Evening all,

I have a PDC question, but my ‘faults’ are not pointing to the sensors (yet). I have a 2007 TDV8 Vogue.

So the issue occurs when I turn the car on, sometimes the PDC light is illuminated, others it’s not. If it’s not illuminated, I press the switch and it performs normally. If it’s already illuminated, no problems.

So the PDC system itself is working as expected, all sensors are as expected. I’m just confused as to the function of the on/off switch/light and it’s correct functionality.. I would expect that if I switch the system on, it’s on and it stays that way! Simple. If I turn it off, it’s stays off.

Does anybody have a fully working PDC system and can confirm how it should be working? Once I’ve confirmed how it should be working, I take a look inside the PDC module to see if there’s any nonsense going on inside.

Cheers 🍺

Hi there

Do you have a code reader? If you do check if you can see the pdc module when it’s not automatically engaging when in reverse.

If it’s not visible you may have my issue - some how the ibus wore was damaged to the pdc module - I ran a new one from the clock up front - you may get lucky and the ibus wire to the trailer electronics may be good so you could splice that.

A lot of people are going to say it’s 06+ no ibus... wrong .. ibus is retained until 09 on the steering controls, clock, pdc and trailer module.

Mine is 07 and that was my solution. Current stable:
2006 BMW M6
2007 4.2 V8 S/C FF
Gone:
2002 4.4 V8 FF

Hello matey, first and foremost, establish if you actually have a problem to begin with. If you start the car and leave it in park, the PDC should remain off. If you select drive it should also remain off. It’s only if you select reverse the system will be activated (automatically). If you then shif out if reverse and then into drive the system will remain active until you’ve reached about 8mph when it then deactivates, but you have to have either selected reverse first or activated it manually for the system to be live. If you go from park to drive the system will remain off until you do either of the above. The reason being is if it was permanently live it’d drive you mad every time you’re in a queue of traffic.
Check the functionality of yours against the above and you should then be able to determine whether you actually have a fault or not.
Hope that helps.

Mine is an 04 plate and works same as above.

Thanks all for your responses and apologies for the delay in getting back to you.

So I finally managed to make a point of remembering how my PDC system behaves. From the responses above, mine does seem to perform exactly as you’ve described, so the good news is that it’s not bust, always a plus.

I have to admit that I’m a bit surprised by the functionality. If I’d jumped into my car in a car tightly-packed car-park and was negotiating my way out, I’d hope that the front sensors would come on automatically, without the need to press a button or put the car into reverse. Most of my more modern cars (and even some older ones) have sensors that are there when you need them.

None the less, I’m pleased what is there is working as it should.

Cheers all.