Peculiar antics today. First snow of the winter and on my journey to work got a graphic suggesting that there was a problem with the front parking sensors. Took little notice as it was snowing moderately and the temperature was 0C. Expected to find snow covering the sensors but this was not the case.  Returned to the car this evening and drove for about 2 miles with no warning icon when suddenly I got a permanent tone and a display on the Columbus head unit suggesting the front of the car was in contact with some object. I was in a traffic queue but there was some distance between the Superb and the car ahead. I am not unused to front sensors as I had them previously on my Seat Toledo. Anyone else experienced these symptoms ?

Edited 8 December, 20178 yr by Robbydazzler

Yep. I try and get as much snow off the front of it before taking off. I had your problem a few weeks ago and it was deactivating my ACC. It was ok after the snow blew off.

I had some freezing rain today so the whole car was coated with half a centimetre of ice. That didn't seem to bother it though.

Drove home tonight on a very snowy section of motorway - big flakes, bit of stop-start - and the parking and proximity sensors were going off like Blackpool illuminations!

7 hours ago, Robbydazzler said:

Peculiar antics today. First snow of the winter and on my journey to work got a graphic suggesting that there was a problem with the front parking sensors. Took little notice as it was snowing moderately and the temperature was 0C. Expected to find snow covering the sensors but this was not the case.  Returned to the car this evening and drove for about 2 miles with no warning icon when suddenly I got a permanent tone and a display on the Columbus head unit suggesting the front of the car was in contact with some object. I was in a traffic queue but there was some distance between the Superb and the car ahead. I am not unused to front sensors as I had them previously on my Seat Toledo. Anyone else experienced these symptoms ?

 

Whilst there wasn't snow on the parking sensors, was there snow on the radar section in the middle of the grill? It's this bit that feeds back proximity of cars etc for the purposes of collision avoidance and ACC and could have been getting confused if it had snow or ice on it.

8 hours ago, CheshireBumpkin said:

 

Whilst there wasn't snow on the parking sensors, was there snow on the radar section in the middle of the grill? It's this bit that feeds back proximity of cars etc for the purposes of collision avoidance and ACC and could have been getting confused if it had snow or ice on it.

Thank you. I think you are right. I never had these problems with the front sensors on the Toledo but the Toledo did not have a radar section or ACC.

 

There have been a few reports of similar things caused by something obscuring the radar. I had a wet leaf stuck to mine once and got a similar warning. 

A few weekends ago when driving in sleet/snow I had ACC warn about an issue and it deactivated... Kept going and a while later it cleared only to happen a little later. Not a problem since.

Mine was sporadically bleating about objects being in front of the car when I was driving in snow yesterday. Parking sensors only work up to a certain speed 10-15mph? after that I think it uses the radar below skoda badge on bonnet & camera next to rear view mirror activating the front assist

I had an error yesterday for the front assist as the sensor was covered in snow on and off throughout the day.  It doesn't take much to obscure it.  Even a simple leaf can do it sometimes as mentioned above.

On 11/12/2017 at 15:11, Superb170 said:

I had an error yesterday for the front assist as the sensor was covered in snow on and off throughout the day.  It doesn't take much to obscure it.  Even a simple leaf can do it sometimes as mentioned above.

 

It's quite common to get an error message saying "Front Assist: sensor impaired" when covered with snow / driving while snowing. Funny thing is that I've tried replicated those conditions by covering the front radar with a piece of cardboard but couldn't get it to report the same error. In fact the front radar seems to work just fine when covered with a piece of cardboard and could detect cars in front. Intriguing...

15 hours ago, LiviuV said:

 

It's quite common to get an error message saying "Front Assist: sensor impaired" when covered with snow / driving while snowing. Funny thing is that I've tried replicated those conditions by covering the front radar with a piece of cardboard but couldn't get it to report the same error. In fact the front radar seems to work just fine when covered with a piece of cardboard and could detect cars in front. Intriguing...

 

Cardboard (dry) is quite transparent to radar, water is an effective reflector though.