additional ideas everyone. I'll definitely look into them.

bmwpower, yeah that is some ducting you saw. Unfortunately it probably makes expanding to a standard 2 car door impractical.

 

[bmwpower]

I'm talking about the outer wall. It looks like a header or paralam on the outside wall. If it is, it might make it difficult to rework the opening.

 

[Old Moparz]

It's hard to say from the photo, but it looks like you can widen the opening & get a wider door. Look at the pic below, & let us know what we're looking at. I would swear that there is a header/beam to the right of the garage door, like someone sealed an opening once? Also, what does it look like above the garage door when it's closed? If you were to remove the door & widen the opening, maybe you can replace the header above it with a longer one.