RBS Customer Testimonial

9.5.07

“I bought the DT104 for a 2005 Tacoma pickup.  As a retired engineer, I was hesitant to drill the truck bumper for the sensors.  What if the system did not work?  Would the bumper shape cause false echoes?  Would the circle cutter supplied work on a steel bumper?  OK, I worry too much.  It is an "engineer thing."  It is part of our job to look for potential problems.

To gain some confidence (before drilling that bumper) I did a bench test.  I mounted the four sensors on a piece of wood lath, spaced as they would be on the Tacoma bumper.  I connected the controller, the speaker and a car battery.  The lath and sensors were propped up at bumper height.  Tests showed the system worked "by the book."  When an object was moved within six feet, the system produced slow beeps.  As the object was positioned nearer, the beep rate increased, until, at about 18 inches, the sound was steady.  Perfect!

I removed the bumper, drilled the four holes (the circle cutter worked fine on steel), and mounted the sensors.  Time for more tests: I temporarily wired the system to the truck backup lights.  The speaker was temporarily slid through the opened truck and shell windows.  Once more, the system worked fine. 

The next step was to permanently mount the speaker in the truck cab, under the driver's seat rail.  The wires were run through a handy rubber floor plug, and under the truck to the controller, which was installed in a storage bin in the side of the truck bed.  Driving tests confirmed the system worked properly.  I was impressed that the sensors could detect various size objects, from cars down to chain link fence fabric.  The beeping always gave the correct distance to the object, from six feet to 18 inches.

One day later, the system went silent: no beep on shifting into reverse, nothing when backing up near an object.  I contacted Casey at Autero.  He volunteered to ship a replacement system.  Being "the engineer," I thought I understood the problem.  Surely, the controller had to be bad.  What else was there?  Only the four, independently wired, sensors and the speaker?  I talked Casey into shipping only a replacement controller.  I returned the "bad" controller.  Unfortunately, the replacement controller made no difference.  The system remained silent.  Oops!  Maybe this engineer was not so clever?

I called Autero (with my apology) to report what had happened.  Casey shipped a replacement speaker, which corrected the problem.  Autero gets an "A+" from me for their great customer service.  Casey and Carly could not have been more cooperative.  When I offered to pay for the extra two shipping charges, Casey graciously declined, placing the blame on the product.  Thank you.”