Adaptive Cruise (ACC) - How well does it REALLY work?

[david1pro]

I just can't use it in my morning commute because the 1.5 - 2 car length gap that the ACC leaves to the car in front is basically just a delicious open invitation for other drivers to jump in there and push us all back one more car.

Like you said, though, 1.5-2 car lengths is simply too much at near stop speeds... you'll have people cutting in front of you constantly.

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[Negative3]

Hi guys, I have to admit that I can't pull the trigger on a '16 Civic yet (still paying off one loan and have 2 workable cars to use otherwise), but it hasn't stopped me from obsessing over the Honda Sensing technology as I obsess about self driving technology (for some reason, weird as I like to drive and my stomach needs to drive).

I realize that this isn't Tesla technology, but could you guys give me real-world experiences of ACC in action? For interstate and highway driving, what percent of the time does the system work? Does it work during heavy traffic jams?

I'm just trying to get a realistic expectation before my (eventual) purchase as this would be what I would be most excited about. Is it a useful daily technology or is it one of those things that is cool at first but soon feels more like a gimmick later? Have their been any firmware updates to improve it?

Thanks! I've watched just about every video on it (including small time dealers showing it off) and searched around, but its tough to really get good experiences on how it really works.

Its a little heavy on the braking and you'll probably piss off everybody behind you but it works better than the rain sensing wipers that come along with the packag lol - I miss my tried and true intermittents fiercly.

 

[Billy4202]

Its a little heavy on the braking and you'll probably piss off everybody behind you but it works better than the rain sensing wipers that come along with the packag lol - I miss my tried and true intermittents fiercly.

Haha, I was using it today on the way home from work, brakes must have come on when someone cut in front of me because the woman behind me flipped me off. It is heavy on braking.

 

[PS3]

It is ashame, though that ACC can't navigate slow bumper-to-bumper traffic as that would be a huge benefit for those who have to sit in traffic for long periods of time. I wonder why they deactivate the system when you stop. Is it because of use at redlights?

It works great in bumper-to-bumper traffic. Rarely do you have to press the brake or accelerator - it just goes.

 

[Jon Snow]

I found it to work well when traffic is generally moving along but might occasionally slow down 10-20 mph. Let's say you're going 70 and occasionally you slow down to 50-60. But where you have large swings in speed, it gets a bit weird. I have found it to be too slow to get back up to speed. Let's say you're going 75, a car going 60 pulls in front of you and it slows down (fine), then the car leaves your lane and it takes the Civic a good long while to decide to accelerate again, and it does it slowly. Which leaves people behind you angry if you're in the fast lane. So you have to manually disable it and get back up to speed yourself quickly, then re-enable it. And at that point it's more trouble than it's worth.

It's frustrating, I wish you could tweak how aggressively it accelerates back up to speed. I guess if you drive like a grandmother and in the slow lane, it would be less annoying because you probably wouldn't accelerate fast anyway. Me, I don't like to waste time.

 

[Jon Snow]

I'm surprised especially since its just a $1,000 option and the auto-braking (CMBS) system alone would pay for that if it keeps you from even a single fender bender in your car's lifetime.

That actually saved me on the drive back from the dealer (about 2 hours), no joke. BMW swooped in front of me from the outer lanes and cut me off at a highway off ramp. Collision Mitigation did its job and while it was scary (and I'm lucky no one was close behind me), it saved me from wrecking my brand-new car, not to mention the a-hole in the BMW.

 

[david1pro]

So you have to manually disable it and get back up to speed yourself quickly, then re-enable it.

You can just punch the gas and accelerate. Cruise control will stay on and once you stop accelerating it'll go back to the set speed. The only thing that turns it off is braking and manually turning it off.

 

[Diversion]

ACC in traffic was the only annoying part of it.. It's not designed for that anyways, even though it will "do it".. It hits the brakes far too hard in traffic and then slowly speeds up far too slow (enough to make the people driving behind you very annoyed).

Otherwise, it seems on actual highway use it's pretty amazing and "helpful".. It's not perfect but it's far better than traditional cruise control.

 

[Rook3300]

It's frustrating, I wish you could tweak how aggressively it accelerates back up to speed. I guess if you drive like a grandmother and in the slow lane, it would be less annoying because you probably wouldn't accelerate fast anyway. Me, I don't like to waste time.

Yes, this was a similar thing I noticed while using ACC for my drive back home in the afternoon. I decided to pull over from the middle lane into the fast lane and found that the ACC took its sweet time to figure out whether there was anything in front of me anymore and just how quickly it wanted to accelerate from the 62mph I was doing up to the 74mph I had set max cruise for. I ended up punching it just a bit to get up to speed.

 

[Negative3]

That actually saved me on the drive back from the dealer (about 2 hours), no joke. BMW swooped in front of me from the outer lanes and cut me off at a highway off ramp. Collision Mitigation did its job and while it was scary (and I'm lucky no one was close behind me), it saved me from wrecking my brand-new car, not to mention the a-hole in the BMW.

My concern is that it could cause potentially cause as many rear end accidents as it might prevent- but at least you won't be at fault, in theory. Insurance companies love to spin things any chance they get.

 

[Negative3]

Haha, I was using it today on the way home from work, brakes must have come on when someone cut in front of me because the woman behind me flipped me off. It is heavy on braking.

...Yup. I've only used mine enough to test it out and show it off a little to friends / family in the car... Otherwise I dont see it being very useful for me as most of my driving consists of several 2-8 mile trips in stop and go traffic and speed limits of 35mph....and lane assist? Pfft. Theres snow and sand all over the street half the year and faded ass paint lines on most of our roads the other half. Doubt my car could find the lane markers if my life depended on it.

....Also, don't forget to have your foot ready on that brake when you're the first in line at a red light. Way too easy to become complacent if you let yourself get comfortable with relying on this tech.....

 

[Jon Snow]

My concern is that it could cause potentially cause as many rear end accidents as it might prevent- but at least you won't be at fault, in theory. Insurance companies love to spin things any chance they get.

Yeah, it's possible rear-end collisions might increase. But according to Honda, the intention is more on increasing survivability in a serious crash than in preventing crashes. In other words, you hitting someone at 30 mph net speed combined with someone rear-ending you at 30 mph net speed is better than you hitting someone from the front at 60 mph net speed, taking advantage of maximized crumple zone usage.

 

[Rook3300]

....Also, don't forget to have your foot ready on that brake when you're the first in line at a red light. Way too easy to become complacent if you let yourself get comfortable with relying on this tech.....

And that's why BMW and Volvo are making systems with cameras in both front fenders to look at all points of an intersection at once and stop you before you enter that "I can totally make that yellow light" death zone.

 

[tacthecat]

I found it to work well when traffic is generally moving along but might occasionally slow down 10-20 mph. Let's say you're going 70 and occasionally you slow down to 50-60. But where you have large swings in speed, it gets a bit weird. I have found it to be too slow to get back up to speed. Let's say you're going 75, a car going 60 pulls in front of you and it slows down (fine), then the car leaves your lane and it takes the Civic a good long while to decide to accelerate again, and it does it slowly. Which leaves people behind you angry if you're in the fast lane. So you have to manually disable it and get back up to speed yourself quickly, then re-enable it. And at that point it's more trouble than it's worth.

It's frustrating, I wish you could tweak how aggressively it accelerates back up to speed. I guess if you drive like a grandmother and in the slow lane, it would be less annoying because you probably wouldn't accelerate fast anyway. Me, I don't like to waste time.

Can't you just "goose it" to speed up/close the gap and have it automatically resume? (user manual p420 indicates you can, even from a stop.)

 

[dick w]

Can't you just "goose it" to speed up/close the gap and have it automatically resume?

Yes, you can, as @david1pro pointed out a number of posts back.

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