U0497: Invalid Data Received From Entertainment Control Module — Rear A
What to do
The car drives normally — this is the rear-seat entertainment system.
Where the screens are tells you where the fault probably is. If they are built into the backs of the front seats, the wiring runs into a seat that slides, reclines and sometimes folds — and wiring that moves thousands of times eventually breaks inside insulation that still looks perfect. Mention anything ever pushed under those seats, and any work done in the footwells.
If the screen drops down from the roof, mention any work involving the headlining or the pillar trims, and any sign of water getting in at the roof.
One thing worth saying if you are thinking of giving up and clamping a tablet to the seat back instead. That position is directly in front of a rear passenger's head in a crash. The built-in systems are designed and tested for it — the mountings are made to break away and the screens to shatter safely. A rigid clamp holding a heavy tablet in the same place is not, and it is one of the few genuinely poor ideas in this area.
What this code means
The rear entertainment control module is broadcasting data that cannot be accepted as true. See U0400 for the family's framing and U0245 for the front system.
Rear entertainment is fitted in three shapes, and which one a vehicle has decides where the fault will be:
- Screens built into the front seat backs, wired down through the seat frame and along the floor.
- A screen dropping from the headlining, wired through the roof and the pillars.
- Detachable tablets in cradles, which are a later and much cheaper answer.
The seat-back installation has the cause that recurs across this whole corpus: wiring that moves. The loom runs into a seat that slides, reclines, tips forward and on some vehicles folds flat, and it is in the path of everything pushed under the seat and every job done in the footwell. That is the same failure as the door harness boot at U0202, in a place nobody thinks to look for it.
The roof installation belongs with U0486 and U0489 — headlining work, pillar trims, and water entering at the roof.
One point deserves stating because it concerns safety rather than entertainment. A screen mounted on the back of a front seat sits in the head-strike zone for the passenger behind it. Manufacturer systems are engineered and tested for that — frangible mountings, laminated screens, specified positions. Clamp-on holders for tablets and phones are not, and a rigid bracket with a heavy device on it, in that position, is a genuinely bad idea. That is worth saying to anybody considering the cheap alternative after being quoted for the repair.
Likely causes
Start here
- Damaged wiring under the front seats · moderate
- Corroded or loose connector · easy
- Module not coded to the vehicle · specialist
Less common
- Water ingress into module · moderate
- Damaged data bus wiring · moderate
- Aftermarket head unit fitted in place of the original · moderate
Symptoms
Components involved
Information, not instruction
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Community experience
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