Van slammed on the brakes

[Stoneybroke]

What is the acceleration profile ?
How do you set it ?
I can find no reference to it in the manual, only adjusting the the speed during acceleration, which I presume is the final speed.

Drive into the MDF, when stationary, under settings.
You will have a choice of eco, normal and sport I think (I'll check later), economy is fine.

 

[Amarillo]

Drive into the MDF, when stationary, under settings.

I have a California - not a cheap conversion: no MDF in my van.



Follow my blog: www.au-revoir.eu

 

[Loz]

Drive into the MDF

Is this a test for Auto braking

 

[Bellcrew]

Is this a test for Auto braking

I would go for the cardboard box as seen on every episode of "The Professionals" in the dim and distant past.

 

[rod_vw]

I'd love to think that any 'automatic' application of the brakes was disabled or could be disabled in icy conditions. There are times in very slippery conditions that the last thing you need is the brakes coming on. My rule of thumb in such conditions is to drive as if there were an egg between your foot and the brake or throttle.

 

[Stoneybroke]

Is this a test for Auto braking

Haha, fat fingers before my morning coffee!
That would, of course, be MFD

 

[Stoneybroke]

What is the acceleration profile ?
How do you set it ?
I can find no reference to it in the manual, only adjusting the the speed during acceleration, which I presume is the final speed.

Checked this weekend.

MFD -> Settings -> Assistants -> ACC -> Basic
Gives the modes, ECO, Normal & Sport.

I must have reset to Normal, as this is finally more lively, with a few kick-downs on the motorway when accelerating after a slower section, but Eco is fine. Not tried Sport!

 

[Teejay]

Checked this weekend.

MFD -> Settings -> Assistants -> ACC -> Basic
Gives the modes, ECO, Normal & Sport.

I must have reset to Normal, as this is finally more lively, with a few kick-downs on the motorway when accelerating after a slower section, but Eco is fine. Not tried Sport!

I have mine on ECO it recovers much more gently which is mostly my driving style. Never liked the full throttle rocket it I used to have before, in a previous vehicle

 

[AlisonF]

I just used my ACC for the first time between Carlisle and Aberdeen. All went well until on the A90 (small lane dual carriage way where slip roads are non existent and vehicles turn across lanes rather than over or under passes).
Suddenly my vehicle had a beep and a warning read ‘BRAKE’ light in the control panel and the whole unit started to brake…
It was utterly horrifying.
I managed to get the hazard lights on and pull over into a buss stop layby. Without that, I think the outcome would have been horrific.
In front of me 2 vehicles has turned left using a small slip road. That’s the only thing I can think of.
I am lucky to be alive. This was an horrendous fail of modern equipment.

 

[AlisonF]

I just used my ACC for the first time between Carlisle and Aberdeen. All went well until on the A90 (small lane dual carriage way where slip roads are non existent and vehicles turn across lanes rather than over or under passes).
Suddenly my vehicle had a beep and a warning read ‘BRAKE’ light in the control panel and the whole unit started to brake…
It was utterly horrifying.
I managed to get the hazard lights on and pull over into a buss stop layby. Without that, I think the outcome would have been horrific.
In front of me 2 vehicles has turned left using a small slip road. That’s the only thing I can think of.
I am lucky to be alive. This was an horrendous fail of modern equipment.

The slip road had plenty of room off the A90. I was travelling faster than the City Braking limit of 18mph. The ACC was set at 65mph.

 

[andyinluton]

If you want to see a proper emergency stop wait until you find a cattle grid. Van just sees a large lump of metal in the road & does a full on Emergency stop.

 

[soulstyledevon]

I just used my ACC for the first time between Carlisle and Aberdeen. All went well until on the A90 (small lane dual carriage way where slip roads are non existent and vehicles turn across lanes rather than over or under passes).
Suddenly my vehicle had a beep and a warning read ‘BRAKE’ light in the control panel and the whole unit started to brake…
It was utterly horrifying.
I managed to get the hazard lights on and pull over into a buss stop layby. Without that, I think the outcome would have been horrific.
In front of me 2 vehicles has turned left using a small slip road. That’s the only thing I can think of.
I am lucky to be alive. This was an horrendous fail of modern equipment.

Never understood the love for this system. I’m really not a fan.
Much prefer standard cruise control and being in full control of my vehicle.

 

[AlisonF]

If you want to see a proper emergency stop wait until you find a cattle grid. Van just sees a large lump of metal in the road & does a full on Emergency stop.

I thought the ‘city braking’ (maybe wrong name) was only under 18mph… hence my surprise…

 

[AlisonF]

Never understood the love for this system. I’m really not a fan.
Much prefer standard cruise control and being in full control of my vehicle.

It was may first time trying it and I thought I was getting used to it… then realised I was lucky I didn’t get rear ended and killed…

 

[soulstyledevon]

It was may first time trying it and I thought I was getting used to it… then realised I was lucky I didn’t get rear ended and killed…

Glad you’re ok, must’ve been a shock.
Imagine if that happened with a fully loaded articulated lorry behind you…

 

[M88GAV]

Is it possible to use cruise control without the automatic braking part? I don’t like the sound of it!!

 

[orbital]

I was stunned by the effectiveness of it on my van. I’m now a fan. A few months ago, a car did a stupid manoeuvre and caused another car in front of me to do an emergency stop. It was dusk and starting to rain. I was accelerating, too, as it all happened. Before I could move my foot off the accelerator and onto the brake my van reacted. Alarms went off, the seatbelts tensioned (pulling my ten year old daughter and myself back into the seats) and the van just stopped on a sixpence. It aldo seemed to straighten the steering wheel - but that might just have been the result of the braking and gyroscopic forces. I might have stopped in time without the computer taking control but it would have been a close run thing. Overall, I was very impressed.

 

[yossarian]

I just used my ACC for the first time between Carlisle and Aberdeen. All went well until on the A90 (small lane dual carriage way where slip roads are non existent and vehicles turn across lanes rather than over or under passes).
Suddenly my vehicle had a beep and a warning read ‘BRAKE’ light in the control panel and the whole unit started to brake…
It was utterly horrifying.
I managed to get the hazard lights on and pull over into a buss stop layby. Without that, I think the outcome would have been horrific.
In front of me 2 vehicles has turned left using a small slip road. That’s the only thing I can think of.
I am lucky to be alive. This was an horrendous fail of modern equipment.

What you experienced was probably normal behaviour for the system. Most likely the ACC system did not detect that the turning off vehicle had vacated the lane and wanted to stop behind it. I've had similar behaviour. ACC will give around 1/3 of maximum braking and if it thinks that's not enough it will prompt you to take over:

Driver intervention prompt.

If the ACC's power of deceleration is too low, the ACC will send a message to the instrument cluster telling you to apply the brake. In addition, the red warning lamp lights up and an acoustic warning is given. Take control of the vehicle and be prepared to apply the brakes!

The manual also suggests an alternative action that you might have taken if you had been expecting the system to mis-identify a lane vacation (which is very common on my vehicle)

Driving with adaptive cruise control

You can override the ACC at any time. Control will be cancelled if you brake. If you accelerate, the system will be interrupted for the duration of the acceleration process and then continue again.

So a light press on the accelerator would probably have done the job in this case..

It really is unfortunate that these systems exist in the wild with no driver training, no simulators and not particularly well documented. I'm sure if you'd had a short training session and a run through of the normal and failure modes in a simulator you'd be quite happy with the ACC. This btw would be mandatory on an airplane.

ACC is not for everyone. I like it, I use it a lot and see it's shortcomings quite often. I can also understand why people hate it.

 

[yossarian]

Is it possible to use cruise control without the automatic braking part? I don’t like the sound of it!!

Perhaps, there's a procedure outlined on pg 150 of the manual that gives the outcome "Adaptive cruise control is deactivated. The vehicle maintains only the set speed."

But it has the caveat that it's not available in all countries.

 

[yossarian]

I was stunned by the effectiveness of it on my van. I’m now a fan. A few months ago, a car did a stupid manoeuvre and caused another car in front of me to do an emergency stop. It was dusk and starting to rain. I was accelerating, too, as it all happened. Before I could move my foot off the accelerator and onto the brake my van reacted. Alarms went off, the seatbelts tensioned (pulling my ten year old daughter and myself back into the seats) and the van just stopped on a sixpence. It aldo seemed to straighten the steering wheel - but that might just have been the result of the braking and gyroscopic forces. I might have stopped in time without the computer taking control but it would have been a close run thing. Overall, I was very impressed.

This sounds like "Autonomous emergency braking (Front Assist)" which is a slightly different system to ACC.

The belt tensioning system is one shot like the airbags. If activated it needs some of the components to be replaced. But it normally needs a crash to activate it.

 

[orbital]

This sounds like "Autonomous emergency braking (Front Assist)" which is a slightly different system to ACC.

The belt tensioning system is one shot like the airbags. If activated it needs some of the components to be replaced. But it normally needs a crash to activate it.

I don’t have ACC so you’re right about it being Front Assist. I’m not sure you’re right about belt tensioning though (at least I hope so!). The belts also seem to ‘lock in place’ when I press the brakes - which can be annoying at junctions when I’d like to lean forwards a bit to watch out for bikes etc. I wonder how many cyclists and bikers have been killed as a result of such things?