Active Park Assist Problems

[ORRanger]

The dealer has confirmed my APA is behaving erratically but is stumped on how to fix it. It's erratic because sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't.

 

It will fail to recognize a valid parking space, and also will tell me to stop and begin the automatic park when my A pillar is roughly aligned with the first parked car's front bumper. In other words, far too soon, when I'm only half way through the available parking space. It worked fine for 17K miles until 3 weeks ago, when the false positive rate for the collision warning system also jumped.

 

I do have the collision system set on maximum sensitivity so I expect some false positives and do get them, but until now there has always been a reasonable explanation, such as a very narrow shoulder-less road going into a left turn, when it will pick up a guard rail or tree. Now it sounds the alarm when there is nothing like this going on. Dealer thinks they have the collision warning problem covered with a software update.

 

There are no service bulletins on the active park assist problem. The dealer is communicating with Ford's "hotline" but I'm wondering if anyone has experienced problems with active park assist.

 

Thanks.

[hybridbear]

We haven't had any issues so far.

[Easy Rider]

I haven't tested mine yet.

Need to find a place with parallel parking first.

 

It sounds to me like you have a sensor going bad.

I would suggest one on the right side of the front bumper......for starters.

 

I would certainly think there would be some kind of procedure to test them.

 

As all too often is the case, your dealer's service people are just too lazy.....or too dumb.....to spend the time to find out how.

[Waldo]

The active park and collision warning system are not related, but they do both rely on wheel speed sensors. If somehow the vehicle thought you were traveling further than you actual are, it would explain both symptoms. But generally you would also get an ABS warning light also, since it seems unlikely that all 4 wheel speed sensors would fail in the same way at the same time. But there may be some other way that the vehicle speed signal is getting mixed up on it's way to those two systems.

[ORRanger]

Thanks for the insights--I will pass them on to the dealer.

 

The sensor may be it. I also had an incident where the car cancelled the collision warning and ACC because it said the sensors were blocked, when in fact they weren't blocked.

 

In this instance, I do think the service people are taking this seriously and are genuinely stumped.

 

I will be out of range for any wifi, etc for a few days and will leave the car at the shop to give them all the time they need. So, if I don't respond to any further postings right away, this is why.

 

OrRanger

[murphy]

You could try parking on the left side of a one-way street. That uses the sensors on the left side of the car. After you enable auto park blip the left turn signal to tell the system to look on the left side of the car.

[Easy Rider]

The active park and collision warning system are not related, but they do both rely on wheel speed sensors.

Well something else HAS to be involved.....as all of the necessary inputs can NOT come from just the wheel sensors.

 

Since I seen no reason to equip the car with TWO sets of sensors for the presence of nearby objects, I just assumed that

the two systems would share a set of sensors.

 

If that is not how it works, please explain.

[Easy Rider]

You could try parking on the left side of a one-way street. That uses the sensors on the left side of the car. After you enable auto park blip the left turn signal to tell the system to look on the left side of the car.

It works on BOTH sides.

WOW.

Now I HAVE to test it out.

Maybe I should read the manual first ???!!! :)

[Waldo]

Well something else HAS to be involved.....as all of the necessary inputs can NOT come from just the wheel sensors.

 

Since I seen no reason to equip the car with TWO sets of sensors for the presence of nearby objects, I just assumed that

the two systems would share a set of sensors.

 

If that is not how it works, please explain.

 

Ugh, yeah, they have separate sensors. The ACC/collision warning is in the front because it looks forwards and the active park sensors are on the side because they look to the sides. The ACC uses a radar based system because it needs to see long distances ahead while the active park uses sonar sensors since it's looking for more accuracy in shorter distances. The park aid (the beepers in the front and back) are also a separate system that uses ultrasonic sensors that are much cheaper. The active park doesn't use input from these, even though you hear them beeping while using active park.

[acdii]

Rain spray will block the ACC sensor, happens quite often to mine when a truck coming towards me on a 2 lane puts up a wall of spray. Hate when that happens as it disables the cruise for up to 20 minutes.

[FordService]

Thanks for the insights--I will pass them on to the dealer.

 

The sensor may be it. I also had an incident where the car cancelled the collision warning and ACC because it said the sensors were blocked, when in fact they weren't blocked.

 

In this instance, I do think the service people are taking this seriously and are genuinely stumped.

 

I will be out of range for any wifi, etc for a few days and will leave the car at the shop to give them all the time they need. So, if I don't respond to any further postings right away, this is why.

 

OrRanger

 

OrRanger,

 

Let me know if you still need help with this once you're back to a computer. Just send me a PM with your name, phone number, VIN, mileage, and dealer info, and I'll see what I can do.

 

Ashley