[Poll] "Clean Parking Assist Sensor" and Intelligent Clearance Sonar Issue??

Mine did the same after driving through heavy rain at two separate occasions. Each time, wiping the sensors did not resolve the issue. One day of dry weather did. Since then, I have driven my Prime in heavy rains a few times without any issue. Are yours still giving you the error messages?

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I've read in other threads that SOME people experienced it with rain like ours. I also read some reporting errors withe snow ,which resolved by wiping sensors clean. My speculation without evidence is that water may go behind the sensors causing the errors, and the dust may seal the gap over time to make the sensor less susceptible to water intrusion. I never went to Toyota dealers for inspection or repair because the problem does not persist.

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I had this same problem earlier this week. Drove in heavy rain Saturday evening, then sometime on Sunday started getting "ICS Unavailable" and "Clean Parking Assist Sensors" alerts. I would also get false proximity alerts on the front end, when the car wasn't close enough to anything to trigger an alarm (at least, it wouldn't under normal conditions). I came here and saw that others had had the same problem and figured I would just wait it out.

I live on an island, and on Monday I was on the mainland for other business, so I decided to stop by the dealer's service department. I was still getting alarms and had wiped off every sensor I could find. I figured I'd just ask them to see if there was perhaps a sensor tucked away somewhere than I hadn't found, or if I needed to be cleaning them differently. Imagine my surprise when they didn't know what the "Parking Assist Sensors" were that I was referring to! Huh? I even told them that I realized they had a new version on the Prius Prime, but that parking assist sensors had been on other models for years. I was still greeted with blank looks, even after they did some searching on their computers.

They suggested I make a service appointment, which I balked at. (I will give them the benefit of the doubt and believe, for the moment, that for some reason the two people I talked to really were in the dark about the sensors. I didn't get the feeling they were trying to sell me an unnecessary service appointment.) The next available appointment was a few days out, and I didn't want to make another trip off the island ($17+ round trip ferry, plus the time!) if I could avoid it.

Tuesday, still beeping. Actually, worse - two different alarms related to the sensors were going off, and they were about 1/2-tone different in pitch, so now I had this incredibly dissonant and annoying beeping going on. Nothing I did trying to turn them off worked for more than a couple minutes.

Wednesday, the beeping was gone. No more alerts. No more disharmonic beeps.

So yeah, it sounds like what others have encountered - sensors got wet and caused bogus alerts until they'd had a chance to dry out. I'm in a cool climate (Puget Sound - high has been around 60 recently) and at home the car is always in a below-grade garage, so it probably took longer for them to dry out that others have encountered. Others have also said that after the first time, they've been through heavy rain without any recurrence, so I'm keeping my fingers crossed.

I'm still dumbfounded by the blank looks at the dealer, though. Really? You've never heard of "Parking Assist Sensors"????

 

I suppose some/most people are not curious enough to pay attention to things that are not relevant to them.

Do not get discouraged if the sensor error happens again. I had two separate occasions with it a few weeks apart, but it has not returned since.

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I'll monitor this thread, in case I start seeing alarms with the sensors. We received 5-6 inches of rain from the storm that ended just yesterday.

 

I'm now getting the "Clean Parking Assist Sensor" error as well as "ICS does not work" error simultaneously. I did a 450 mile round trip in drizzle type weather. I never got the error until about 2 hours of driving after the drizzle stopped. It was gone the next day. I decided to hand wash the road dirt off and sure enough, the next day the error was back. Sensors are spotless.

I don't understand why an external sensor can't handle just plain old water. The alert does not tell you which one which is no help.

 

I've had my 2017 Prius Prime for two months now. Just did a round trip Seattle to Las Vegas on vacation. When we got near Seattle, on the return trip, it was raining pretty hard coming over the cascades. The next day when I started my Prius I got the "ICS does not work" error. It sat outside for an hour at the golf driving range and then on my return home the error cleared up. Toyota obviously has a problem with these sensors in rainy weather. Sounds like a recall to me.

 

I don't know for sure, but my park assist may have never worked.
The first few months I didn't pay much attention except when I drove three 2000 mi trips.
It's definitely not working now. And I don't have any error/warning lights/buzzers. But I did have an intimate meeting with a thing behind me.
The noise maker for the precollision system with pedestrian detection is not working either, as I had an intimate meeting with something in front of me.

Not that I care too much. Definitely not enough to take it in and have them hook it up.

 

I had that “clean sensors” warning as I drove out of the lot with the new car. Ignored it and went away. A couple weeks later it returned. There are 10 sensors around the car. 5 for the front and 5 in the rear. Cleaned all of them and I definitely think it has to do with water contamination. Once it’s dried out, then it works fine. Funny thing is when I looked closely at them noticed a rubber type washer around each one, so I don’t understand how water would cause any problems. I just turn off parking assist and rear cross traffic alert sensors on the MID when it happens. No more noisy interruptions. Only sensor light off indication comes on. I think it is some sort of manufacturing issue and really can’t be fixed. Hopefully won’t get worse.

 

@psoque @Tideland Prius would it be possible to add a poll to this thread? Something along the lines of:

I've never had a problem
It's mostly working, but have occasional outages
It's worse than useless

 

I had the same problem after driving in a hard rain on the interstate. I did wipe all the obviously visible sensors off and the alarm did not go away. However, I noticed on the dashboard display that two sensors on each side of the car were not visible by just looking at the perpendicular surface of the vehicle. I knelt down and felt just underneath and there they were - two on each side just underneath by the doors. Once I wiped them off - and they were dirty - the alarm went off and has stayed off.

 

Yes! You have to kneel down and look under to see two of them in the mid part of the car on the sides.

 

Can you post a pic of the location you're talking about? There are four perpendicular sensors (two on each side), one is front near the head light and one is near the taillight...Can't find anything mid part on the side (or door) as you mentioned.

 

If ther are a total of 12 then they are all visible without kneeling.
The two front facing ones are black and blend in with the front black grill but they are not hidden.

 

yeah....she has a 4th gen Prius but posted in Prius Prime section thus confused everyone... LOL