This started with ice obstructing my radar sensor! Owners are paranoid due to Fords cost cutting then rumours of cars being held back from delivery due to unknown reasons on top of numerous electrical faults. All in all I’m very happy with mine apart from the multi link suspension that I/we never got!  

11 hours ago, Alex.S said:

I’ve had a right good look at it there with an led torch..still don’t see the connection but I’d say it’s in some kind of metal housing 2 inch behind the grille.  Difficult to scale the photo on eBay. 

Sounds like you havnt got the sensor then.You should see this (attached pix) behind the grill.

Most new models probably have numerous changes made to them once they go into full production not not necessarily to save money

18 minutes ago, Comares2001 said:

Sounds like you havnt got the sensor then.You should see this (attached pix) behind the grill.

Most new models probably have numerous changes made to them once they go into full production not not necessarily to save money

Yep not got it!

Any idea why I'm getting alerts to clean the radar sensor? 

No idea alert could have been referring equally to screen cameras. Maybe just a glitch. I've had it occasionally for no real reason. Shouldn't worry unless it keeps doing it.

I'm getting to the point where I'm going to have to turn the damn thing off anyway, it's a bit sensitive.

I was passing queing traffic in the other direction this morning and the alarm went off, fortunately it didn't intervene.

Just back from dealership. Spoke to a ford technician who seems to know what he's talking about . Mine was built August.  Doesn't have radar, someone commented earlier in thread saying it's the windscreen camera, he was right. So when Ford send me an alert to clean front grille they mean windscreen...FFS

The error message you receive is all wrong, because the windscreen sensor is LIDAR not RADAR, lol.

1 minute ago, alexp999 said:

The error message you receive is all wrong, because the windscreen sensor is LIDAR not RADAR, lol.

I don't know what LIDAR is? Is that not Tesla technology?  

Interestingly I got a precollision error message, but mine was "camera obscured", which makes sense as I dont have the radar pack

 

4 minutes ago, Alex.S said:

I don't know what LIDAR is? Is that not Tesla technology?  

Tesla probably use it.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lidar

7 minutes ago, alexp999 said:

Tesla probably use it.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lidar

3D laser scanning!  WTF

There must have been an advantage to have both radar and LIDAR tho.

I reckon ford ran out of radar but continued to build them regardless. 

 

LIDAR doesn't have the range that RADAR does.

My car has both, it uses the RADAR for long range (active cruise control and pre-collision assist up to 50mph), and the LIDAR for short range (active city stop up to 30 mph)

20 minutes ago, Alex.S said:

I don't know what LIDAR is? Is that not Tesla technology?

LIDAR is not Tesla technology, it's used by many different organisations for 3-D mapping and by the likes of Google for autonomous vehicles.

7 minutes ago, alexp999 said:

LIDAR doesn't have the range that RADAR does.

My car has both, it uses the RADAR for long range (active cruise control and pre-collision assist up to 50mph), and the LIDAR for short range (active city stop up to 30 mph)

But Ford still claim that there is pre collision avoidance on all their cars. 

Ive had the pre collision alert twice in 3 months 

I can only assume they've rebranded and combined Active City Stop under the same umbrella.

Perhaps the LIDAR has been updated to work at longer range/higher speeds than previously.

If they have they've obviously not updated their error messages to match.

Is it 2 windscreen cameras? Top and bottom? 

Its maybe only cars with adaptive cruise control that have the radar sensor? 

2 hours ago, Comares2001 said:

Sounds like you havnt got the sensor then.You should see this (attached pix) behind the grill.

Most new models probably have numerous changes made to them once they go into full production not not necessarily to save money

Thanks Brian for taking the trouble to post the picture it’s really helpful. 👍

It confirms my suspicions that not all MK4's have this particular front mounted Radar unit and it is not essential as regards the operation of the emergency assist system as proved in my case.

As mentioned before my emergency assist is definitely working as it’s triggered several times alerting me with a large flashing red box and a loud audible beeping sound.

I seem to remember reading in the small print when I was looking for added options for my car that the front mounted radar is included with an option pack which I decided not to go for.

I appreciate that your Vignale comes fully loaded so I would have expected your car to have it fitted as standard.

BTW, I didn't go for the 'Adaptive Cruise Control' & the 'Stop And Go' options.

Also, I took delivery of my Titanium X last December and a friend of mine took delivery of his Titanium in August last year and both of us do not have the front mounted Radar unit.

Thanks again for clearing up the mystery. 

Part of the Ford assistance pack probably...

54 minutes ago, PLB said:

Thanks Brian for taking the trouble to post the picture it’s really helpful. 👍

It confirms my suspicions that not all MK4's have this particular front mounted Radar unit and it is not essential as regards the operation of the emergency assist system as proved in my case.

As mentioned before my emergency assist is definitely working as it’s triggered several times alerting me with a large flashing red box and a loud audible beeping sound.

I seem to remember reading in the small print when I was looking for added options for my car that the front mounted radar is included with an option pack which I decided not to go for.

I appreciate that your Vignale comes fully loaded so I would have expected your car to have it fitted as standard.

BTW, I didn't go for the 'Adaptive Cruise Control' & the 'Stop And Go' options.

Also, I took delivery of my Titanium X last December and a friend of mine took delivery of his Titanium in August last year and both of us do not have the front mounted Radar unit.

Thanks again for clearing up the mystery. 

I didn’t realise yours is a year old. I was thinking it was a feature Ford had dropped from recent builds. Like they did with the rear suspension. Seems it’s just an extra we don’t have. 

Yours will have the multi link then ? 

8 hours ago, Alex.S said:

I didn’t realise yours is a year old. I was thinking it was a feature Ford had dropped from recent builds. Like they did with the rear suspension. Seems it’s just an extra we don’t have. 

Yours will have the multi link then ? 

Yes, got the multi link.

8 hours ago, Alex.S said:

Part of the Ford assistance pack probably...

Yes, i think you are correct.

I didn't go for the Ford assistance pack option.

1 minute ago, PLB said:

Yes, i think you are correct.

I didn't go for the Ford assistance pack option.

Only extra I got was the desert island blue paint, couldn’t live with the race red ! . mines a lease car I wouldn’t get any money back for any extras in 3 years time. At least thats the radar mystery solved. Can’t miss what you never had. 

I don't get how many of you have had the active city trigger. A few say many times. How are you driving?
Ive never in the almost 2 years I've owned it? I'm beginning to think mine doesn't work but am scared to test it. Could I drive towards a cardboard sheet to test it?
I have had to clear the screen camera in winter before for it so is there.

We're talking about "pre collision warning " here not "city stop". Pre collision can detect objects stationary or moving that you could hit up to some considerable distance from the car. Unfortunately it can sometimes be triggered inadvertently in random situations.

In my case it’s only triggered a couple of times when cornering.

If it spots an obstruction immediately coming out of a bend and it thinks you haven’t seen it and once when I glanced over at exactly the same time the car some distance in front decide to suddenly brake.

However, its certainly not triggered that excessively to make me want to turn it off.