Adaptive cruise experience

[TexasTorque]

Hi all, I added adaptive cruise control to my '21 XLT a couple of months ago and have meant to come back here and ask about what I should be expecting/not expecting.

Install wasn't too horrible... Had to pull the bumper of course. Added the radar and a new bumper harness. Luckily the rest of the wiring was either in place or added when I added 360 cams earlier this year. I was still very pleasantly surprised when it actually worked though.

My only other adaptive cruise experience is my wife's Mazda '21 CX-5. At the moment, hers is behaving better / safer when it comes to approaching already-stopped vehicles (like at a traffic light). Her's slows down. Mine... doesn't. At least not in a range that I'm comfortable with. I'm not one to start breaking for a traffic light a quarter mile away... I don't slide in to stops either, but it's probably closer to that end of the spectrum, haha... I tried letting the F150 stop itself a couple of times coming in at about 55MPH (which is the speed limit where I was testing!) and had my foot hovered over the break in case I needed it. I did need it. It was coming in way too hot and I don't think it was interested in stopping.

Should it stop there? If so, would alignment of the radar potentially be a factor? I gave it a go when I was installing it and it actually showed level, so I left it as-is. I don't see a Richard Petty feature to disable in software.

At highway speeds, it behaves well when it has a car in front of it to marry up to and follow at their pace. It does slow down to a stop with them. Comparing to the wife-mobile, having the follow distance set as far back as it will go feels more aggressive than the same setting on her car. In the F150, it is right at a 2-second gap at 60MPH. Safe, but it seems like the 2 second gap would have been more of a middle-ground setting (which again has me wondering about the alignment).

Aside from the little detail about not stopping for stopped traffic, I really like it. The more aggressive lane centering that ACC adds is pretty amazing to me... Makes me want BlueCruise or a Comma3... Last I looked, users of the latter tended to rely on Ford's ACC for horizontal control though so that's another reason that I'm wondering if mine is behaving as expected.

Thanks for any insight!

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[hpwjr]

My experience is similar. From speed up to a stopped vehicle no good. If traffic is moving, it’s great. Even in total stop and go. For some reason stationary cars don’t register right.

 

[XLT22]

These systems really aren't meant for that scenario of coming up to a stopped vehicle from highway speed. I've had a GM and Honda product that wouldn't handle that either. The stop and go function works really well which is meant for traffic. At least Ford was smart enough to put a heater grid over the camera cutout in the windshield. My Silverado drove me crazy because I would never have lane assist or adaptive cruise on a frosty morning or on a cold wet day without running the defrost wide open to keep the camera clear.

 

[TexasTorque]

That's fair and at least comforting that this is evidently the way it should be.

I have tinkered with "the experience" a bit more since inquiring above to make sure I wasn't misremembering that it would stop if it was in a traffic flow that came to a stop. It for sure does, but not without an "OMG, is it going to stop??" moment each time. It closes the gap to the car in front pretty aggressively. Moreso than the Mazda, for sure.

Again, I don't have a lot of experience with ACC but it is a little hard to imagine the Ford engineers taking the same ride and saying "oh yeah, this is nice... ship it" as they were polishing up the product.

 

[Packers Fan]

Unnerving as it may be, and trust me it is hard not to react, the ACC will bring you to a stop if you come up on a vehicle at a stop sign or light as long as you are not coming around a curve. I had a hard time myself trusting it, but it will stop, at least the few times I have tested it. I still keep my foot on the brake!

 

[XLT22]

Unnerving as it may be, and trust me it is hard not to react, the ACC will bring you to a stop if you come up on a vehicle at a stop sign or light as long as you are not coming around a curve. I had a hard time myself trusting it, but it will stop, at least the few times I have tested it. I still keep my foot on the brake!

Yea don't do that or you're going to be on the wrong side of a court case at some point. The sensors are intentionally coded to disregard (in most cases) anything that appears stopped or moving below 5mph or whatever limit Ford has these days. This is to prevent unnecessary braking events.

There's also a horizon to just how far the radar can see even in a straight line. Adaptive cruise and AEB can't overcome physics if you're running up on a stopped car at 65mph. I trust the stop & go system a lot but only when I have an indication on the dash it "sees" the car in front.

 

[Packers Fan]

Yea don't do that or you're going to be on the wrong side of a court case at some point. The sensors are intentionally coded to disregard (in most cases) anything that appears stopped or moving below 5mph or whatever limit Ford has these days. This is to prevent unnecessary braking events.

There's also a horizon to just how far the radar can see even in a straight line. Adaptive cruise and AEB can't overcome physics if you're running up on a stopped car at 65mph. I trust the stop & go system a lot but only when I have an indication on the dash it "sees" the car in front.

Not saying I did it at high speed, under 45 mph. Not stupid or brave enough to do it above that! And it did stop on its own.

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