I used mine for the first time today. I was definitely skeptical on how it would work, pretty happy with it. I played with the distance settings a bit and settled on the "medium" distance, which seemed to work well. Definitely glad I have it.

 

I have to respond. I love the adaptive cruise control along with the collision avoidance. Both of the systems work awesome and less stress as others on the thread has stated. On long trips, all I need to do is set and forget the speed and just keep it between the lines. This would be especially nice when towing.
When I was optioning the truck, it was a feature I did not care too much for but what the heck I got it anyways. After using it on the truck, it is by far one of the best advanced features on the truck that I love.

kartdriver8
2017 F250 KR

 

My wife has adaptive cruise control on her car and I really like it. Too bad I couldn't find an F350 available with that as an option. Note however that if there is heavy rain the adaptive cruise control shuts off, at least on her Toyota Avalon.

 

Got a chance to try it out today on a truck. Not overly impressed, actually. It seems like you slow down, someone pulls in front of you, you slow down more, and so on. I could not find the settings to adjust the distance, just how to make the cruise regular or adaptive.

 

I haven't driven any of the cars you guys are talking about with the start/stop function. I must be confused because when I have acc set on my truck, it will bring me to a full stop behind the car in front of me and then start moving once the car in front of me moves. I've only tried it out a few times. Is this different than what you are talking about?

 

My 17 (purchased last Saturday) acts different than you are describing:

1. Must be going 20 MPH before cruise control will activate
2. Active cruise simply works after this point, as long as it can "see" another vehicle within range.
3. Active cruise stops working when the front vehicle slows t0 12 mph or below.

We have a 16 Volvo XC90 which has active cruise - cruise also activates at 20 mph along with the active cruise. However, active cruise functions all the way down to a stop and the car will take off and continue to follow as ling as the stopping car stops no longer than a few seconds.

 

My wife has ACC (and Pilot Assist) on her 2016 Volvo XC90. I loved this feature so much that when buying new truck, ACC became a key feature. I came out of a 2015 GMC 2500 Denali (which to date has been my favorite truck of all time). If GM had had ACC I would have stayed with GM only because there would have been no overwhelming reason to make the switch otherwise.

However, now having had the 17 SD KR for a whole 3 days now, I really love the truck. I think the Denali is a bit more nimble handling-wise but the 17 SD has improved handling compared to my 12 SD Lariat (which is also a very nice truck).

It is a little annoying that the ACC stops working at 12 MPH - the Volvo will stop the car, and then resume as long as the car being followed starts moving within a few seconds.

 

I couldn't agree MORE! even in its most aggressive (hardly what i would call closest) setting the gap in front is HUGE.

I've stopped using it because its not practical to me.

 

Guess I'd have to disagree, I was looking at this today and the gap is about 1.5 - 2 sec following, which is what it should be really at hwy speeds.

 

The control to adjust the distance is right next to the on/off/resume buttons. It's the buttons with the double-headed arrows. One shortens the distance, the other lengthens it. You can see it change in the display.. it adds/subtracts the little grey bars behind the vehicle sensed.

And I'm with slurpee... I think the min-distance is just fine. I use the min-distance when I'm on the highway empty, and the max distance when pulling a trailer. On 2-laners, I'll go for medium-long..

 

Gentlemen, the human brain is always going to be able to do some things better than electronic versions.

I too would like it to be able to follow a little closer, but you have to think about it from Ford’s liability standpoint, and their legal department.

with regards to how often it brakes while following, this is simply a matter of how steady the vehicle in front of you is. If the car you are following is speeding up slowing down, then the adaptive cruise is going to be speeding up and slowing down. In this scenario us humans can reduce the breaking by simply letting your vehicle get closer and further away to avoid the breaking, do you realize how difficult it would be for a computer to be able to do this? Not possible, but extremely extremely complicated.

finally, I like Fords active cruise control much better than general motors or ram or Toyota or Nissan. Grin

 

You must have a "unicorn". The SDs don't have "stop and go".


Sam

 

Well, yea, that would be the entire point of it.

They are on the steering wheel. Left side. The button with the two opposing arrows that are CLOSE to one another allow you to shorten the distance, while the two that are further apart allow you to lengthen the distance. On some vehicles it's one button and I thought it was two buttons on my 2017 F350:



As you adjust them, look on the dash under the little vehicle - it will have one (shortest), two or three (longest) bars below it. That's your ACC distance.

 

Interesting observation. Sounds like "I didn't know how to use it, so the feature sucks". I recommend if you are going to truly evaluate it, read the manual on how it operates, and then use it for a few months. Like nearly every other poster on this thread, I think ACC is the best feature on the truck. Does it drive "better" than the human foot? No. Does it operate better than any non-adaptive cruise control out there? Absolutely. I stress that a true evaluation takes time. There are different driving conditions that require different employment. I find that 3 bars is my comfortable following distance. I use 3 bars on two lane roads. On multi-lane highways, I go to two bars. I found that at 3 bars, the truck follows at a nice comfortable distance and I'd be cruising 5 mph under my intended speed just fat dumb and happy. At two bars, I notice when I'm a little closer than ideal and it prompts an evaluation to pass the car in front. I rarely go to one bar - heavy but flowing traffic is about the only place, where any further and cars continually cut you off. Also remember, in tow-haul mode, the computer adds additional distance for each bar.
And - you can always use the accelerator while using ACC. If a car merges a little close but you don't want the truck to brake, just give it a little throttle, let the truck ease back until the ACC takes back over. No buttons to push.
I wish ford would upgrade the programming to allow full stop and go, or at least continue operating at slow speeds. Right now, it does the stop part fine, just not the go. If you are using ACC and traffic slows to a stop, the truck will bring itself all the way down to a full stop. After a second, though, it'll ding at you, and release the brakes and you'll roll forward, and have to manually restart ACC once back up to speed.

 

Some things, sure. Most things, no.

In the case of paying attention to the cars ahead of you and reacting before you slam into them: I'd bet on the adaptive cruise control technology before I'd bet on 98% of the drivers on the road today. Most are too buys effing with their phones, GPS units, doing makeup and a variable plethora of other things besides driving.