Rear sensor issues, help or thoughts...

hutchlake

New member
Installed aluminess rear bumper on my 2018 passenger van. My van has blind spot assist and the rear parking sensors. We made an error when cutting exhaust back and due to that error and hot exhaust temps I melted the wires leading to the outer most pass side sensor. I didn't realize what was going on...slowly my systems were shutting off...no rear sensors working, blind spot assist, then the front sensors...and then all of a sudden the van went into limp mode and finally would not start. Towed to dealer. They wanted to remove the bumper and look for a pinched wire...all for a pricey sum. i said NO...make it drive and ill trouble shoot it. To make it drive they unplugged a CAN BUS in pass side foot well. Get it home notice these burned sensor wires, we repaired the wires, checked each wire in the harness plug to each sensor plug. All olm'ed out fine/ok. Go and plug this CAN BUS back in and VAN will not start. unplug it and Van starts fine...as well as front sensors now work and when i take van out of and put in REVERSE I get warning beeps as well as 2 red indicator lights on outside mirrors...blind spot assist still not functioning ...figured it needed to be updated so took it back to dealer and they say they cannot make it run same as before.....Anybody have any ideas? Dealer is kinda useless...

thanks
Vincent
 
A good scanner would help. Determine if the control unit they unplugged is still good or fried. You could unplug the blind spot assist harness, you likely saw it near the harness plug for the rear parking sensors. Also, If the control unit up front is still good it may need faults cleared and the reestablish communication with the Can. Again, a workshop level scanner would help greatly.

What area are you in, maybe someone nearby has a good scanner or knows a good independent shop that does. I have an Autel Elite that would definitely help if your close to Northern Va or Frisco, Co let me know.
 
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hutchlake

New member
Thanks for reply...I'm in Mass near Cape. I just got it back from dealer and once again they did nothing. I got it home started crawling around underneath it. I noticed the license plate light was flickering on and off. It was wired into trailer plug harness. I disconnected it, plugged Can Bus back in, and it started right up, as well as blind spot issue solved. Some how that light shorting fooled van into thinking I had a trailer on. So that's solved but sensors still not working. I get get the audible warning and 2 red dots on outside mirrors...but not sensing anything. So I'm thinking it now needs an update. Any thoughts? I Don't know...
 
Great Job! You should tell the dealer to call you for troubleshooting! Usually red diodes just mean system is inop which you know already. Agree - there is a Parktronic system check/reset I see on my Autel when I mess with the system and cause a fault. Doing such as well as Clearing all existing fault codes and rechecking if fault codes still pop up.
 

OffroadHamster

Well-known member
Sorry this happened to you. This happened to me as well. Fix was to replace the harness and sensors and re-route the exhaust so that it kicked out to the side. Pretty shameful that Aluminess is not letting people know about this problem, as they installed the bumper on my van, cut my exhaust, melted the crap out of my rear bumper and my van took a **** on the side of a highway on a 100 degree day.

I dont think you can remove just the rear parking sensors from the system but it sounds like they are functioning fine (beeps in reverse, forward ones working).

Good luck getting this sorted. Send Aluminess a nasty gram, they know their bumper is incompatible with Passenger van exhaust and simply cutting it is an issue. Should be documented in their instructions by now! I leaned on them for a week and compelled them to fork over the $1600 to fix my van. You would think they would not want to have that happen again.
 
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hutchlake

New member
well i thought I fixed it, But no. It drove fine to my buddies house, where we would hook on his scan tool. We cleared the CAN BUS codes and a a few mins later the van died again thru all sorts of codes. We could only get it to run by pulling a CAN BUS connector. We started digging around in back and pulled what im guessing is blind spot harness. plugged CAN BUS back in and van started. So in short I ordered both blind spot harness and rear sensor harness. Will have them tomorrow. I hope this solves the issue.

I don't have much good to say about ALUMINESS. I ordered my bumper with rear recessed lights and sensor holes. The lights went in fine but you have to route the wire UNDER bumper...simply adding a hole behind mounted light would make things easier and look A LOT nicer. The sensor holes and the brackets they sent COULD NOT BE ANY MORE WRONG. The fit is NOT EVEN CLOSE. WAY to big. The 2 inner sensor holes are to close to trailer hitch, you cant get a pin in with sensor in place. I ended up using 2 sided tape for sensors...oh and there solution to plugging in wires from harness...just pull harder and stretch the harness. When my installer called to ask about whats going on with the sensor brackets they said they would send a picture...yep, they did, of the front bumper sensors...its not the same...Oh and yes my installer didnt realize we needed to aim the exhaust elsewhere besides the plastic bumper...its all melted along with sensor harness and blind spot harness...Plus spare doesn't really line up to well on door bracket...The bumper isn't cheap...I'm in Mass...so tack on a TON of shipping $$...if they were closer I'd drop the thing back off at their shop and get my money back...I did send them email...the reply, send a pic so engineers can see. I haven't done it yet because been trying to deal with all this melted crap....ughhhh. sorry for length feels good to vent...
 
Wow what a pain on all levels! Sounds like your on the right path replacing each harness.

I think Aluminess has too much business, they aren’t engineering properly nor “listening” to their top dollar spending customers. This is not the first time I’ve heard of issues with them.

Hope to see your next post confirming success! Cheers
 

OffroadHamster

Well-known member
well i thought I fixed it, But no. It drove fine to my buddies house, where we would hook on his scan tool. We cleared the CAN BUS codes and a a few mins later the van died again thru all sorts of codes. We could only get it to run by pulling a CAN BUS connector. We started digging around in back and pulled what im guessing is blind spot harness. plugged CAN BUS back in and van started. So in short I ordered both blind spot harness and rear sensor harness. Will have them tomorrow. I hope this solves the issue.

I don't have much good to say about ALUMINESS. I ordered my bumper with rear recessed lights and sensor holes. The lights went in fine but you have to route the wire UNDER bumper...simply adding a hole behind mounted light would make things easier and look A LOT nicer. The sensor holes and the brackets they sent COULD NOT BE ANY MORE WRONG. The fit is NOT EVEN CLOSE. WAY to big. The 2 inner sensor holes are to close to trailer hitch, you cant get a pin in with sensor in place. I ended up using 2 sided tape for sensors...oh and there solution to plugging in wires from harness...just pull harder and stretch the harness. When my installer called to ask about whats going on with the sensor brackets they said they would send a picture...yep, they did, of the front bumper sensors...its not the same...Oh and yes my installer didnt realize we needed to aim the exhaust elsewhere besides the plastic bumper...its all melted along with sensor harness and blind spot harness...Plus spare doesn't really line up to well on door bracket...The bumper isn't cheap...I'm in Mass...so tack on a TON of shipping $$...if they were closer I'd drop the thing back off at their shop and get my money back...I did send them email...the reply, send a pic so engineers can see. I haven't done it yet because been trying to deal with all this melted crap....ughhhh. sorry for length feels good to vent...
F-ing sucks man. My wife who has MS and cannot take heat was driving back from their shop when the van went into regen and melted the hell out of everything, on a 100 degree day. Firetrucks, highway patrol, paramedics and a flat bed later....

Im appalled that after the near medical emergency they caused, the two weeks of headache going back and forth, the retrofit they had to do to my exhaust AT the MB Sprinter service center in san diego, not to mention removing and reinstalling my bumper at the service center so the repairs could be made, and forking over the money for the repairs, that after all of that, two years later they still haven't thought to let their customers know about this issue.
 

wquek

Work in progress
Sorry to hear about all these problems. That’s too bad that they never disclosed the issue or specific a workaround. Would you guys mind posting some photos so the forum members can see what happened and be aware of the issue/potential fix?


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 

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