Park Pilot stopped working after I changed my Car Battery?

**rich05uk** · 24th April 2011, 00:34

Hi,

I have factory fitted Park Pilot on my Vectra Estate (56 Plate) with both Front & Rear sensors and it’s been working fine until today.

This afternoon I came to start the car but the car battery was dead, suspecting the battery has been on the way out for the last few months (it’s still the original GM battery from when the car was new so almost 5 years old), I managed to jump start it and drove it down to my local Kwik-Fit as it was the only place open at this time on a Saturday.

I reversed the car as I parked up outside Kwik-Fit, the sensors worked normally, so I don’t think jump starting the car has caused me the problem. Next, Kwik-Fit came out and fitted a new battery, I thought everything was now all sorted, but when I came to park the car at home again, the parking sensors started to beep as soon as I put it into reverse which is odd because they don’t usually beep as I’m not near any obstacles, so I just ignored it. A few hours later when I went out in the car again, it continued to beep while I was driving down the road for no good reason, I knew at this point something wasn’t quite right and ended up having to press the park pilot button on the dash to turn the system off. Now, whenever the system activates, I just get the Control indicator light flash on the instrument panel and I don’t get any beeping, even if there is an obstacle in the way?

Does anyone know what could be wrong, what caused it and how to fix it?

Help please

Rich.

**Caveman_nige** · 24th April 2011, 07:30

blame kwiik-fit

**rich05uk** · 24th April 2011, 14:06

I will blame kwik-fit if I cant get it working again. I just wondered if there was something obvious I could try first, is there some way of resetting the system?

**plasma** · 24th April 2011, 14:58

try disconnect battery for 5mins then reconnect.. Cures many ill's with the vectra...

**rich05uk** · 24th April 2011, 23:44

I haven’t tried disconnecting the battery yet, but I did unplug the 2 plugs connected to the park pilot module attached to the REC, I reconnected them after 1 hour. Still not fixed the problem though, would disconnecting the battery make any difference, knowing I’ve already disconnected the park pilot module entirely from the car?

**rich05uk** · 12th May 2011, 15:41

Ok, finally got it sorted. I took it to Vauxhall in the end, they put Tech2 on it and found that one of the front sensors was sowing an error, so they replaced it and its now all working again. I took the bill of £102.95 to Kwik-Fit, who reluctantly paid me for the damage caused when they changed the battery.

Question is, does this sort of thing always happen when you change a battery on a Vectra, I know in about 3 or 4 years, I'll have to do the same thing again and wondered if there are some precautions I could take to prevent blowing some other sensitive electronic component that I will have to fix afterwards at a very expensive cost no doubt?

**Das** · 12th May 2011, 15:56

Some cars require a constant 12v, Mercedes are apparently very bad for this and very expensive to repair if a 12v feed is not present at all times, but first time ive heard of it affecting the Vec.
Would the Ignition not have had to be on when they changed the battery for it to have caused damage to a sensor though, and it sitting in reverse gear too?

**kenp** · 3rd August 2011, 16:51

humm mine have developed this as a intermidiat fault.. but not showing any faultcodes.. as it maby wont work 3 times.. then work fine 5 times ect.. (and its brand new, sensors, loom, and control unite...)