Phantom Braking: Experienced in the MachE for the First Time (7 months in)

[Maric]

I have had my car almost 7 months now. Car has been pretty much perfect. No issues. PAAK works well for me so for whatever reason I've escaped the hardships some people have had with their year one vehicles.

However on Friday while driving to the Bay Area on Highway 80 I experienced phantom braking, not once but twice. Have made this trip many times. The thing is, I was on a stretch that was 5 lanes wide, no vehicles within 500 yards of my car. This was while utilizing the standard lane assist and monitored co-pilot, not Blue Cruise.

The first incident, was a fairly hard brake. Luckily I was prepared to take over but it really rattled me. The highway is well marked, it was day time (around 1:30 pm) and the road was as clear as can be.

Second incident was maybe 20 minutes later and while it was not as harsh as the first braking experience again, there was zero need for the car to brake at all.

I've experienced this in Tesla's but never the MachE. Anyone else have this happen? I almost want Ford to pull my logs to try and figure out what triggered the car.

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[hybrid2bev]

I have had my car almost 7 months now. Car has been pretty much perfect. No issues. PAAK works well for me so for whatever reason I've escaped the hardships some people have had with their year one vehicles.

However on Friday while driving to the Bay Area on Highway 80 I experienced phantom braking, not once but twice. Have made this trip many times. The thing is, I was on a stretch that was 5 lanes wide, no vehicles within 500 yards of my car. This was while utilizing the standard lane assist and monitored co-pilot, not Blue Cruise.

The first incident, was a fairly hard brake. Luckily I was prepared to take over but it really rattled me. The highway is well marked, it was day time (around 1:30 pm) and the road was as clear as can be.

Second incident was maybe 20 minutes later and while it was not as harsh as the first braking experience again, there was zero need for the car to brake at all.

I've experienced this in Tesla's but never the MachE. Anyone else have this happen? I almost want Ford to pull my logs to try and figure out what triggered the car.

Were you using the intelligent cruise control or just the adaptive?

I had to turn off ICC because it did something similar. I was cruising at 75 and the ICC must have seen a partially covered construction sign. It reset my speed to 45 and slowed down hard. I wonder if you experienced the same based on your description.

 

[JamieGeek]

Yeah I've also had ICC notice phantom speed limits and brake hard.

Once I learned where they were from frequent travel I just get ready for them.

 

[Maric]

Were you using the intelligent cruise control or just the adaptive?

I had to turn off ICC because it did something similar. I was cruising at 75 and the ICC must have seen a partially covered construction sign. It reset my speed to 45 and slowed down hard. I wonder if you experienced the same based on your description.

Intelligent. Hmmm. Good point. Although I am fairly certain I was on 65mph stretch with my car set at 75 (which I have allotted in settings).

 

[Maric]

Yeah I've also had ICC notice phantom speed limits and brake hard.

Once I learned where they were from frequent travel I just get ready for them.

Ok, I was unaware of this. So this very well may be the issue. Thanks for the input.

 

[Gimme_my_MME]

Just sayin

 

[KissOD]

Yeah I've also had ICC notice phantom speed limits and brake hard.

Once I learned where they were from frequent travel I just get ready for them.

Phantom adjustments happens to me both ways. On the frontage roads, I have sped up to 60-75 and highway I have slowed to 45. Same spots so I figured it was a speed recognition issue.

 

[Brussam]

Intelligent cruise can also give you a rapid increase in speed when a errant sign is spotted. I have a 35 mph street that I often use ICC and in one spot, the read speed jumps to 70. I HAVEN't the sign yet but I know when to ready to reset the cruise. I also had a situation he on the frontage road (we have a lot of them in Texas) and the ICC read the ffeewzy speed. And I had had the reverse, reading a frontage road speed limit from the freeway. You still have to in charge no matter how much automation there is.

 

[JohnnyForensic]

I have had my car almost 7 months now. Car has been pretty much perfect. No issues. PAAK works well for me so for whatever reason I've escaped the hardships some people have had with their year one vehicles.

However on Friday while driving to the Bay Area on Highway 80 I experienced phantom braking, not once but twice. Have made this trip many times. The thing is, I was on a stretch that was 5 lanes wide, no vehicles within 500 yards of my car. This was while utilizing the standard lane assist and monitored co-pilot, not Blue Cruise.

The first incident, was a fairly hard brake. Luckily I was prepared to take over but it really rattled me. The highway is well marked, it was day time (around 1:30 pm) and the road was as clear as can be.

Second incident was maybe 20 minutes later and while it was not as harsh as the first braking experience again, there was zero need for the car to brake at all.

I've experienced this in Tesla's but never the MachE. Anyone else have this happen? I almost want Ford to pull my logs to try and figure out what triggered the car.

With all of four days in my MME, I haven’t had this happen, but it happened just like you described twice before in my RDX. SOMETHING made the radar freak out, but god knows what. Could have been a radar bounce from supermarket doors opening across the street for all I know. Sure is freaky when it happens though.

 

[BMT1071]

ICC is also reported to use map data for the speed limit. Sometimes using outdated limits. So even if you don't see a sign the car might get bad map data. ??

 

[Kabish]

I've been using ICC for maybe a month..

Part of the 94 freeway here is 55mph and I have my car do +10. There is a on "ramp" of sorts where the 94 and 125 split ways. It changes from the 55 to 65 so my car adjusts to 75 which is just an awful time to have the car accelerate safety wise. I always turn off the system when I get around any type of interchanges.

I have had the car freak out on me once where it slowed me down, not too abrupt, but was enough to jerk us around a little. Then it speed backup for maybe 2 seconds, then braked again and slowed us down. Then the driver display went nuts and said something about intelligent cruise control but it was only up for a second and I did not get to read it as I was focusing on the road. I also have a road at work where it will detect a 25mph zone as 70mph, thus setting my cruse to 80....

Not related, but I have noticed the car brake on curvier parts of freeways when there is a car in the lane beside you. I think the radar sees the car as a threat because it does not know ahead of time that its a curved section of road. I have had it slow me in those instances many times.

 

[fokkerlit]

I've noticed two issues, phantom breaking where I'm using ICC and the vehicle will almost come to a stop but not give any impact warnings. The second issue with ICC is that it will show the speed limit on the panel as having dropped and slow down dramatically even though the speed limit hasn't changed (dropped me from 40 to 25).

 

[jojomontag]

The manual provides plenty of warnings that the ICC and speed sign sensing systems can err for a variety of reasons, especially in areas with service/feeder roads, construction, etc. I don't use cruise control until I am out of the city of Houston because there are too many signs (speed limits for HOV vs. Freeway vs. Feeders vs. Off Ramps). My Honda Accord had the same issue, sometimes reading state highway signs as speed limits (so I would suddenly see the car telling me the speed limit was 90 because I was on Highway 90). It's all flawed.

The manual even warns that small objects or objects moving at a very slow speed may not be recognized by the sensors. Also, it warns that it may sense things that aren't there due to a variety of reasons.

Anyone who thinks automous cars will work without driver attention is living in a fantasy world.

 

[BMT1071]

The manual provides plenty of warnings that the ICC and speed sign sensing systems can err for a variety of reasons, especially in areas with service/feeder roads, construction, etc. I don't use cruise control until I am out of the city of Houston because there are too many signs (speed limits for HOV vs. Freeway vs. Feeders vs. Off Ramps). My Honda Accord had the same issue, sometimes reading state highway signs as speed limits (so I would suddenly see the car telling me the speed limit was 90 because I was on Highway 90). It's all flawed.

The manual even warns that small objects or objects moving at a very slow speed may not be recognized by the sensors. Also, it warns that it may sense things that aren't there due to a variety of reasons.

Anyone who thinks automous cars will work without driver attention is living in a fantasy world.

Waymo cars drive themselves all day long in Chandler, AZ. The ADAS available on consumer vehicles is in no way autonomous. There is only one company making claims to the contrary.

 

[Kabish]

Anyone who thinks automous cars will work without driver attention is living in a fantasy world.

There is no doubt in my mind that within the next 6-10yrs we will have fully automous driving. There is too big of a push for it, at least the way things are going now. Tesla's latest beta is pretty impressive. Sure it still has a ton of room for improvement, but their R&D is really moven.

To get a little close to topic, I had the opposite of ghost braking this morning. Was on the 94 heading to work with all the driver assists turned on and cruise set to 75. For some reason out of the blue the traffic in front of me full stopped. I saw all the brake lights come on and the car in front of me had yet to touch the brake. I went ahead and took over braking pretty hard and ended up stopping about a car length away. Never got any type of alerts, even when the car behind me was about 2" from my bumper. I saw her coming up quick, I actually let off the brake to allow the car to move up a little, otherwise I think I would had been rear ended.

Was kind of surprised I did not get any type of impact warnings. I'm curious if the car would had handled that situation, but at the same time I did not want to try and find out lol

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