ARB Bar and Factory Front Parking Sensors

[Pete t pops Junior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Pete t pops]

The only difference with the Toyota kit is whether a Prado has a bullbar or not. It then depends on ARB as to whether they drilled the holes in their bullbar to accommodate the sensors from a bumper or a bullbar. One would hope that ARB would drill a hole to suit sensors from a bumper and if required, make the hole bigger for others swapping out from a genuine alloy bar to an ARB bar.

Absolutely, the majority of customers would be coming with bumper only not changing bars. The only question remaining is if the factory option sensors for gx/gxl are different somehow to the kakadu/vx standards ones. My guess is no simply due to the economy of having one design

[rwo Advanced Member Find all posts View Profile Close rwo]

Gap around sensor


Sensor from GXL kit


Front sensor compared to rear one, they do appear different


Sensor Head showing 7 degree angle


This mangled mess (thanks THSWYUP) is a rear sensor and going by the toyodiy clearance sensor page (http://www.toyodiy.com/parts/p_G_201...AEYQ_8417.html), looks very similar to what the front sensors should look like and nothing like the ones I have, so they clearly are different.


I was having a look through the wiring diagrams and have a feeling the VX/Kakadu front sensors have 4 wires going into them, the ones I have only have 2, so I am unsure if they will work plugged into my wiring. If anyone with a VX/Kakadu/Altitude could take a photo of the back side of their sensors, it would be much appreciated.

The page that AMTS posted shows a bezel, I might try and source some of these and see if they are a better fit for the hole.

[Guest Close Guest]

Looks like ARB have made a hole to suit sensors meant to go on a bullbar. Can you take a pic of just the hole and I can compare it with the bezel at the dealer? They have the bullbar kit in stock currently so I'll pop in and check it out.

[rwo Advanced Member Find all posts View Profile Close rwo]

Looks like ARB have made a hole to suit sensors meant to go on a bullbar. Can you take a pic of just the hole and I can compare it with the bezel at the dealer? They have the bullbar kit in stock currently so I'll pop in and check it out.

That would be great if you could do that for us Andrew.

The hole is 22mm wide and high from the lowest point to the bottom of the "notch" in the top.


I will get the measurements and photo's for that other job, just got a bit carried away with this one...

[Guest Close Guest]

OK. Will report back tomorrow.

[rwo Advanced Member Find all posts View Profile Close rwo]

Cheers mate, I owe you another one!

[Pete t pops Junior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Pete t pops]

Mine look exactly like yours from behind, bugger

[rwo Advanced Member Find all posts View Profile Close rwo]

Are they installing the kakadu bar or drilling holes in a GXL one? If they drill 22mm holes in the GXL bar you will be right, otherwise i think you will have the same problem as me.

AMTS is looking into the bezel although I think it will be too big.

My next option is to source a kakadu sensor and see if i can get that working on the GXL harness. There were unused plugs on the FPA CPU so I am hoping its the same one that is used in the kakadu.

[Guest Close Guest]

I'll get some photos of the plugs to compare. I'll also ask if there are Kakadu specific sensors.

[Pete t pops Junior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Pete t pops]

I told them it was a gxl with front sensors, I think they are using the vx/kakadu bar & are probably not aware of this issue either.

[Guest Close Guest]

Visited the dealer today and the bullbar kit has a round bezel designed to fit into a round hole. Here are some pics of the bullbar kit with dimensions:

Dimensions of the bezel


Dimensions of the sensor

[Guest Close Guest]

Dimensions of the sensor connector


Pic of the ECU

[Guest Close Guest]

And here's the most important bit and was alluded to earlier in this thread.....

The front parking sensors that are standard on the Prados are different to the kits being sold as accessories by the spare parts department. So I went out to the yard to look for a VX/Kakadu and there was not one out there. So headed back to the car and what do you know, there's an Altitude sitting just outside the showroom door with front parking sensors. Here's a pic from the rear side.



So I believe that the ARB bar have holes that are designed to take the sensors that are fitted as standard from the factory in Japan. Such models include the Altitude, VX and Kakadu. If you had GX or GXL with sensors fitted at the dealer, they would have used the accessory kit and not the 'Japan factory' kit.

[Pete t pops Junior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Pete t pops]

Amts, thank you very much for the hard work. So it seems the answer for myself, rwo & anyone else that has fitted front sensors to their gxl is to get some of these bezels & widen / modify the arb bar to suit??

The million dollar question is are these bezels available separately?

Why oh why did I get front sensors................

[Guest Close Guest]

Oh yes, forgot about the price for the bezels. Apparently a few dollars each but will confirm.

I would get a non-sensor ARB bar and ask them to drill the hole to suit the bezel. Rather than filing out the odd-shaped hole in a 'VX/Kakadu' ARB bar.