Tow Bar Problem For My Ford Mondeo Hatchback Special Edit

[not technical nan]

can anyone please help me with my problem......I bought the above car last Saturday and took it in to have a tow bar fitted with double electrics and a bar for the stabilizer on my caravan.

when I got in it to drive off, the reversing sensors are continuously going off as the electrics are in

line next to one of the sensors on the panel.

it has 4 sensors on the back panel. I think the problem lies with the 2nd one from the left.

I'm concerned about this because I need the sensors working in order for me to reverse the car properly.

I'm sure other mondeo owners must have come across this problem.

please help as I'm not getting much out of the ford mechanics.

I had the tow bar fitted at a reputable place that have fitted my tow bars on previous ford cars I've had.

thank you for any help offered

[jeebowhite]

Welcome to the family Barbara!

Will move this to the mondeo section.

So do you have factory fitted sensors? if so, what happens if you disconnect the wiring for the towbar?

[not technical nan]

I assume that these are factory fitted sensors. I can find out by phoning the ford dealer we bought it from.

we cannot do anything with the wiring of the towbar as we are not technical. lol. but I can take it back to the towbar

fitter and ask him to disconnect the wiring and see what happens then.

it seems that the sensors have a bit of a side way vision and maybe that's why it's continually going off. I was wondering

if an auto electrician could maybe disconnect this one sensor.

[jeebowhite]

There is a section in the manual about fitting sensors with towbars and you might be on the money with it.

If you have any button on the dash for the parking sensors its most likely factory fit. Alternatively if its an aftermarket it could be the last owner didnt do a good job of aligning them against the towbar.

Whichever was installed last (i.e. if you fitted the towbar) then take it back to them and ask them to look at it as its not installed correctly. if the sensors where fitted after, then take it back to whoever fitted them and get them to sort it out. Otherwise if you bought the car with both, then as I say, start by disconnecting the tow bar ball so that you have a smooth bumper again and see what the sensors do then, if they behave you know its just the towbar and might need to replace it with a more suitable model taking into account the cars parking sensors. If however it doesnt affect it, then it could be the electrical interference isnt helping.

Get a garage or someone to disconnect the towbar electrics and see if that fixes it, if not, then you should get each of the 4 sensors and disconnect them from the module in turn, then you should see that one of them disconnected stops the beeping, that would be the defective sensor and would be replaced.

[not technical nan]

wwwooooohhhoooo it's been fixed now........as I said at the beginning, we're not technical at all and thank you all sooooo much for your comments and help.

however, this morning at 4am I awoke and the first thing that came into my head was - why not stick some tape over the sensor that is too close to the 2 electric sockets. I suggested this to my hubby who looked at me as if I'd fell off the moon.

the auto electrician has just been and firstly he put the codes into a computer gadget (which was suggested by one of you guys, thank you) and the bleeping eased off but carried on picking up the electric sockets. then he hit on the idea of putting tape over the sensor. IT WORKED!!!! apparently you cannot disable just one problem sensor. so now we know.

so, all of you mondeo owners with tow bar problems ------ STICK A BIT OF TAPE OVER IT.

thanks again everyone.

cheers

b

[jeebowhite]

Hi Barbara, so what tape did you put over it, and was it just stick them directly over the two parking sensors? I thought that would have long term just kept setting them off :p

What was the final cost?

[not technical nan]

Well because we rang an auto electrician to come out and look at it = he only charged us £20 because apparently because the sensors are factory fitted, and the tow bar and electrics were fitted after, the tow bar fitters should have calibrated it back onto the mondeos computer and they didn't. so wether that had anything to do with it I don't know but at least the computer now recognises it.

the piece of tape is only over the one sensor to the left of the tow bar. this sensor was picking up the 2 electric sockets next to the towbar.

I think if we'd have taken it into fords to be seen to it would have cost us quite a lot and anyway we rang them and they couldn't help us.

if other people have this problem, then try the cheapest and the obvious answer first, could save you a lot of money. good luck

cheers

b

[not technical nan]

I put black sticky tape over the sensor.

cheers

b

[jeebowhite]

That makes sense although I must be missing something, perhaps someone can clear up for me how the tape fixes it as the sensor should detect the tape...

Anyway an excellent result none the less!

Sent from my MY SAGA C2 using Ford OC mobile app

[not technical nan]

your thoughts on this is exactly what my hubby said. but, me having a womans mind.... as I see it......not being very technical etc...the sensor must give out some kind of rays like a security light.....and if it catches anything in it then it will bleep. but if the core of it was covered then it can't send out anything.

anyway, it worked, thank goodness and if this is a help to anyone else with this problem, then I'm happy.

years ago I worked at fiat warrington and I remember one of the mechanics saying to me when something goes wrong with your car, always look for the simplest way and the cheapest .....usually, electrics problems are just a fuse.

cheers

b

[jeebowhite]

Very true and a good result bit yes they emit radar waves in essence and the time it takes to bounce back is how it calculates the distance I might just try this for the fun of it and see what happens

Sent from my MY SAGA C2 using Ford OC mobile app

[JohnBellwood]

Hi there, I have an unusual variation of this problem. I have owned my Mondeo 3 years and had a Towbar fitted by a towing agent. The Towbar had twin electrics and I included a large stainless bumper protector. I had no problems with the reverse alarms picking up the equipment. I have recently bought a new caravan with 13 pin plug. I have fitted a single13 pin socket to the car and the reverse alarm goes off immediately reverse is selected. The socket is no larger than previously, I have even removed the protector but to no avail! Anyone got any clues?

[jeebowhite]

What happens if you disconnect it all, does it still go off?