Does parking sensor protect front lip spoiler?
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Joined: May 2015
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From: Northern California
My assessment of the parking sensors is that they are useful for parallel parking and distance to a wall. They can't be counted on to protect against curbs or in driveways. For bumper height objects, e.g. other cars, it's fairly conservative in its warnings.
As far as "protecting the front lip" goes, the bottom portion of the lip is sacrificial and acts as a feeler. It makes noise when it scrapes to alert the driver, and does so well before any real damage occurs. It gets a little fuzzy on the bottom but is easy to clean up (sandpaper, file, scraper). I made a little tool for that and it takes just a few seconds to dress up the edge.
As far as "protecting the front lip" goes, the bottom portion of the lip is sacrificial and acts as a feeler. It makes noise when it scrapes to alert the driver, and does so well before any real damage occurs. It gets a little fuzzy on the bottom but is easy to clean up (sandpaper, file, scraper). I made a little tool for that and it takes just a few seconds to dress up the edge.
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Joined: Oct 2016
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From: Charlotte, North Carolina
My experience has been the same as Larry's. If the kerb/etc is more than 4" I don't think it has ever not picked it up for me, but if it is less, or an irregular shape, it doesn't always detect it. Sometimes it will, but not reliably enough to trust it.
That's why I fitted a top-down panoramic camera system to my FTR, like the ones commonly fitted to self-parking cars. Now I can see clearly for about two feet all around the car when parking instead of just the rear fisheye view. It is very easy to install the front camera into the base of the grill surround (if you have a permanent front license plate you'll never see it), and the mirrors have loads of space to add discrete cameras. There is no need for any aftermarket video integration products either if you already have the factory-fitted rear camera and the new camera/system outputs in composite NTSC, so you just need to install a discrete switch to switch the standard camera from back to the new one. (I have the coupe, so I fitted the folding roof button to the gear stick surround as that has front/back/off positions that I use to switch a latching relay for the 360 and rear camera toggles.) The touch screen display is clever enough to detect the video signal format has changed and adapts automatically.
That's why I fitted a top-down panoramic camera system to my FTR, like the ones commonly fitted to self-parking cars. Now I can see clearly for about two feet all around the car when parking instead of just the rear fisheye view. It is very easy to install the front camera into the base of the grill surround (if you have a permanent front license plate you'll never see it), and the mirrors have loads of space to add discrete cameras. There is no need for any aftermarket video integration products either if you already have the factory-fitted rear camera and the new camera/system outputs in composite NTSC, so you just need to install a discrete switch to switch the standard camera from back to the new one. (I have the coupe, so I fitted the folding roof button to the gear stick surround as that has front/back/off positions that I use to switch a latching relay for the 360 and rear camera toggles.) The touch screen display is clever enough to detect the video signal format has changed and adapts automatically.
Last edited by ndabunka; Jan 20, 2018 at 08:56 PM.
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Joined: Mar 2010
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From: VA, USA
Looking forward to all the install details on this, incl photos.
If you want to test the front sensors, put it in gear, put a person in the driver's seat with their foot on the brake, and experiment with different height and size obstacles and see what happens. My front sensors seem very sensitive even to just a 2-by-4 laying on the garage floor.
If you want to test the front sensors, put it in gear, put a person in the driver's seat with their foot on the brake, and experiment with different height and size obstacles and see what happens. My front sensors seem very sensitive even to just a 2-by-4 laying on the garage floor.
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