[niggle]

Folks, newbie alart - bought my first ever BMW two weeks ago. A 1-year old 530d M-Sport GT.

There's just one quirk I've noticed. I expect it's normal, but I'd just like to confirm, and ask if there's any way to change it.

And it's this ... Park Distance Control (PDC). The car's an automatic, and has a rear-assist camera, in case either of these points are significant.

Let's say you park up nose first, so you're close to a wall/fence/whatever in front. Then later you come back to the car and start her up. As soon as I shift into reverse gear, with my foot still on the brake, the PDC turns on and starts it's manic bleeping because it's detected the wall/fence/whatever. But I'm in reverse; why bleep? It's warning me about something that aint gonna happen

It's only when I actually start moving backwards, the car thinks, ok, he's moving backwards, I'll stop complaining and do something useful, like turn on the rear camera

Does this make sense, because it seems really silly to me?

[pdrf10]

I'd say it's a case of engineering to the lowest common denominator (and possibly creating a greater sense of situational awareness by letting you know there are objects in front of your vehicle that may not always be visible from the driver's seat).

Just my two cents (or "pence", as you may call them across the pond)...

[niggle]

Thanks for your thoughts.

I'd say that by engineering it this way, after a while there's a danger that you're just going to start ignoring the beeping, and then reverse into something (or someone) unexpected.

[Noggie]

When I am parking in my own garage, the front sensors go off when I the front near the garage door opening, my focus is backwards so I am not paying much attention to my front corners, so I find them somewhat handy. Saves me swinging the front end into something.

My camera comes on right away when I put it in reverse, not when the car starts moving.
Might be an iDrive setting to initially show the PDC screen, and camera later, or camera all the time.

[niggle]

Noggie, thanks.

Good point on checking the front corners - that hadn't occurred to me.

I just had a quick look around the iDrive settings, but unfortunately nothing relating to rear camera, unless anyone knows otherwise? Maybe it's just one of those regional differences.

[Noggie]

the front and rear PDC alarms are different, the front are high pitched, and the rear low pitched, so they are easy to tell apart.

I think the settings are on the PDC page.
you can access this by either putting the car in reverse or pushing the button with the P and triangle next to the shift leaver.

once there you get the menu on the left and you can select various things with the idrive wheel.
i.e the red and green help lines can be turned on/off
the PDC info displayed on the camera as boxes that change color from yellow to red in front of the objects on the camera that you are about to hit.
if you have a tow hitch you can activate the zoom to that.
And I think this is where you can select PDC detectors or Camera.

I am not at home at the moment so I cant check this on my car.

[niggle]

I didn't know about the difference in pitch. That helps.

I'm travelling for a few days, but will certainly have a play with the PDC settings when I get the chance.

Thanks so much again.