Aggressive use of auto-driving features

**gbjk** · 31-03-2012,09:17 AM

A few people have asked about how well the auto-driving features work.

I promised I'd give it all an aggressive go when I got my car, so I have.

I have ACC, lane assist, side assist, park assist.

I've only driven it for a day, but I've given it all a pretty good go.

ACC:
So far I've found that ACC works quite well to do all speed control, even in complex situations.
I set it to 60mph on a dual carriage way, and allowed it to slow down at traffic lights, go round round-abouts, and change lanes.
I found there were a few moments it scared the hell out of me with relatively late breaking, when approaching stopped cars.
To fix this, I increased the distance to 3 cars.
It definitely does not play well with suddenly seeing parked cars:
If you're following a car, and it moves around a parked car, the system does not seem to track the parked car very well at all. I'll give this more of a go.

pre-sense active:
I gave this a timid go. If you get into a situation where you'll hit something, it seems to apply the breaks, but I can't be sure, because it was only a split second before I went to apply the breaks on myself. I'll give it a go or two.

side assist:
Works well. Recommend full brightness to make sure it gets your attention.

lane keeping:
This seems to be the flakiest of the situations.
On country roads, it really struggles to keep track of the lane markers.
Not surprised. They're often not there!
On a dual carriage way, works as advertised about 80% of the time.
I managed about 3 miles of dual carriage way without intervening in the steering at all.
However you need to be ready to intervene, because when it loses track of one of the lanes, it immediately goes "offline" (as you'd expect).
It gives you clear warnings and noises, though.

I've had it set to "early", so I haven't seen much of the vibration setting.

I do notice that if you want to change lane, it's very compliant in trying to keep you there for a brief second, but then allowing you to do what you want.

I'd very much recommend HUD with it, though, which makes it easy to see when it's appropriate to allow it to steer and not. Same goes for the ACC, in fact.

Park Assist:

Works very well for perpendicular parking indeed. Engage reverse early, though, unless you want to end up in the middle of two free spaces.

Biggest issue is that I don't seem to be able to park on the RHS, which is common in a parking lot. Will look more into this.

Hope this helps a bit for those trying to decide on these options.
I know I wasn't able to see any of them before I bought it!

Gareth