Fitting OEM Reverse Parking Sensors - B5.5

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Critical_Mass
Too much time on your hands
Posts: 1690
Joined: Mon May 21, 2012 12:42 pm
Passat model: B5.5 1.9S TDI SW

Fitting OEM Reverse Parking Sensors - B5.5

Post by Critical_Mass »

This is only for factory Reverse Parking Sensors. Which include the sensors and valance, wiring and control box. Also this was on an estate, the process may differ to a saloon, but only in regards to feeding the wires from the boot to the cabin.

Pretty straight forward, even for those with little experience with wiring like myself. But to be honest, once id found out what wires go where (thanks to other forums members). Also once id had a look under the dash, it made more sense. I did buy some wire strippers which were brilliant and made the wiring so much easier.

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I started at the rear of the car and my first task was to fit the new valance to the bumper (sorry didnt get any pics of this. But its simple enough to describe.

Firstly i took the 4 torx screws, open the boot lid, there are 2 either side next to the lights. Next, on the trailing edge of the wheel arch there are 3 torx screw either side. Now get under the car and there are 3 allen head bolts one on each corner of the bumper and one in the middle. Once all these are removed the bumper can be pulled off.

To get the valance off the bumper and replace with the shallow valance with sensors, simply take the 2 clips either side of the bumper, which hold the valance onto the bumper - to get them off you have to tap the little peg out of the middle of them which allows the spreaded clip to be squeezed closed - this is fiddly and ideally id like to have replaced them, but i managed to get them off and was able to reuse. Now the valance can be pulled away from the bumper. The valance is clipped in place at various places around the bumper, its easy to come off. The new parking sensor valance goes on the same in reverse. Obviously with the loom attached to the sensors. - Ensure the plug/grommit end of the loom is on the drivers side of the valance! I laid the bumper near the back of the car whilst i took the existing grommit out from the car and fed the loom into the car and put the attached grommit securely in the old grommits place. Now all that needs to be done is the bumper to be refit.

With the sensor loom plug fed into the boot behind the drivers rear light, the next step i took was to remove the boot arch panel. Remove the boot carpet. Then, you need to remove the 2 screws (circled in blue) that sit under the cubby hole... these only screw out so far and then you have to pull them out. Then remove the 2 anchor points (circled in red), both held on with 2 screws each. Then go to the passenger door to remove the cushion between the door and the back seat. Continue below..

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Again, sorry, i didnt get many pics of the next process in removing the cushion. To remove it, put the back seat foward and lift the seat base forward. The metal peg that the back seat latches onto at the top needs to be unbolt, the hex bolt unscrews.

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Next is to remove the seat belt. Under the plastic trim which is partially under the seat base and runs below the door, there is a hex bolt holding the seat belt onto the metal seat frame (red arrow). On the pic you can see there appears to be another hole for a screw - there maybe one to take out here, but there wasn't on mine. To get to the hex bolt, just lift the trim out of the way, it'll bend enough for you to get a socket to it. Once undone the seat belt will lift out the way.

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Now the cushion will just pull out, pull it towards you but slightly up, it'll come out. Behind it on the pillar is another torx screw to undo, this holds the front of the arch panel to the pillar. Go back into the boot and you should be able to pull the arch trim away, along the bottom edge of the window there are clips, the trim should just pull away. On the rear most pillar near the boot lid is a clip that similar to the ones that hold the door cards to the door - it did just pull away without breaking, but i broke it trying to get it to go back on once i was putting it all back together. Not a huge issue, it'll be easy enough to replace if necessary.

Now the arch trim is out of the way, it was easy enough to feed the loom that goes from the control box to the dash through, i used a wire coat hanger to feed it through. I also fed the control box plug end behind the tray that holds the first aid box and onto just behind the light - i was planning on putting the control box behind the rear light as i couldn't see anywhere else for it to go.

Just to note, the loom with the beige connector has 5 wires - Ignition live, K-line, earth, towbar and reverse signal - not sure of colours as i ordered new looms from Kufatec.co.uk and all wires were grey but they were labelled. On this loom one wire was the reverse signal wire - i didn't feed this to the front of the car, i fed it to the rear light, behind the first aid holder. The other i didn't have to feed to the front of the car was the Tow bar wire - as i don't have a tow bar nor intend to have one i just left this behind the arch trim panel. So i cant help with this wire. The other 3 wires; Ignition live, k-line and earth (the earth was taped up with the ign live and K-line and it was easier to just feed it to the front of the car and find an earthing point up front. But this can be earth at any of the earthing points - just depends on what loom you have.

With the wiring in the boot out of the way, i moved onto feeding the loom down to the dash - this is where i found things easier, including the wiring. There's some plastic trim that run along the bottom of the door and i was able to just slide the wires under all the way to the dash. Once the bottom dash panel was removed i then fed the wiring behind the kick panel next to the bonnet release handle.

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Now all the looms have been run to where they need to be. The wiring needs hooking up. Disconnect the battery first. I was a little worried about this as i have very little electrical experience. But to those that feel the same, you really don't need to worry. There's 4 wires to hook up and one, on the loom i bought has a metal loop connector on, so it could be put onto the thread of the earthing point and screwed in place. The rest needed soldering to existing wiring.

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I did the reverse signal wire first, which i fed to the rear light. On the light plug its the red/blue wire that you want. Using the wire splitter tool, expose the copper wires and attached the reverse signal wire to it and solder it in place - use electrical tape to protect the connection. Thats it for the boot.

Under the dash - behind the bonnet release handle theres some earthing points. Connect the ground cable to this.

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The K-Line wire needs to go to the OBD diagnostics port. I think depending on year will determine which colour wire you need to connect it to, i was told originally its grey/white wire. But after speaking to another member, for his which was a 2003 (like mine), his was port 7 and was a green wire (numbers are on the plug. I found mine was the green cable too.

Again, split the wire coating and solder the K-line wire to it - remember to protect it with electrical tape.

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Lastly, there's only the ignition live to attached. This needs to go on the "75x" connection, this didnt make sense to me until i saw what the "75x" connection was. Its the yellow labelled connection far left, under relay 53.

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Here, i was advised to add a 5amp fuse between the 75x connection and the ignition live. I used some of the spare towbar wiring to connect between the 75x connection and the fuse holder, then the ignition live wire went to the fuse holder.

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Undo the bolt and wrap the wire cable around it. Again ideally id have like a ring connection, like on the earth, but as i couldn't find them, i just hooked the copper wire around it and tightened the bolt. Will replace at a later date.

That is it.. i tested the system and it works fine. Just need to see if vagcom picks it up - apparently you can adjust the volume of the speaker for the PDS in Vagcom. I will check this out.

Sorry for the long post, like to be thorough and explain more than i have to, avoiding any ambiguity. Feel free to ask questions or add where i may have missed something. This was how I did it.

Thanks
Gaz
Last edited by Critical_Mass on Thu Sep 05, 2013 10:07 am, edited 2 times in total.
KGB B5 1.9 TDI SE[/color - RIP 23/11/2012
B5.5 1.9 S 130 TDI SW- 24/11/2012 >>>> SOLD 01/05/2018

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