Sensor de radar sin calibrar tras una reparación frontal

A forward radar, camera or surround-view sensor disturbed and then not re-aimed to the vehicle.

These sensors cannot be aligned by eye, and that is the fact everything else follows from. A radar or camera measures angles, and a fraction of a degree of aiming error becomes metres of lateral error at a hundred metres — enough for the system to lose the vehicle directly ahead, or to find one in the next lane. Calibration is a defined procedure: a level floor, a target board placed to a measured position, and a scan tool to run the routine.

The failure mode is worse than a fault, because the system keeps working. A sensor that has stopped reports itself and disables the feature. An uncalibrated one reports nothing, functions normally, and is simply looking in the wrong place — so automatic braking and lane keeping act on a picture that is subtly wrong, which is the one outcome worse than not having them.

The work that requires it is broader than people expect and is rarely connected to it: a bumper removed for any reason, a grille, a radiator, a condenser, a windscreen replaced on camera-based systems, a mirror disturbed on surround-view systems, suspension or ride-height changes, and any accident repair however minor — including a parking knock that left no visible mark.

Two practical consequences. Calibration is a real cost and is sometimes quietly omitted from a repair quote — asking whether it is included is a fair question, not a suspicious one. And on paired or multi-camera systems all of them must be done together, since aligning one and not the other leaves them disagreeing, which is its own fault.