I spent the winter with one of my front PDC sensors not working - I always had a "hole" in the PDC display in the iDrive.


I removed the sensor and connected it to a different location that was working and proved that the sensor itself was not working because the "hole" in the graphic display moved with it.

I checked ebay and a couple online parts stores and the sensor is $160 :thumbsdown:

The sensor is completely sealed so no way to tinker with it. I tried to think of ways to affect the internal electronics and decided to try heating it up quite a bit and so I let it sit in really hot water for a few minutes.

Plugged it back in to the harness and it worked! Goofy as h$ll but so far so good. Now I am just waiting to see how long it lasts.


Cheers!

Jim

 

One of my front sensors are bad too, I'll try your method, have nothing to lose

 

When I bought my car, it was two sensors not working, and I found than the car had bumpers painted again, and it was bit more paint on those sensors, so I just used sanding paper 2000 grade and sand each for about 30 minutes, all of them are OK now.

 

This makes sense ... still hard to imagine a layer of paint can would cause that problem but it's probably some metallic content in paint that causes the problem.


That said, the hot water technique - now that's a good one
If it works, I wonder how many PDC sensors been replaced, at great expense, that could have been saved by a hot bath