Distance Control Deactivated warning on your 208, 3008, 308 or 508? That's Peugeot's adaptive cruise system reporting the front radar can't read the road reliably. Common after a parking knock, a bumper repair, or front-end work that disturbed the radar's aim. Here's what's actually happening and what the recalibration costs.
You can drive the car. Distance Control (adaptive cruise), Active Safety Brake and the wider Peugeot Drive Assist suite stay offline until the radar's recalibrated. Normal brakes, steering and conventional cruise still work. Leave more following distance until it's sorted.
Peugeot mounts the forward radar low behind the front bumper and a supporting camera at the top of the windscreen. Drive Assist reads from both for the cruise, the emergency braking and the lane keeping functions. Here's what we see disturbing them.
Peugeot's adaptive cruise reads from a millimetre-wave radar mounted low in the front bumper, aimed to a fraction of a degree. A parking knock on the lower bumper trim, a kerb strike, or a refitted bumper from a previous repair is enough to shift the aim and take Distance Control offline.
The trigger we see most across Peugeot enquiries. The body shop replaces or refits the bumper, the panel work is fine, but the ADAS calibration is a separate step that often gets missed. Distance Control flags within a few drives, sometimes with Active Safety Brake alongside it.
Peugeot, Citroen, DS and Vauxhall all run the same Stellantis platform with the same forward radar in the same position. If you've cross-referenced symptoms with a Citroen C3 owner or a Vauxhall Corsa owner, the fault and the fix are usually identical. The calibration procedure is shared across the group.
Peugeot's adaptive cruise and the Active Safety Brake (AEB) both read from the same radar. When the radar's aim is off, both systems can flag at the same moment. It looks like two warnings on the dash but it's one underlying cause. A single calibration brings both back.
Trolley contact in a car park, a curb strike on the lower bumper, a hard parking sensor brush. None of those leave visible damage, but any can shift the radar bracket enough to deactivate Distance Control. Worth a slow walk round the bumper before booking anything.
On higher-spec Peugeots with the windscreen-mounted camera (3008, 508, e-308 EVs), the camera backs up what the radar sees. A new windscreen moves the camera, and Distance Control can flag a fault even though the radar itself is fine. The camera needs recalibrating alongside the radar in those cases.
If the trigger was a real impact, the radar housing or its bracket may be cracked, not just knocked. Calibration won't hold on damaged hardware. A diagnostic scan tells you which case you're in before any work is booked.
Worth checking first: look along the front bumper for an uneven gap from a previous repair, and confirm whether Active Safety Brake or Lane Keep are also flagging (Distance Control rarely fails alone). If the warning is still showing, the radar needs recalibrating.
On a Peugeot that means a static procedure: the workshop sets a manufacturer-spec target board at the correct distance, connects via OBD with DiagBox or a Stellantis-compatible diagnostic platform, and runs the alignment routine. The same procedure covers Citroen, Vauxhall and DS variants on the shared Stellantis platform.
It's a fixed £349 through our network: scan, calibration, certificate. If the scan shows the radar was damaged in the impact, you'll know the cost before any work goes ahead. There's no charge for the diagnostic if you decide not to go ahead. The full procedure is in our ADAS calibration guide.
Pricing is fixed across our network. Same price wherever you are in the UK. Your tier is set by what work has been done, not by your postcode or your car's make.
All prices include the diagnostic scan, the calibration procedure (static, dynamic, or both as required), a post-calibration check, and a calibration certificate. No charge for diagnostic if you decide not to proceed.
Send your registration and a line on what's happened. We'll come back with the fixed price, the nearest accredited workshop, and the soonest available slot.
Because restarting clears the warning but not the underlying cause. If the radar's aim is off, the car runs its start-up self-check, finds the fault again, and the warning comes back on the next drive.
The radar has to be physically recalibrated before Distance Control stays available. Clearing the code on a scan tool has the same problem: temporary fix, same root cause, fault returns.
Radar calibration is a fixed £349 across our accredited network, the same wherever you are in the UK. That covers the diagnostic scan, the calibration itself, and a calibration certificate. One session covers up to three ADAS systems, so if Active Safety Brake or Lane Keep dropped out alongside Distance Control, they're done together.
Yes. Peugeot, Citroen, DS and Vauxhall all run the same Stellantis platform with the same forward radar in the same bumper position. The calibration procedure and target board spec are shared across the group. Our network handles all four interchangeably on the Stellantis-platform tooling.
No. Any workshop with Stellantis-compatible diagnostic equipment (DiagBox or equivalent) and a calibration bay can do it, and our accredited network is set up for that. The dealer will charge their own labour rate for the same procedure. The certificate we issue is accepted by insurers and sits on the car's service history.
The cross-make guide for the Distance Control/Active Safety Brake family under different brand names.
Bumper work is the top Distance Control trigger. The dedicated guide if that's your case.