While I have had a lot of success with retrofitting various LR3 and Range Rover Sport features (locking diff, OEM name, rain sensor, cool box, adaptive cruise, folding mirrors, heated steering, HID lights, OEM navigation), blind spot detection remains elusive. This thread will document my attempts, and in advance let me say I think this will end in failure, at least with OEM components.

Previously I have tried sonic sensors wired in with the turn signal harnesses. These work quiet well... until it rains... and external moisture will trigger false positives at every lane change. After a few weeks of 'living with it' in rainy weather, I pulled the system out.

77 GHz radar systems are not supposed to have this defect, and so I tried an aftermarket 77 GHz system. Dead on arrival, no life. I might try another system, but in looking closer at the buyer ratings on these, none seem to have particularly good reviews.

So... I'm back to see if there is an OEM approach for the LR3. From my research, Land Rover introduced blind spot monitoring first in these lines:

• 2010+ Range Rover
• 2012+ Range Rover Evoque
• 2014+ LR4 and other models

Previously I tried a 2014 LR4 setup, with the proper harness and sensor modules. They share private CAN communication lines to each other, and tap into the medium speed CAN BUS network of the car. As a helpful forum user pointed out to me in another thread, however, the LR4 of that year uses a different medium speed network. While I was able to change the LR3 CCF to list "side object detection" as "fitted", I never got any activity from the LR4 setup. I am assuming the modules could not link with the medium speed CAN of the LR3. These modules by the way use an 8-pin connector.

That leaves me wondering about whether early BSM solutions from Land Rover could perhaps use the LR3-style medium speed CAN. The 2010 Range Rover modules and the 2012 Range Rover Evoque modules do use a different style connector than the LR4, specifically they use a 6-pin connector. And used ones are inexpensive. Between the two lines, the Range Rover being the more expensive car, it had a more advanced internal communications network. The Evoque from what I have read used a simpler network to save cost. Additionally, the modules used by the Jaguar XF 2009 BSM system appear to be the same based on pictures.

I'm going to try the Evoque and Jaguar modules to see if possibly those can communicate with the LR3 network. I'm putting my chances of success here at 'low', but... the parts are inexpensive and readily available off of junked cars.

I should have the necessary sensors and will have updates for this thread in a week or two. And if anyone has gotten Land Rover blind spot monitoring to work on a LR3/Disco3, please let me know!

 

So... both the Jaguar XF and Evoque systems power up and appear to go through their appropriate startup sequences, but no alert fires off either system. The car needs to be going at least 10 kph in order for BSM to work, and I suspect the modules are looking for different CAN arguments from the LR3. Absent turn signal and speed information in the format it expects... it just stands ready but signals no warning. That's my working theory at least.

On to the next area of exploration... I'm going to hook up a CAN bus sniffer to the LR3 and then, separately, the BSM modules. I have some raspberry pi's lying around, and so I plan to write some scripts to ping the modules with possible arguments and network messages and then just listen for response. It will take some time but I'll wire-in monitors for the 'alert' and 'signal' LEDs so with a bit of luck I'll manage to send the unit a command that will cause it to alert and I'll capture that alert.

If that works... and it's a medium-sized if... then I can build a translation module that will take LR3 speed and turn signal data and translate it into signals the LR4 (or Evoque, or Jaguar) modules can understand and react to.

I am neither an electrical engineer nor an expert programmer... but I am very good at following instructions an AI bot gives me, so while I have weeks of experimentation ahead of me I might have some success here.

In the mean time... if anyone happens to have the arguments and network IDs for medium speed CAN messages on the LR4 / Discovery 4, I would much appreciate it!