Requesting feedback from current and past users of DIY installed systems available. Were they good, were there any that did not perform, where there any that were totally useless ?
Mid range units, £50 to £100 please.
Thank you, petel@clara.co.uk
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I'd be interested as well as I was asked about these just yesterday.
Trawled the Internet and very similar looking devices were priced from £20 to £70 with little logic.
A few of the "company" photos looked to have been taken on the living room carpet "ebay style". Also where a detailed image was shown some of the components looked very DIY.
My guess is that the electronics are worth £1 and the rest is marketing/profit.
M.M
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www.maplin.co.uk are doing them for 29.99 at the moment. The kit is made by velleman.
teabelly
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Auto Express did a Product Test on reversing sensor DIY kits a few weeks ago.
I cant remember the outcome as I'm not realy that bothered about them, and now looking through the last few copies I have on my desk I can't find the article.
www.autoexpress.co.uk
Have a search and see if you can find the test.
Cheers
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Are these necessary on cars? I follow my mums maxim, which is to go slowly until you see the obstacle behind rock ;-)
Seriously, if people can not reverse without the aid of a sensor, should they really be driving. Says to me that they have no sense of awareness and they don't know their vehicle.
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I did that the other day in a friends drive. Forgot they had a towbar and had to buy a new front number plate. D'oh!! Reversing sensors wouldn't have helped then though!
RichardW
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Seriously, if people can not reverse without the aid of a sensor, should they really be driving. Says to me that they have no sense of awareness and they don't know their vehicle.
Phoenix, you obviously do not have sensors on your car. It is not a question of not being able to reverse as a sensor has absolutely no affect what so ever on your ability to do so.
I have them on my estate car and it just saves me from twisting my neck round to see how much further I have to go (sure you can use your rear view mirror) but it is just a lazy tool.
Also if it helps other people from taling all the paint off my bumpers I am more than happy for them to be standard fit.
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>>I have them on my estate car and it just saves me from >>twisting my neck round to see how much further I have to go
>>(sure you can use your rear view mirror) but it is just a lazy tool.
Ah ha! There you go. A lazy tool!
Now I can't wait until in car tyre pressure sensors become standard. That is a 'lazy too' that I would love.
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Lazy tools!! For an ultra-lazy tool - whats the sense in automatic wipers? Surely saving that short journey for your index finger to the stalk must be outweighed by the darn thingies going off every time a herd of greenfly commit suicide on you screen.
Yeah, youre right, Im just jealous I aint got em on my Beemer.
Fractious on Friday.
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"Seriously, if people can not reverse without the aid of a sensor, should they really be driving. Says to me that they have no sense of awareness and they don't know their vehicle."
It depends on your car. Easy to do in a small-medium hatch. Less easy with a large boot!
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Lazy tools!! For an ultra-lazy tool - whats the sense in automatic wipers?
According to my handbook it is so that you can concentrate on driving (and not be distracted with deciding whether there is too much water on the screen to see through it!)
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>>Seriously, if people can not reverse without the aid of a sensor, should they really be driving.
What is the value in doing it the hard way ? I can reverse a car with or without them. If I find it easier with them, then why not. As it happens I find them a pain in the butt, but that's not really relevant.
I can turn windscreen wipers on and off really well, but automatic ones are easier.
I can read a map, but sat nav is easier.
Why do some feel that doing things the hard way is somehow virtuous ?
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>>Why do some feel that doing things the hard way is somehow virtuous ?
It is an error in logic; because some worthwhile things are hard, it is felt that hard things are worthwhile.
Rudolf
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To get back to the original question:
I looked at a few of the DIY kits that are available. A lot of the sub-£100 stuff is made in China and doesn\'t look very durable. I wouldn\'t want to drill holes in my car and then find that the equipment packed up the following week!
Two good ones that I looked at are:
\'Backminder 212\' from Autosonics www.autosonics.co.uk - they are made in Scotland. I bought one of these and it is very well made indeed, particularly the sensors which are well protected and fit in a sort of \'eyeball\' socket so that you can adjust them for bumper face angle (i.e. where bumper is not vertical).
This week I rigged the system up in my workshop and tested it with all manner of small obstacles (thin copper pipe etc.) to see if it works reliably - it does. The contoller PCB is a quality GRP item, based around a 16C54 PIC with a conformal coating over it. I have not yet fitted it to my car though - but will soon.
The other one I looked at was the \'Targa 2\' system. It is made in Germany and costs £130 inc. vat & P P. It is in the form of a number plate surround with two sensors built in. I looked at one and it is well made - twith the advantage of easy fit, although there is not quite enough space to fit it comfortably into the number plate aperture on my QX.
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Thanks to all contributors, especially Aprilia. Has anyone any experience of the systems which use a strip stuck to the inside of a plastic bumper please ?
Thank you, petel@clara.co.uk
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There's nothing quite like a towbar to stop people running into your back bumper!
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The 'electric field' type proximity sensor (strip stuck behind back bumper) was featured in the Autoexpress product test. It didn't do very well at all (in fact I think it came last).
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Thanks Aprilia. Have done the search but unable to find the items listed. Thanks for the confirmation re the "behind the bumper " unit.
Rgds.
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Not sure what search you did, but the tests are still online at:
www.autoexpress.co.uk/product_test
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Well, I've not banged on about buses for a bit, so here we go... :-)
Five years ago, I worked for a company who had 12-18 month old Volvo double deckers with no lower deck rear windows. They were fitted with reversing sensors and, even though they were quite new, none of them worked. And touch parking just doesn't work in a bus as you can't tell you've touched anything until you've comprehensively rearranged it!
Personally, I think that retro-fitting anything like this is fraught with troubles and like one poster says, why drill holes in your car when the system might go belly-up in a few months?
Cheers
Rob
"Smoke me a kipper, I'll be back for breakfast."
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I might have said this before but they are well worth manufacturers considering offering them as an extra if not standard. After all there is a good deal less useful junk they fit to cars nowadays.
As traffic and parking congestion becomes increasingly a management task for the driver, anything which helps him to do a better job should be welcomed. This things are lo-cost and would spare many amn annoying ding if more widely available.
I have visited Malaysia many times; reverse sensor was a feature on all the Proton rentals I had and I found it invaluable. Much more useful than a stupid sound system loaded with needless functions and with buttons almost impossible to see without a magnifying glass in one hand and the manual in the other and with almost impenetrable functions.
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Thanks Aprilia, I found it.
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After quite a bit of static testing in my workshop, I've decided that the 'Backminder' reversing system works well enough to fit on the car. However I don't want to drill the bumper:
1. Because there is risk of damaging it and/or the bumper eventually splitting around the non-reinforced holes.
2. The system might fail after 1-2 years and I'll be left with useless sensors in the bumpers.
What I've decided to do is to make up a couple of brackets, with tubes to support the sensors, to fit behind either side of the number plate. I can paint them matt black (sensors are also matt black) and the whole arrangement should be easy to install or remove. In other words I making my own copy of a Metasystems Targa 2
www.metasystem.co.uk/index.php
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"What I've decided to do is to make up a couple of brackets, with tubes to support the sensors, to fit behind either side of the number plate."
That sounds eminently sensible. Putting them in/on the bumpers sounds daft to me, as presumably the sensors are relatively fragile, and however clever they are, they won't stop other people from hitting them. With bumpers, I feel, the clue is in the name...
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Try reversing a Mercedes W140 S-Class. Then you'll know the answer.
rojer@lycos.co.uk
Astra, Renault 18, Renault 25 TXi, Astra Est, Passat Est, Mercedes 190E, Mercedes
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