The invention relates to a method and a device (2) for object detection for motor vehicles (1), comprising a distance sensor system formed by a plurality of distance sensors (4-17), which are arranged on the motor vehicle (1) such that these scan the surroundings of the motor vehicle (1) and an evaluation unit (3) which determines the path of motion and the speed of an object (19) relative to the motor vehicle (1) from the data from the distance sensor system, the distance sensors (4 -17) can optionally be controlled by the evaluation unit (3) and the range and / or the measurement repetition frequency and / or the resolution and / or the operating mode of the distance sensors (4-17) can be changed.