2012 328 - Parking Sensor

[RWMOREY71]

Hi --

My wife has a 2012 BMW 328 and she had a minor accident where a woman in a parking lot backed into my wife's car. Since then the parking distance control sensor does not work and the car says it is malfunctioning. There was not really any noticeable damage to the car but I'm guessing the "whack" to the PDC caused it to bite the dust. Is this something I can replace myself or should we bring the car to the BMW dealer?

Thanks

Rich

[dworthy]

Welcome to the Forum!

Depends on how handy you are and which one is bad. I think in order to ensure you do replace the right one, you will need to pull codes from the PDC Module. Also would depend if it's a front or rear sensor, some can be reached without pulling the bumper off. Which leads to my next question, how much damage was done? Sometimes it can appear that all looks well until you pull the bumper of and find the mount is damaged too.

Lastly, why not allow the insurance company to take care of this, or are we talking about a hit-n-run here?

EDIT: If this is a sedan, it's a F-30 and belong on that forum FYI.

[RWMOREY71]

Hey --

Thanks for the response. It was the front of the car - a convertible. We were traveling when the accident happened and had stopped for lunch when a woman backed into us so we did not take the time to get insurance info, etc. Plus the car didn't have any visible damage. It was a very low speed "crash". I will see if I can check the mount by looking behind the bumper from the ground. Would I have to remove the bumper to replace the sensor(s) ? I don't know if I'm handy enough to do that!

Thanks

Rich

[dworthy]

First you will need to remove the belly pan to get access behind the bumper. If it's in the corner, you will have to get a different splash guard out of the way. If you have a basic hand tool set of metric sockets, you should be able to remove most of the splash guards.