A crucial safety feature of most modern vehicles, your ADAS (or Advanced Driver-Assistance System) incorporates a wide range of components designed to prevent collisions and detect potential threats on the road.
The Importance of Proper ADAS Calibration
With accurate calibration, crash mitigation components—like adaptive cruise control, blind spot detection, and tire pressure monitoring—can save you from costly (or even deadly) accidents and keep your vehicle running at its peak performance.
Unfortunately, many vehicle technicians don’t have the car programming knowledge necessary to set your ADAS correctly. Using a combination of radar, lidar, cameras, and ultrasound, crash mitigation systems experts are few.
But, how can you determine whether your car’s driver-assistance system works properly?
Understanding Your ADAS
The first step: Get to know your vehicle’s system.
Your driver’s manual will include a section about YOUR car’s specific ADAS programming. Make sure you are familiar with each of your ADAS features and understand how they work. Try to locate each camera and sensor (as much as you can without removing your front bumper).
The next step? Become familiar with the signs and symptoms associated with an incorrectly calibrated ADAS.
5 Signs You May Need an ADAS Recalibration
You should bring your car into the shop for an expert ADAS recalibration when you…
- Notice a false or delayed activation of the system. If your sensors have been knocked in the wrong direction, your system may falsely categorize oncoming traffic as a threat or may not detect collision threats at all.
- Receive incorrect steering warnings or corrections. If you notice your steering wheel over-correcting in a particular direction or if you receive steering warning signals at strange times, it may be time for a steering alignment and ADAS reprogramming.
- Experience a minor collision. Any time your vehicle experiences an accident—even minor bumps against a curb or parking block — your sensors could be thrown off. It’s always a good idea to inspect your sensors post-collision. Locating your front radar may require you to remove your bumper, at which point, it may be safest to bring your vehicle by the shop.
- Find physical damage to sensors & cameras. After every minor accident, make a habit of checking your sensors and cameras for damage. Catching and fixing issues before you spend too much time on the road could prevent a much more serious accident.
- Receive warning lights or messages. Your vehicle’s programming is set up so that many codes (the warning lights you see on your dashboard) are connected closely with the driver-assistance system. So, a check-engine light may not JUST show an issue with your engine—it could also communicate an ADAS error.
Ultimately, the best (and safest) way to tell whether your crash mitigation system is operating accurately is to bring your car into the shop for an expert ADAS assessment. It’s a good idea to check your ADAS on a semi-regular basis—at least every time you get an oil change.
When you bring in your vehicle for ADAS testing, our vehicle computer system experts will need to conduct a static calibration, dynamic calibration, or both.
Static calibrations are performed in-shop in a strictly controlled environment. Placing a target image in front of your vehicle, we reprogram your system and take it on a test drive to make sure every ADAS component has been corrected to manufacturer standards.
Meanwhile, we perform dynamic calibrations on the road, checking each ADAS feature as we drive your vehicle at a preset speed.
PAS Tech | Wilmington NC
The great news? The PAS Tech team is full of ADAS technology experts who are eager and available to help! We realize how challenging it can be to keep up with the details of complex modern car technology. So, let us be a resource for you!
Have questions about your ADAS system? Call us at (910) 769-5862.
Has it been a while since your last ADAS calibration? We can help!
Tags: adas, auto mechanics in Wilmington, car technology, driver assistance, European car care Wilmington, European cars, european mechanic, specialized auto technician, vehicle maintenance
