So, what does this all mean? From my understanding, it seemed like the various radars weren’t working properly so it won’t be able to detect a pedestrian coming into traffic or if I might rear-end the car in front of me. Obviously, if you’re an active and cautious driver, these things aren’t necessary but they can help. For me, it was more that I paid a big chunk of money for this car and I want it to work properly, considering that it was purchased only a few hours earlier.
I contacted my dealership right away but it was later at night so I had to wait until the next morning. During this time I went on the internet to see if anyone else was having these issues. I got nothing when looking at these issues for the Supras. But, if you didn’t know, Toyota had A LOT of help from BMW in building this platform. Knowing this, I looked up this same problem but for BMW and the results came in real quick. Apparently, this is nothing new for BMW. Many people experienced this and the solution wildly ranges.
I’m not a BMW guy at all, so I’ll try to explain the situation to the best of my ability. From what I gathered, it seems like BMW shipped a lot of cars with defective radar systems. It could be the radars that are in the bumpers or the camera in the windshield. You just don’t know until you have a dealer check it out. The problem is, there is no one answer or one solution. Some dealers take the car in, update the firmware and call it good. This fixes the issue for some but others need hardware to be replaced. If this is the case, then there is the hurdle of actually getting the parts. Some people had to wait for months for the new parts to get to the dealership. Some dealerships will not even let you drive the car home until it’s fixed because of possible safety concerns. All of this made me very nervous because I just bought this car, I do not want to have it sitting for weeks or months waiting to be fixed.
Aside from firmware or hardware issues, the system just doesn’t seem to be well designed in the first place because a lot of things can negatively affect it. For example, if your car is dirty and the radars are lightly obstructed, you can get these warnings. They can also appear if there’s heavy rain, a snowstorm or other weather conditions that reduce visibility. There’s a lot that can affect this safety system. On my end, I went out the next morning and gave the car a quick wash. I wanted to see if I was getting the warnings possibly because of dirty censors but I was not. At this point, it was all up to the dealership.
Some time passed and I got a call. Luckily, the trained Supra technician was available and could take a look at the car. I took it in and the technician was able to solve the problem, at least for the time being.
Apparently, the system in my Supra was not calibrated properly. Don’t quote me on this but there are certain things that you have to do to calibrate it. One is to drive at 42 kph for a mile. These things just weren’t done during the pre-delivery inspection at the original dealership where we traded for this particular Supra. Anyway, the Supra is currently fixed and doesn’t show the warnings anymore but I was told to watch it because it’s kind of up in the air. The technician doesn’t know if the problem is solved permanently or temporarily. This is kind of similar to what some BMW owners experienced. Their warnings would go away then show up a day later so who knows.
As I said, all I can do now is to just be mindful of the system and watch for any warnings. If something shows up, I’ll have to take it back to the dealership.
So, if you are a GR Supra owner, have you experienced this? Are you a BMW owner that’s experienced this? Let me know. I’d love to hear how this worked out for you.
