Adaptive cruise control - Does anyone else find it annoying?

[anonymous-user]

Hi all - just curious about other people's experience and opinion about adaptive cruise control.

My last car was a 2011 Skoda Superb with standard cruise control - it was my first car with cruise control fitted and I really grew to love it. I do a fair few company miles and found it very useful on long journeys. Whilst heavy traffic could be a pain I used to actually enjoy setting it a suitable speed such that I was moving a bit faster than most of the dawdlers and planning and predicting the need to change lanes into clear gaps and spaces so that I didn't slow anybody up but also I didn't get stuck behind a slower moving car and have to cancel it.

My new car (also VAG) has adaptive cruise control and I find it so frustrating. If I try and drive in the same manor it is constantly lifting off just as I am starting to make a lane change to slot into a gap. It then takes ages to get back on the power and get back up to speed. My speed ends up yo-yoing around making it hard to keep up momentum and make progress.

I can change the range over which it senses but even on the shortest range it leaves really very large gaps (still easily a two second gap) and makes keeping up speed and making progress difficult. It is fine if I just want to dawdle along in L1 behind a lorry in heavy traffic but other than that is just a pain! I am sure the middle lane brigade love it but I find it so frustrating and just want fixed speed cruise back (to my knowledge I only have speed limiter and adaptive cruise options).

Thoughts, comments and suggestions welcome!

Cheers

Edited by anonymous-user on Saturday 16th December 23:16

[numtumfutunch]

I had adaptive cruise on my brand new 2009 RR Sport which I ran for 8y
It was great

Being a JLR product and also being old tech I suspect it was a bit crap compared to whats available in 2017

My 2016 BMW has standard cruise and it does my head in after 8y of living in the land of milk and honey (even if it was a bit crap)

Cheers

[thelawnet1]

maybe if you live in rural France non-adaptive cruise might be ok. I mean if you really can keep it at a constant speed and just weave in and out, then good luck to you, but that doesn't work around London.

Only issue with it is sometimes it is it probably doesn't get close enough to the car in front when you are passing people.

E.g., if you are just sitting there without passing people, then fine, keep a good distance to the car in front, but if you are in say lane 2 of 3 and planning to pass the car in front, you probably want to get closer to that car before moving out than the cruise control will allow before slowing down. So you have to manually take over, or sit in lane 3 gaining at a relative speed of about + 2mph annoying the cars behind you.

but i wouldn't buy a car without it.

[mybrainhurts]

This is but a small glimpse of what driverless cars will be like.

[Squadrone Rosso]

We have it on our C-HR Hybrid. Works perfectly. In that sort of car, I quite like it.

[mybrainhurts]

Squadrone Rosso said:

We have it on our C-HR Hybrid. Works perfectly. In that sort of car, I quite like it.

Clearly, you have no need to make progress.

[AndrewCrown]

I had a few hire cars with adaptive cruise.. Volvo V60, Alfa Stelvio... loved it... had to have it... so it was high priority on my most recent purchase.. I have the Mercedes Distronic Plus System... It is brilliant... yes you have to learn its limitations... and there is a fair degree of trust involved... for me its a great step forward

[mybrainhurts]

AndrewCrown said:

Mercedes Distronic

Pardon me, but that sounds like a nasty disability...

[Ashtray83]

I love mine on my mk7 golf just set it to 75-80 on the second distance setting, when behind slow moving traffic just indicate and move the wheel and off she goes back up to speed in a second or 2

[jdw100]

Dead_Donkey said:

If I try and drive in the same manor it is constantly lifting off just as I am starting to make a lane change to slot into a gap.

Edited by Dead_Donkey on Saturday 16th December 23:16

Maybe try it in a different area where you ain't a known face?

[SidJames]

best thing ever!

However it doesn't like swapping lanes if you're try to slot a 15 ft car in a 16 ft space.

Have you tried indicatin?

Seriously it has an impact on the way the adaptive works.

[sjc]

Out of interest, do cars fitted with adaptive cruise have the option of normal cruise as well?

[TimmyMallett]

Not on vag. It's acc or limiter only.

[apotts]

Dead_Donkey said:

My new car (also VAG) has adaptive cruise control and I find it so frustrating

I'm with you entirely. I was going to have a rant, but you beat me to it.

My car: 2014 BMW, std cruise. Wife's car: 2017 VAG with ACC.

The ACC is a "st driving replicator, with nanny tendencies". With CC, the speed is fixed so you use the rate of change of distance to judge lane changes (and the variation of speed of the car(s) in front). But with ACC there are now too many variables. The rate of change of distance just goes to 0, so you end up trying to assess your speed variation using instruments - and it just becomes much harder work. The hard work is exacerbated by it's dislike of undertaking under any circumstances, which requires a press on the throttle and a good swearing session. Other cars jumping in in front, which cause a "no problem" lane change into an empty lane, but no, the ACC still jams the brakes on with an empty lane in front of you and other road users thinking WTF is he on.

Only solution is speed limiter and half throttle. In ours you can change ACC to "sport" which causes the return to speed to be a bit prompter.

[InfamousKeiran]

sjc said:

Out of interest, do cars fitted with adaptive cruise have the option of normal cruise as well?

Yes they do, go into the system settings and turn off the ACC and just have normal CC.

[sjc]

I get the feeling ACC would drive me utterly insane. I’m looking at my next daily at the moment, some with ACC and some with standard cruise.

[TooMany2cvs]

If there's so much traffic, WTF are you using cruise of ANY flavour in the first place?

Be interesting to see some dashcam vids of the situations where it's so horribly intrusive - I'd lay odds on the cruise not being the main problem, but the distance that you're trying to leave.

[sjc]

InfamousKeiran said:

sjc said:

Out of interest, do cars fitted with adaptive cruise have the option of normal cruise as well?

Yes they do, go into the system settings and turn off the ACC and just have normal CC.

Cheers for that.
Maybe it’s manufacturer specific, as someone above said different. Seems bizarre if you don’t have that option though.

[jamei303]

Is controlling the throttle pedal with your foot really so terribly onerous?

[70proof]

On any half busy motorway in the UK using any form of cruise control is impossible due to the idiots around you.... You constantly have to adjust the set speed