My car has a lane keep assist system. It’s designed to keep you in your lane. Seems fair enough, but actually it veers between annoying and dangerous. Today it misjudged some motorway roadwork lane changes and jolted me towards another car. It would have sent me into that car if I hadn’t been fairly positive with the steering wheel.
Does anyone actually like these systems? I’ve tried to keep it on, as I generally want to embrace the future blah blah, but it’s fucking shit. It doesn’t know enough about the road, but still it nudges the car if it fancies it.
(I’m also annoyed that I have to turn it off every single time - I can’t save my preferred settings. Hyundai know better.)
It’s actually a EuroNCAP requirement by all accounts. Post Brexit, we can get rid of all this nasty safety stuff and go back to wooden three wheelers burning coal. Or probably horse and cart if the racist pensioners really get their way.
It does have an indicator stalk, and indicating turns off the LKAS. Unlike a Tesla it doesn’t change lanes for you.
I trust the Tesla system more because I think it has many more sensors and more computing power, so it knows what is going on on the road much better than mine. Mine just knows the lane layout (badly), and knows nothing about other cars AFAIK.
Not tried the Tesla yet, as we are waiting for the charger etc. to be fitted. Plus the Evoke is here until Monday and it’s half full of fuel…
I’ll let you know how reliable it is when we have had it out on the bigger roads. I’m still waiting for the lease company to get me added to the insurance paperwork, so I’m stropping.
My Lane Departure Warning can be adjusted to suit. You have to jump through several levels of hoops on the Menu screen, but I eventually got it to only vibrate gently and display on the Heads-Up jobby. It’s a shit system.
The Cruise Control is as shitty as a shitty stick to set, then as you are cruising down the motorway, it will slow the car down if you get withing 4 miles of the vehicle in front. Sometimes even if they are in a different lane. The distance allowed can be adjusted but then it goes to 5 miles. It is pointless. The only time it’s useful is when you are pootling along at 30mph in a built up area. It slows you when the traffic slows and stops you when the traffic stops.
My motor has:
lane assist
parks itself (which is cool)
blind spot warning system.
adaptive cruise control
parking sensors
Can read texts out loud to me
handfrees phone system
voice activated system
satnav
climate control
impact warning system
its basically got every whistle and bell that could be ordered when it was new
And I use them all, what worries me is its not likely I’ll ever find another used car with all these functions so I’ll likely have to keep it forever
I used the cruise control on mine for the first time in anger today, worth a long drive to Somerset. Frankly it’s fucking ace. There is a button on the steering wheel to adjust the distance to the car in front, four settings, and it works really well. Makes for very relaxed motorway driving.
The one annoying thing is that it doesn’t really take into account the likely change in distance - so it’s quick to brake and quick to accelerate, whereas a person will be looking at other cars rather than just the one in front, and can drive more smoothly.
The SEAT doesn’t have any form of lane departure warning as far as I can see despite being built in 2020 so is it actually compulsory?
I do have one of these and because Audi uses the same system, you can (if you want) set it so you are effectively in the boot of the car in front. In less twatty modes, it will lock and follow at a sensible distance. I use it most of the time on dual carriageways/motorways.
I also have an auto stop system which, again, seems pretty good. It had a bit of moment in a grass car park a few weeks ago where it performed a full WE’RE STOPPING NOW moment… because it had seen an oncoming thicket of grass. Got some funny looks from that.
it is brilliant on my Focus, except outside Pete’s house where it has failed dismally.
It also relies on the cars back and front of you to have been parked rather than abandoned as it lines up on them.
Yes it’s a Ford Focus Estate and parking system is really good. It’s never failed to park the car spot on. It will drive the car out of the parking spot too.
