We have a 2024 cx5 with rear cross traffic alert. That works fine when backing out of a parking space. But yesterday when moving cars around our driveway, I backed into another car. The CX5 did not give an alert! Isn't it supposed to also alert you to an obstruction when backing up?
Backup Sensors Not Working? Hit A Car! :(
- Thread starter CX5Nut
- Start date
2016.5 GT without iActivSense, here. When I back up, it'll warn me of cross traffic but not of stationary objects. Have had an instance of a pedestrian approaching (from the side/rear, probably out of 'view' of the sensor) where the system didn't warn, but otherwise it has been error-free.
Op mentioned "rear cross traffic alert" in his post, I don't think he has the parking sensors.
It only picks objects or persons that are moving across the rear (from left to right). Hence the name of “rear cross traffic alert”. It is meant to pick up on things that are outside of your peripheral vision in your blind spot and moving towards you when you are looking backward and reversing. It is not meant to pick up obstacles behind you. That is the job of the parking sensors and the rear view camera (when equipped).
It is too bad these new technologies are not better explained to drivers, the danger is people relying on something that isn’t actually designed to do what they think it does.
It is too bad these new technologies are not better explained to drivers, the danger is people relying on something that isn’t actually designed to do what they think it does.
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Use the backup camera and the rear/side view mirrors.
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It's why I creep ever-so-slowly when backing up. Triple-checking both directions multiple times, as I go. And still, occasionally some pedestrian will attempt to slip behind the car despite my having clearly been in-progress and he/she clearly having been a dozen feet distant during the attempt.
It's my first crossover/SUV format. And that's the one aspect that does take some getting used to. That we have so much worse rearward visibility, and that there are so many mindless people out there who refuse to accept the right of way of another (if in-progress during reversing).
It is nice that "nicer" vehicles are putting more of these sensors on them, to accomplish any number of things. Costs more, though. I learned driving when nearly everything on the road was stick-shift, power brakes and power steering were often options, and when there was more steering slop than a pig sty in those behemoth "estate" wagons. My, how times have changed.
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Most turbo trims have parking sensors. Sorry to hear yours doesn't have them.
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- Plano, Texas, USA
It’s funny that when my wife backed her CX-5 into the neighbor’s wooden fence and broke the tail lens a while ago, she also said she was expecting some warning beeps when the car was getting close to the fence. She’s talking about rear parking sensors on our 2000 BMW 528i, but unfortunately that feature isn’t on our 2016 CX-5 GT AWD. Here $550 was gone for the OEM LED tail light assembly, with my free labor.
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- 2014 & 2019 CX-5 Touring(s)
...and I bet it was YOUR fault too!
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- Plano, Texas, USA
Yes, it’s my fault that I didn’t tell her our CX-5 doesn’t have parking sensors ⋯...and I bet it was YOUR fault too!
Maybe in the great North but not here in the lower 48.
Your Fiat probably has the back up sensors. It is not that Mazda doesn’t do it. It is just not equipped on your CX-5. My 2018 CX-9 GT has the parking sensors rear and front. And more recent models also have the smart city brake assist-rear, which will apply the brakes automatically if it detects a person behind the car.
It is all possible and doable, but it just depends what you have to know what your specific car trim is equipped with.
Also as a side note, not all systems are equal. The rear cross traffic alert on my CX-9 beeps when a vehicle is coming from far away when in reverse. The same system in my BMW X3, only warns me if the vehicle is a feet or two away, and will only beep if i am actively moving in reverse. It won’t warn me ahead of time while in reverse. Same name, same core function, highly different application. The one in the Mazda is way better.
I'm so glad I learned to drive more than 50 years ago. The only (and still the best) sensors were your eyes and ears.
I used to shunt trailers on the graveyard shift, 48 footers sliding backwards between others and never put one out of place. One pot light over the loading door and a spot light on each side of the tractor was all the light available.
Eyes and ears...
I used to shunt trailers on the graveyard shift, 48 footers sliding backwards between others and never put one out of place. One pot light over the loading door and a spot light on each side of the tractor was all the light available.
Eyes and ears...
^ This.
I, too, learned to drive nearly 50yrs ago. Have always relied primarily on my direct line of sight as the final arbiter of what I'm approaching (or what's approaching me). Sensors are great, but they're an add-on to the best sensors we've got, as drivers: our eyes and ears.
