Dangerous safety feature on Volvo C30

[DaveH23]

So tonight I have picked up a Volvo C30 hire car from gatwick. During my late night relaxing drive to my hotel I unintentionally brake tested an artic lorry, to say it woke me up is an understatement.

There is some form of safery feature on this car that is only active when the cruise control is on and basically if you get too close to the car infront it brakes for you.

Situation is, I'm sat in lane 1 with the cruise control at 50 going through a variable speed limit of roadworks on the M20. I have an artic behind me edging its way closer and a van approaching in lane 2. When the van passes it pulls in to lane 1 albeit rather close to me but still accelerating ahead and the car decides im travelling to close to said van and practicy tries
to do anemergency stop.

After a slightly brown pants moment and the creation of a Scania C30 I pulled over to have a fiddle with the various settings and have turned every possible feature off in the driver assistance settings except blindspot assist and this 'safery feature' will not go away.

Does anybody know how to turn this off as I'm down in kent heading back up to newcastle later in the week and this will drive me nuts.

Edited by DaveH23 on Tuesday 24th June 00:27

[morgrp]

Stop driving too close to the car in front? or don't use the radr guided cruise - but seriously, it shouldn't be the collision avoidance system as this disengages at over 20mph

[GravelBen]

Prepare for a bunch of the techno-faithful to come along and say the problem must be you because computerised driver aids are infallible, and the system saved your life, and we should all have systems like that in our cars to protect us...

[CraigyMc]

DaveH23 said:

So tonight I have picked up a Volvo C30 hire car from gatwick. During my late night relaxing drive to my hotel I unintentionally brake tested an artic lorry, to say it woke me up is an understatement.

There is some form of safery feature on this car that is only active when the cruise control is on and basically if you get too close to the car infront it brakes for you.

Situation is, I'm sat in lane 1 with the cruise control at 50 going through a variable speed limit of roadworks on the M20. I have an artic behind me edging its way closer and a van approaching in lane 2. When the van passes it pulls in to lane 1 albeit rather close to me but still accelerating ahead and the car decides im travelling to close to said van and practicy tries
to do anemergency stop.

After a slightly brown pants moment and the creation of a Scania C30 I pulled over to have a fiddle with the various settings and have turned every possible feature off in the driver assistance settings except blindspot assist and this 'safery feature' will not go away.

Does anybody know how to turn this off as I'm down in kent heading back up to newcastle later in the week and this will drive me nuts.

Edited by DaveH23 on Tuesday 24th June 00:27

Stop using the radar cruise control.

[Dunebasher]

Who still rents out a C30 ?

[Rick101]

It's done exactly what it's supposed to.

The lorry driver should have been keeping correct distance.

It's not just Volvo, most major manufacturers have adaptive cruise available now.

[DaveH23]

Hertz are renting the car out.

Can you use non adaptive cruise then?

I understand what it did and like I said I wasnt driving to close as up until the van overtook and pulled in there was nothing infront of me.

Is there anyway to turn it off or is there another cruise control that doesn't do this?

I use hire car's every week and this is the first time Ive found a car that does this. Had a few XC70's and they never done this. If it was turned off or not I'm not sure but if somebody could advise me how to disable the adaptive part of the cruise I will appreciate it.

[bennyboysvuk]

Rick101 said:

It's done exactly what it's supposed to.

In which case, it wasn't thought through well enough and shouldn't have got this far. The OP should at least be given the option to turn off this 'feature' (bug).

OP, is there a sensor at the front that you can unplug (bear in mind that this is a wild shot in the dark)?

[DaveH23]

bennyboysvuk said:

In which case, it wasn't thought through well enough and shouldn't have got this far. The OP should at least be given the option to turn off this 'feature' (bug).

OP, is there a sensor at the front that you can unplug (bear in mind that this is a wild shot in the dark)?

As its a hire car I'm happy to adjust a setting but not unplug anything. But in answer to the question I'm not sure.

[anonymous-user]

Rick101 said:

It's done exactly what it's supposed to.

The lorry driver should have been keeping correct distance.

It's not just Volvo, most major manufacturers have adaptive cruise available now.

Back in the real world, so called safety feature almost contributed to an accident.
Surprising for a brand that sells on safety..

[0000]

Wow, that's clever. It sees potential for an accident in front and without considering what's behind you sends you (relatively) backwards? That sounds lethal.

[DaveH23]

Ok justt found a volvo forum and it seems I'm not the only one to have noticed this and a quick scan over this suggests you can't turn it off but you can adjust the the time/distance before it engages.

http://esd.volvocars.com/site/owners-information/M...

Edited to add correct manual

Edited by DaveH23 on Tuesday 24th June 07:43

[Impasse]

DaveH23 said:

Ok justt found a volvo forum and it seems I'm not the only one to have noticed this and a quick scan over this suggests you can't turn it off but you can adjust the the time/distance before it engages.

http://esd.volvocars.com/site/owners-information/M...

So, um, user error?

[DaveH23]

Impasse said:

So, um, user error?

In what respect?

[Cemesis]

It's certain that in 10-20 years when almost all cars will have some kind of pedestrian avoidance, that the chats of the day will find it funny walking out in front of cars and making them perform emergency stops. I had never considered that people would do it with cars too.

[Impasse]

DaveH23 said:

In what respect?

You haven't understood how to use the feature before switching it on.

[DaveH23]

Impasse said:

DaveH23 said:

In what respect?

You haven't understood how to use the feature before switching it on.

Fair enough then. I assumed it was normal cruise control as it has the same symbol and for 40/50 miles of driving worked the same as any other cruise control system until the van driver completed his overtake.

I have been driving hire cars every week for over a year now so have driven quite a variety of modern metal, albeit very dull modern metal and have never seen or heard of this feature before.

[0000]

Does it pay any attention to the distance behind? If it brakes into an artic that isn't user error.

Edited by 0000 on Tuesday 24th June 08:13

[Bungleaio]

My range rover will do the same if you don't intervene. For me I just put my foot back on the accelerator and it over rides the cruise but it does lead to traffic being closer together than they should be for a while.

[crazy about cars]

Impasse said:

You haven't understood how to use the feature before switching it on.

Come on... give OP a break.

Modern cars have features that are sometimes not that easy to comprehend. So unless Hertz provided model specific instructions or a brief user training around the features of the car there's very slim chance anyone would realise this and take necessary precautions.

I for one didn't realise radar cruise does an emergency brake above 20ish mph. Now I do though!