My BSM broke and I'm not going to fix it now.

So went to do the McFaddin run, which is a simple beach trail around Sea Rim State Park, connecting to High Island in Southeast Texas, and noticed that about 3/4 the way through my Blind Spot Monitor threw and error. I punched the button and turned it off.

Later, I went to the dealership and had them repair it under warranty. They said the left bumper sensor died and it was like $800. I'm sure that's full retail, but I didn't pay due to it being warranty.

Well, a few months go by and my wife wanted to take her 4Runner off roading some, so we take both vehicles down so I had a recovery vehicle if we had a problem. The vehicles do fine, no trouble, but about 1/2 through my BSM errors out again.

I had mud flaps on both times, and I wondered if sand could be a problem (it's never a good thing, which is why I avoid beaches normally). I washed out the truck well, sprayed really well under the truck, in wheel wells, etc. Let it dry and tried it again a few days later, no luck.

After doing some research, it seems that the sensors on the bumper are calibrated to a sensor that's a few millimeteres away, mounted on the frame of the truck. If those sensors get out of alignment, the system will not function.

I don't think the BSM sensors are broke, I think they became mis-aligned while driving over mogul type thing or bumps.

It seems like the BSM system is fairly sensitive and any solid rumble strips or bumps could cause an alignment problem, prompting the system to fail initialization.

I didn't even know my truck had the BSM system when I bought it, but it's been pretty handy. However, that's just something else to fail after warranty, so I'm thinking about having it fixed around 35,000 miles on the truck and pulling it off and ebaying the guts, because I'd imagine this will happen to more people in the future.

Anyways, just throwing this out there in case someone else has a better theory of why it keeps failing every time I do mild off roading.

I bought some $7 blind spot mirrors and stuck them on my side mirrors. Problem solved.

 

@SMKYTXN sells some pretty awesome mirrors that eliminate blind spots:

http://trailtoys.net/t/ezview-mirrors

Maybe he can be encouraged to make some for the 3rd gens.

 

Oh cool! I like mirrors because they can't lose power and fail. I like the gadgets on my truck, but later on it's more stuff I don't need to waste money on fixing. I just hate seeing dashboard lights.

 

if your Tacoma came with side mirror heaters, use them sparingly or it will dry out the adhesive.

 

Ya mine does have the heater things. Good mention. It doesn't get too cold down here, so shouldn't be a problem.

 

I have had heated mirrors on my other truck for 17 years... And had no issue. What about the adhesive drying out?

 

I think he means the adhesive on the blind spot mirrors that stick on the side mirrors.

 

the $7 blind spot mirror's adhesive. when it dries up, it will either (depending on the quality of the adhesive): fall off, or hard as heck to remove if ever the need to remove comes up. I had them on a regular side mirror, and after less than 2 years, they fell off, and I park this car outside, under the sun, in sunny CA.

 

I had them on my Silverado for 6 years, so here's hoping they hang in there. The humidity in Texas will keep them moist ! You Gulf Coast people know what I'm talking about.