Can the parking sensors be disabled?

[Greg SV6]

Hi All,
Coming from a 2002 VX Sedan, I just bought an MY10 SV6 Sportswagon. Love the look and feel of it and the extra grunt, but there are a few things I'd like to sort out.

The main one is the parking sensors. I find them bloody annoying. First there is a beep when I select reverse to tell me they are activated (thanks, car, for letting me know I selected reverse). Then they start beeping as I approach the kerb to enter the driveway, then beep constantly to remind me I'm reversing past walls along the side of the driveway. It keeps beeping when the driveway levels out at the bottom of a hill (detecting the gradient change as an obstacle), and beeping reaches panic levels when I come close to the garage and doesn't stop until the car is inside the garage with Park selected.

Similarly, reverse parking between two cars triggers incessant beeping until the car is parked.

Since the beeping is pretty much constant whenever I've got the car in reverse, I can't see how the 'park assist' feature could possibly be useful.

Is there a way to disable this feature? I've had a look through the manual and also searched the web but can't find anything useful. I find it hard to believe that Holden included this as a standard feature without giving drivers the ability to turn it off.

Any suggestions appreciated

 

[Troy711]

My S1 Statesman has a button just above the shifter and below the stereo which you can turn on/off sports mode, traction control and parking sensors. Having never seen inside an S2 I can't say for sure, but it should have similar buttons. It doesn't turn them off permenantly but it does turn them off until they turn on automatically next time.

 

[mattyh83]

I honestly thought you could do it via the stereo. Worth a try if you havent already.

Edit: or even in the start up menu on the cluster.

 

[T-Bone75]

Sounds like it's doing exactly as it should, to me. The beep when you select reverse is to let you know the sensors are active, not what gear you're in. Given that you know your own driveway well, just ignore it in that situation.. you're not driving around in reverse all day after all. Also, if your car has a towpack, you may be able to effectively disable the sensors by taping a little magnet to the trailer connector or plugging in a dummy plug, as there's an electromagnetic switch which overrides the sensors when a trailer is plugged in, on some models.

 

[Wongy295]

Yeah I can't find any button, in my 2007 Lumina, to switch off the park assist.

As I have to tow bar fitted, I open up the light socket (lumen socket?), and remove the tiny magnet. This tells the car that there is a trailer attached, thus, turning park assist off.

If you have no towbar, you're on your own.

Damn it! T-Bone75 beat me to it.

 

[Greg SV6]

Yeah, it's doing what it's designed to do, but it's seriously annoying and not useful at all. When the kids are asleep in the car we usually try to move them quietly into bed before they wake up - no chance of this in the new car with all the buzzers going off!

If the sensors are activated by putting the car into reverse, does it need a buzzer to tell me the sensors are activated?

 

[Greg SV6]

I cant find any buttons either, and they don't seem to be in the manual.

I'll definitely get a tow bar fitted soon, so the magnet removal might be the way to go - thanks Wongy.

 

[Zerone_V]

For the reverse sensors (Park assist is a little bit different, as it has both sound, and the park assist display on the LCD screen),
there is a speaker located in the boot, near the parcel tray, on the battery side (From memory).
With this version, the speaker can be to turned off, low volume, and high volume.

I would probably suggest you try setting it to low volume first, to see if it is less annoying.
(The speaker is a small little thing, roughly the diameter of a 50c piece, and its about 4cm high.

I hope this helps.

 

[Greg SV6]

Nice one Zerone - I'll have a look for the speaker tonight and see if I can sort it out. Much appreciated

 

[T-Bone75]

If the sensors are activated by putting the car into reverse, does it need a buzzer to tell me the sensors are activated?

Well yeah, if it stops working (as they often do, due to various reasons) then you know because the initial 'active' beep doesn't sound - so you don't back over a kid and go 'hang on, there was no beeping!'
Anyway I hear ya, re: the sleeping kids.