Other V90 drivers - Pilot Assist

[Kingston1]

Originally Posted by MikeGMT

I'm beginning to be very selective and wary where I engage these 'Driver Aids' as they can have an adverse effect on safety. I seriously doubt that had a driver been at the usual following distance you tend to see these days that they would have avoided a rear end collision. I can just imagine the conversation, "Don't blame me, it was the cars fault, decided we were travelling too fast."

Ironically it was the first time I had used this feature. It happened on the A63 travelling East towards Hull, just past the Welton on slip, which can be really busy. Think I was lucky and caught it at a quiet period.

I know it well, living just around the corner in Welton - it also happened to me there too as I returned home and I learned my lesson! The worrying thing is when it happens on a road we don't know. We live and learn eh?

[Philip Fisher]

Originally Posted by MikeGMT

I could quite happily live without the Driver Assist package. On my last car I didn't tick that option so I was quite curious as to how the system worked on my current one which had the system as standard.

Pilot Assist, I have only used a few times and it is too hit and miss for my liking, and if I have to keep my hands on the wheel ready to actively steer then it is not really all that useful. I know it is a stepping-stone on the way to truly autonomous vehicles and every iteration will be an improvement on the previous version, but at the moment I prefer to not use it.

ACC is not too bad, but can be a bit hash at times and can screw up your driving plans by braking when I don't want to brake, or accelerating at the wrong moment. I can foresee a lot of premature rear pad wear if ACC is used frequently. I prefer just using the normal Cruise Control and the cancel and resume buttons.

Just before Christmas I was on the way home, travelling on a dual carriageway at 70mph and just passed under a bridge carrying a 40mph road when the car decided to chuck the anchors out, once I had got myself off the windscreen and wondering what the hell had just happened realisation set in and it was the Automatic Speed Limiter, it had picked up the 40mph as the speed limit and decided to rein the horses in rather abruptly. Luckily for me any following traffic was in the distance. Sometimes it works as soon as the speed limit changes and other times it can be 500m or more before it recognises the new speed.

Now having tried these semi-autonomous driving systems I'm not a great fan, but it is early days yet, they will only get better.

I soon realised that the automatic speed limiter was deeply flawed when I got my car 5 years ago. It works well 99.9 percent of the time, but the 0.1 percent where it doesn't is just downright dangerous. That 0.1 percent is enough to make it useless and I turned it off years ago.

Speed sign display is still quite useful on roads you are unsure of and help to answer the question of "have I missed a limit sign?"

AEB will save my life one day, and the false positives are usually quite tame and easily explained.

BLIS has its uses.

CTA is a good help.

[ZenSpeedmaster]

Originally Posted by Philip Fisher

I soon realised that the automatic speed limiter was deeply flawed when I got my car 5 years ago. It works well 99.9 percent of the time, but the 0.1 percent where it doesn't is just downright dangerous. That 0.1 percent is enough to make it useless and I turned it off years ago.

Speed sign display is still quite useful on roads you are unsure of and help to answer the question of "have I missed a limit sign?"

AEB will save my life one day, and the false positives are usually quite tame and easily explained.

BLIS has its uses.

CTA is a good help.

What is the danger of the automatic speed limiter?

[MikeGMT]

Originally Posted by ZenSpeedmaster

What is the danger of the automatic speed limiter?

See my post above, it can't be trusted, and can pick up speed limits on roads in close proximity with a different speed limit and cause the car to react accordingly.
In my case, travelling at 70mph, passed under a road bridge carrying a 40mph road which the ASL thought I was travelling on and immediately slammed on the brakes. I can confirm the braking system is excellent.

I still use it in lower speed areas were there isn't such a large speed variation such as in the city, even then it is sometimes slow to react to speed limit changes. On higher speed roads I make sure it's tucked up so it can't interfere.

[ZenSpeedmaster]

OK right. That's a disaster. I only use it in 50kph zones so I haven't encountered that problem.

[nu11eaf]

Originally Posted by MikeGMT

See my post above, it can't be trusted, and can pick up speed limits on roads in close proximity with a different speed limit and cause the car to react accordingly.
In my case, travelling at 70mph, passed under a road bridge carrying a 40mph road which the ASL thought I was travelling on and immediately slammed on the brakes. I can confirm the braking system is excellent.

I still use it in lower speed areas were there isn't such a large speed variation such as in the city, even then it is sometimes slow to react to speed limit changes. On higher speed roads I make sure it's tucked up so it can't interfere.

Are you sure the car did not brake because it thought it was going to hit the bridge, my understanding and experience with the speed limiter is you have to set the speed limit manually and it will not go above that speed (unless you force it by a hard press on throttle) the speed limiter does not react to speed signs you have to maunally adjust it the same as adaptive cruise control or pilot assist.
That is how it works on my XC90.

[ergonomist]

There's two settings. Normal is Speed Limiter. Or Automatic Speed Limiter - which uses the road sign info (activated via the Function page in the centre display). But comes with loads of warnings about when it gets mislead (which in my experience was most of the time - hence I never use it)

[ThomasC91]

Pilot assist shouldn’t be used in rain, snow, dust etc or where 5here isn’t clear road markings.

[nu11eaf]

[QUOTE=ergonomist;2712434]There's two settings. Normal is Speed Limiter. Or Automatic Speed Limiter - which uses the road sign info (activated via the Function page in the centre display). But comes with loads of warnings about when it gets mislead (which in my experience was most of the time - hence I never use

Edited:
I have just checked my car settings, and found the setting that I have never noticed before, I was sure I only had road sign info on or off and the normal steering wheel sellectors for SL, ACC, or PA, was this an upgrade or has it always been there.
I never use speed limiter, used it a few times years ago but did not like it.

[ergonomist]

Hmm... TBH I've not checked for years to see if this info is correct - I've taken it from the handbook info. I'll look when I'm next in the car.