Watch out for your front!

[Colorider]

A few weeks ago I pulled into a parking spot at a local trailhead and lightly tapped the front lower bumper on a rock. It was so slight that I didn’t think anything about it until the next day when I saw my shutters looked funny. It turns out that I pushed the lower part in which broke the active shutters and caused the front radar to get screwed up. For the past few weeks I have been showing a Pre-Collision Assist Not Available error which means no cruise control . The dealership quoted me $1,800 to fix it!!!

I put this post up as a PSA for others. Protect your front lowers as if they were very expensive to repair because they are! The picture below is A similar parking situation yesterday where I still was too close to the snow bank.

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[MachMachWhoThere]

Wow, that’s rough. Sorry to hear. These fancy cars are too expensive to fix these days, so I try not to drive mine. I just go out into the garage and stare at it.

 

[Av8tor]

Thanks for the PSA!

 

[RickMachE]

I always turn on the 360 camera before pulling all the way in for this very reason.

 

[DR.J56]

About 5% of the time my front camera comes on when parking.

 

[Colorider]

About 5% of the time my front camera comes on when parking.

Mine comes on 100% of the time when I get close to something which has conditioned me to get close to things so I can check if I’m parked ok. I really wish there was an “always visible” button on the screen to turn the camera on instead of multiple menus… @Ford Motor Company

 

[1969Camaro]

About 5% of the time my front camera comes on when parking.

It's entirely random . Must use the same software as the puddle lights, rear hatch and radio pre-sets. Mine works ~50% of the time usually the 50% I dont need

 

[DR.J56]

Mine comes on 100% of the time when I get close to something which has conditioned me to get close to things so I can check if I’m parked ok. I really wish there was an “always visible” button on the screen to turn the camera on instead of multiple menus… @Ford Motor Company

My truck has a hard button above the center screen. One push and done! It’s an old school 2020 though. I guess the “new” stuff has to be buried in a menu system for inconvenience.

 

[Nklem]

My camera seems to come on and warn of the nearly every day when parking at work. But snow Must have an effect on telling the “difference”

 

[Chuck]

The irony of this is that the feds passed a law many years ago doing away with hard metal bumpers to keep costs of low speed collisions down. Now, it would appear that the cost of low speed bumper repairs are skyrocketing again.

 

[PaulP]

Was your car built on or before 07-Jul-2021? The Pre-Collision Assist Not Available error might be related to the software and not this incident. If you're in the same boat as I am, I've been waiting for a few weeks for that update supposedly coming this month. You can see this thread.

 

[Jimrpa]

My truck has a hard button above the center screen. One push and done! It’s an old school 2020 though. I guess the “new” stuff has to be buried in a menu system for inconvenience.

Trucks get hard buttons for a lot more functions. I read an article a few years ago about the F150 and they have hard controls for more things because those customers are more likely to wear gloves or otherwise find it more difficult to use touch interfaces.

 

[Jimrpa]

The irony of this is that the feds passed a law many years ago doing away with hard metal bumpers to keep costs of low speed collisions down. Now, it would appear that the cost of low speed bumper repairs are skyrocketing again.

I thought they did away with 5 mph impact bumpers because they were more expensive to repair in higher speed collisions?

 

[benk016]

My truck has a hard button above the center screen. One push and done! It’s an old school 2020 though. I guess the “new” stuff has to be buried in a menu system for inconvenience.

My 2019 Edge had that button as well. It definitely came in handy.

But, for me, the cameras do seem to come on any time that I am close to anything. However, I did discover this the other day, not sure when it happened as It must have been just light enough to not make any noise. Or, it could have been some small road debris. I only noticed it when I saw some of my PPF was hanging off.

This is looking at the car from the ground, so the scratches are on the underside and not visible without being on the ground.

 

[Aquar33f]

I always turn on the 360 camera before pulling all the way in for this very reason.

yeah, I’ve just gotten used to going to reverse to activate cameras, and then doing whatever maneuver needed to park (pulling/backing in/out)

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