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[terry paget]

2007 petrol Vectra manual 1.8 estate

I have fitted all my Vauxhalls with £10 reversing sensor kits, powering them from reversing light leads in RH wings. It works fine in my 2008 Vectra saloon, which has CANbuss wiring.
The Vectra estate reversing lights are in the tailgate, so I took the power from the rear fuse box, depicted above; they work well. However, when not in reverse gear they chirrup occasionally and the lights flash. The reversing lights do not flash. I have checked the earthing of the sensor controller, it is to the earth connector on the rear panel.
I blame the CANbuss system, yet all is well on the 2008 saloon. Please advise.

[TheBoy]

I'd start with double checking you have wired to the reversing lights correctly.  Obviously you need to be the bulb side of the REC.  Also, if the REC supports offline bulb monitoring on the reversing lights (no idea on Vectra, hateful things that they are), you may need to get your reversing sensor feed from somewhere else.

[TheBoy]

Oh, and I know its trendy to blame CAN for everything, but that is simply due to people not grasping it. CAN is irrelevant to this.

[iansoutham]

Are you sure it is not just the bulb monitoring sending a pulse to make sure the bulb is functioning correctly?

[terry paget]

Thank you both. I did not appreciate bulb checking imvolved occasional pulses, this seems exactly like that. On the 2008 saloon. sensing before the RH bulb, I would expect 6 volts; sensing before both bulbs I would expect 12 volts. Now I understand my problem.

[Doctor Gollum]

Thank you both. I did not appreciate bulb checking imvolved occasional pulses, this seems exactly like that. On the 2008 saloon. sensing before the RH bulb, I would expect 6 volts; sensing before both bulbs I would expect 12 volts. Now I understand my problem.

The estate has the facility to automatically switch light sources between the wing and tailgate should a brake light fail. The hatch doesn't aiui due to being a different arrangement 

It's in the manual iirc

[terry paget]

Thank you both. I did not appreciate bulb checking imvolved occasional pulses, this seems exactly like that. On the 2008 saloon. sensing before the RH bulb, I would expect 6 volts; sensing before both bulbs I would expect 12 volts. Now I understand my problem.

The estate has the facility to automatically switch light sources between the wing and tailgate should a brake light fail. The hatch doesn't aiui due to being a different arrangement 

It's in the manual iirc

Vx or Haynes?

[Doctor Gollum]

VX

[zirk]

Check for Illegal Imagrant Woman who has locked Herself in the Boot.

[Sir Tigger KC]

Check for Illegal Imagrant Woman who has locked Herself in the Boot.

Or maybe Terry locked Mrs Paget in the boot! 

[Viral_Jim]

If you don't want to change how it's wired into the car, you coul add a 12v time delay relay, set it to 1 second, given it's a short pulse of power, this should trigger the relay but not power it for enough time to power up the sensors.

It will obviously give you an extra 1s delay when putting the car in reverse, but I'd guess that's tolerable.

[TheBoy]

It will obviously give you an extra 1s delay when putting the car in reverse, but I'd guess that's tolerable.

Oh I don't know - my reversing camera on the Pussy has about a 1-2s delay when selecting reverse if the infotainment is still booting, and I find it really annoying.  "Time waits for no man"

[Andy B]

It will obviously give you an extra 1s delay when putting the car in reverse, but I'd guess that's tolerable.

Oh I don't know - my reversing camera on the Pussy has about a 1-2s delay when selecting reverse if the infotainment is still booting, and I find it really annoying.  "Time waits for no man"

Likewise my ML

[Doctor Gollum]

It will obviously give you an extra 1s delay when putting the car in reverse, but I'd guess that's tolerable.

Oh I don't know - my reversing camera on the Pussy has about a 1-2s delay when selecting reverse if the infotainment is still booting, and I find it really annoying.  "Time waits for no man"

Likewise my ML

Likewise mine.

[TheBoy]

Is that only shortly after starting the car, or all the time?  Mine is instant once the Infotainment has booted, but has the delay if it hasn't.  Which is annoying, as the exact length of time it takes the Infotainment to boot is how long it takes me to reverse off the drive - which often needs 2 reversing attempts due to lover boy's parking opposite...