Adaptive Cruise Control (ACC) Questions.

[EngineerDave]

Will Adaptive stop the car completely if someone in front of you is stopped or comes to a stop? Or does the red bar just light up wanting you to slam on the breaks?

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[GiddyUp15]

Will Adaptive stop the car completely if someone in front of you is stopped or comes to a stop? Or does the red bar just light up wanting you to slam on the breaks?

I haven't fully tested it (don't really want to! ), but I read that it only "pre-charges" the brakes for you, along with the red bar flashing. I'm sure part of it is because it wouldn't work too well with a manual transmission if it did that! :doh:

 

[tsunami]

Adaptive Cruise, supposedly, will slow your car down by combining both a decrease in the accelerator and a gentle application of the brakes (according to the user manual). But it won't completely stop the car. ACC is NOT a collision avoidance system. Mustangs have an optional collision mitigation system which warns you with an LED HUD display that you are about to impact a vehicle ahead of you and primes the brakes. But it does NOT stop your car...you have to manually apply the brakes.
The 2015 Fusion has an optional collision stop system which potentially will automatically try to stop your car from an impact. However, it was not made an option on the Mustang for whatever reason.

 

[Apwrx]

I love acc.it works fantastic,my wife has it on her explorer and after using it in hers I had to have it on the mustang.It keeps me from speeding so terribly bad,these cars are so smooth it's very easy to do.

 

[Nugatti]

ACC is not an option here in Europe, is there any way to retrofit?

 

[HoosierDaddy]

That was my main reason for not ordering adaptive cruise control (I have every other option)... the minimum is 100 feet? How is that useful? If you're that far behind a car in traffic, people are constantly going to be cutting in front of you, and your car is going to be constantly hitting the brakes and annoying the people behind you. What good is that?

It will be annoying people behind you LESS than if you are following people at a smaller distance. The larger following distance greatly reduces the accordion effect that results in people coming to complete stops and then speeding back up again. When someone pulls into a gap in front of you, the ACC doesn't slam on the brakes to instantly maintain the 100 or whatever setting you are using. It does it fairly gradually and much more gradual than the accordion driving calls for. Having what you consider too large a gap most of the time is better than having too little gap all the time which you are advocating.

As to the accuracy of the distance sensors, the size of the vehicle has an effect. The ACC shows a ghost car on the display as soon as it can sense the vehicle in front and before it takes any noticeable action. It senses a semi truck at a greater distance than it does a passenger car.

I was skeptical of the ACC in a manual trans because Ford in its infinite stupidity disengages cruise whenever the clutch is depressed. Which means you have to resume it when traffic speed changes so much a shift is needed or wanted. And the location of the resume button is not optimal for most hand positions on the steering wheel.

So I almost didn't order it because that pissed me off. My 3 + year old Cadillac has no problem maintaining cruise when I shift the manual trans.

But I did order it and am VERY glad I did, even if it could have been even better if Ford didn't stupidly make you resume it after a shift.

 

[tsunami]

Cross Traffic and ACC

I use the ACC quite often. The distance settings do seem to be speed dependent. One bar is closer to the car in front at 30 mph than at 60 mph.

I did discover something I never realized the ACC was capable of. The other day, I was following another car with the four bar setting...so we were fairly far apart. A car shot out between us from a driveway, crossing our lane to make a left turn. Neither the collision alarm chime nor the HUD LED bar activated. However, the ACC really shut down the fuel feed and applied the brakes before I could react. My car didn't come to a halt but it did drop about 20 mph. It wasn't true collision impact avoidance but it sure was close.

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