# No Holes PDC Electromagnetic Parking Sensors PD1 Installation Pictorial DIY!



## delmarco (Jan 2, 2009)

Since I been to London this summer and seen the full potential of the European E46 (power folding mirrors, rear fog lamps, parking sensors, driver's side glove box) I set out to do some mods to my USA Spec E46 to bring it up to snuff.

At my home I usually park in back against the wall so when I leave in the mornings it is easy to pull out between the two cars on either side of me.
I prefer to get my car as close to wall as possible since the driveway space in front of the parking spot isn't all that wide and lots of my neighbors still have their outdated over sized grocery getting SUVs Trucks.










The Electromagnetic kit is simple. There are three main parts; the ECU body, The antenna sensor strip that looks like a roll of scotch tape and sticks to your bumper innards, and the speaker that goes into your cabin.









I took a really big gamble when I got my kit for only $29 on eBay. There is the famous Parking Dynamics kit sold out of the UK and via eBay that costs around $100 to $119 USD. Their kits have 100% customer praise and 100% of their 30,000 or so customers claimed that their kits all worked perfectly. Their kits are also guaranteed and warrantied. Still $119 sounded extreme. So after extensive research I found out that most of these kits are originally called PD1 (sound alert) and PD2 (visual & sound alert) and are basically all exported from China. So I took a chance and got the $29 no guarantee no warranty kit. In retrospect based on the success of the $29 kit I would recommend the $100 kit since that kit allows you to add extra stuff and you can always upgrade or replaced parts of your current kit that is under warranty. In short, the technology works well enough that $100 spent is not going to be money wasted. 









I had a hard time removing my bumper so I opted to place the sensor strip in my lower E46 bumper trim strip. Which incidentally is the same location that the OEM sensor dots are located in.









The strip comes off quite easily. No special tools where needed for this entire DIY. Removal tools for the bumper (T50 Torx bit and a big arse ratchet will be needed if you plan on removing the entire E46 bumper) is all that I could see most people not having in their household. Other than this, a basic splicing kit for splicing the wiring to the reverse tail lamps, and needle nose pliers for plucking the trunk liner anchors off would be needed. I also bought two tubes of Silicon Sealant ($4-$5 a tube at Autozone or Walmart) for weather coating the antenna sensor strip.



























Once you are waiting for the bumper or bumper trim strip to dry you can return back out to the car and begin setting the wiring up









It is pretty straight forward what you need to do.









Push the wires that you are splicing to the tail lamps and the ECU Connector head thru the firewall where you will connect the white connector to the ECU box and run the splice wires to the location where you will splice them to a ground source AND the blue/yellow power source coming off the reverse tail lamps. 



























I wasn't sure how loud the speaker's beeping would be. The manual says you can put it in the trunk area or under the driver's side footwell area. I didn't want it to be too loud or too faint and I wanted the location to be fairly easy to access in case I needed to troubleshoot down the road. The passenger side B P-i-l-l-a-r was the best place. From here I can hear the beeping clearly.


----------



## delmarco (Jan 2, 2009)

Water got inside my first layer of coating so I reapplied the strip better and coated it a second time using a generous amount of silicon sealant. Note that the sensor strip itself is weather and waterproof and works when wet, but the metallic components will age quicker from road salt, repeated wettings and I figure it is best to seal it in and be safe.
Parking Dynamics supply extra sensor strips as well. So $100 may not be a bad investment if it guarantees you a lifetime supply of sensor strips.



















I realized that the best way to apply the sensor strip was to run it from the connector head first down to the tail end and then double back the extra tail to run parallel with
strip. The package warned not to cut the sensor strip but suggested to loop the extra tail and tie it down. I had not idea how to do that so I figured double back the tail and tape it down was the best solution.





































Said and done it worked like a charm against the rear wall at my parking slot.










See videos for the PD1 in action.





Here because of the low placement of the sensor strip it gave trouble reading the distance of the 2008 Honda Accord parked behind my car.


----------



## delmarco (Jan 2, 2009)

I found an eBay seller that has this kit for a great price and maybe willing to work some sort of group rate out

http://shop.ebay.com/ebuyer43/m.html?_nkw=&_armrs=1&_from=&_ipg=&_trksid=p3686

http://myworld.ebay.com/ebuyer43/


----------

