Reversing Alarm Issue When Towing

[jwb300]

Hi All,

Looking for some advice as to why my D4 doesn't disengage the reversing alarm/proximity beeper when I am reversing a trailer. My D3 did it too with certain trailers but not others. It also flashed with a small picture of a trailer on the dash when indicating but the D4 doesnt do that either.

It does the same thing with my folks caravan when I towed that once too.

Do I need a certain type of plug or something on the trailer. The trailer I have has a flat plug which I use an adaptor to attach to the car plug.

Cheers for any help and apologies if this has been covered before.
James

[rufusking]

Sounds like you have LED lights on the trailer. With the D4 you will need a pulse buster or similar to induce enough load on the indicator circuit to sense the trailer.

[Basil135]

Going to take a guess, and suggest you have LED's on your trailer.

They do not produce enough resistance for the car to recognise it is plugged in.

I am fairly sure the dealers are aware of this, and have a fix. If not, then you can get a special loading resistor from places like Repco & the like.

[jwb300]

Going to take a guess, and suggest you have LED's on your trailer.

They do not produce enough resistance for the car to recognise it is plugged in.

I am fairly sure the dealers are aware of this, and have a fix. If not, then you can get a special loading resistor from places like Repco & the like.


Correct I do have LED lights. In fact on my cool room trailer LED lights intermittantly blink when connected to the D3.

Cheers for the advice. I shall visit repco this afternoon!

Cheers,
James

[tony_s]

There is a long post on this on the forum. I bought a resistor from Repco for about $14 from memory.

[Rich84]

The flashing is the CAN BUS running a light current through the blinkers and measuring the resultant voltage drop to see if there is a trailer connected.

If it does detect one,
-the automatic transmission "trailer" program is engaged
-trailer stability control is engaged
-rear park assist is disengaged
-some other stuff I can't remember

As the others have said, there's numerous ways you can get around it. I would personally just solder a resistor to match an incandescent bulb in line with the LEDs and see if that works.

You also have a button on the dash with something like P>>> on it and a light. Push that and it turns rear park assist off.

[jwb300]

The flashing is the CAN BUS running a light current through the blinkers and measuring the resultant voltage drop to see if there is a trailer connected.

If it does detect one,
-the automatic transmission "trailer" program is engaged
-trailer stability control is engaged
-rear park assist is disengaged
-some other stuff I can't remember

As the others have said, there's numerous ways you can get around it. I would personally just solder a resistor to match an incandescent bulb in line with the LEDs and see if that works.

You also have a button on the dash with something like P>>> on it and a light. Push that and it turns rear park assist off.


Ok so last night I put a resistor inline on the number plate light. It got hot so was working but the car still did not recognise the trailer.

It is a standard Narva 12 v 21 watt LED Load Resistor. I am going to pick up another one this afternoon and hopefully that will solve the problem...

Does anyone know if you require 2 or more. Dont want to go installing multiple resistors if they are not required.

Cheers,
James

[Rich84]

I should think if you either wire one in line with each of the blinkers, or in line on the common earth, it would work.

CAN BUS tests through the blinkers, that's why they flash and not the brake or tails.

[Ferret]

Ok so last night I put a resistor inline on the number plate light. It got hot so was working but the car still did not recognise the trailer.

The resistor needs to be wired in 'parallel' with the blinker light, not 'in line' with the number plate light or any other light. You can wire both left and right side if you want to but only one resistor on one side is actually required.

[jwb300]

The resistor needs to be wired in 'parallel' with the blinker light, not 'in line' with the number plate light or any other light. You can wire both left and right side if you want to but only one resistor on one side is actually required.


Thanks for the advice. I put the resistor on the blinker and it is now working! The only hassle was the sealed LED light had 4 wires running into it but after a bit of trial and error I found the right 2 wires!

Cheers,
James