Adaptive Cruise Control Not Available... but I'm using normal cruise control?

[superdave80]

I use normal (not adaptive) cruise control. In the last few months, my cruise control will randomly turn off with a 'ding'. A few seconds later I get a camera fault, followed by 'Adaptive Cruise Control Not Available". If I attempt to re-engage normal cruise control, it throws up the same error about adaptive cruise control. I get an orange car/road crossed out icon in the very lower left corner during this time. After about a minute, the orange icon goes away and all is good again.

Has anybody else seen this error? It seems to mostly happen within a minute or two of me starting to drive (although it happens so rarely it's hard to remember when it gets triggered). Why is it denying me normal cruise control if only adaptive cruise control is broken?

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[Shayne]

I use normal (not adaptive) cruise control. In the last few months, my cruise control will randomly turn off with a 'ding'. A few seconds later I get a camera fault, followed by 'Adaptive Cruise Control Not Available". If I attempt to re-engage normal cruise control, it throws up the same error about adaptive cruise control. I get an orange car/road crossed out icon in the very lower left corner during this time. After about a minute, the orange icon goes away and all is good again.

Has anybody else seen this error? It seems to mostly happen within a minute or two of me starting to drive (although it happens so rarely it's hard to remember when it gets triggered). Why is it denying me normal cruise control if only adaptive cruise control is broken?

I use adaptive and have not really had any problems with the cruise control in this car. Yours sounds like something that is not normal and appears to be a problem with your car in particular. You should mention it to the dealer but it happening very rarely and them trying to reproduce it may be a hurdle for you. There maybe a code in there that may be of some help to them and you to get it fixed?

 

[Kamuelaflyer]

I use normal (not adaptive) cruise control. In the last few months, my cruise control will randomly turn off with a 'ding'. A few seconds later I get a camera fault, followed by 'Adaptive Cruise Control Not Available". If I attempt to re-engage normal cruise control, it throws up the same error about adaptive cruise control. I get an orange car/road crossed out icon in the very lower left corner during this time. After about a minute, the orange icon goes away and all is good again.

Has anybody else seen this error? It seems to mostly happen within a minute or two of me starting to drive (although it happens so rarely it's hard to remember when it gets triggered). Why is it denying me normal cruise control if only adaptive cruise control is broken?

Which update are you on? One of the 6.x updates messed with some cars cameras. I’ve heard that there is a fix ready to launch soon.

 

[superdave80]

I think I'm pretty current on updates. I have received the Tesla charger update and at least 6.8 that I recall. I guess it's an infrequent enough problem that I'll wait and hope that this gets OTA fixed...

 

[Kamuelaflyer]

I think I'm pretty current on updates. I have received the Tesla charger update and at least 6.8 that I recall. I guess it's an infrequent enough problem that I'll wait and hope that this gets OTA fixed...

IIRC, which is always questionable, it was 6.6 that had the potential to cause camera issues in some cars I have no idea about the integration of the system though. Perhaps one of the engineers can comment. Otherwise I have heard the fix for that issues (cameras) is ready to roll.

 

[Mach-Lee]

It was 6.13 and fix is rolling out via OTA.

This post sounds more like a camera cable issue however. Which requires a dealer visit.

 

[superdave80]

Is it common for the cable issue to fix itself after a minute?

 

[Mach-Lee]

It’s intermittent, yes.

 

[devmach-e]

Are you confusing BlueCruise with adaptive cruise control? ACC just slows and speeds up depending upon whether someone is in front of you. BlueCruise uses ACC and will also steer for you. Regular cruise control sets a speed, and if someone cuts in front of you, will not slow down.

Main reason I've seen that ACC/BC gets cancelled is sunlight hitting the lidar/front-facing-camera sensor at just the right angle to overwhelm the sensor.

 

[superdave80]

Are you confusing BlueCruise with adaptive cruise control?

I don't have BlueCruise on my vehicle. I only use normal cruise control, which is why I'm confused that 'Adaptive Cruise Control Unavailable' is taking out my normal cruise control (which doesn't need/use the camera to keep distance).

Sounds like Ford software engineers screwed up once again...

 

[devmach-e]

I don't have BlueCruise on my vehicle. I only use normal cruise control, which is why I'm confused that 'Adaptive Cruise Control Unavailable' is taking out my normal cruise control (which doesn't need/use the camera to keep distance).

Sounds like Ford software engineers screwed up once again...

Have you explicitly turned off Adaptive Cruise Control? Every Mach-E has ACC. Not every Mach-E has BlueCruise. And again, there's two forms of Cruise Control we're talking about here: ACC, which automatically slows and down and speeds up depending upon traffic; and then there is the traditional version, which just sets a speed, and it is up to the driver to notice they're about to slam into the back of a semi that just cut in front of them at 55 MPH while CC is set to 70 MPH.

 

[superdave80]

Have you explicitly turned off Adaptive Cruise Control?

Yes, about five minutes after I purchased the car

And since an update a few months ago, I now get reminded that I am using normal cruise control upon startup. Every. Single. Time.

I hate Ford software engineers...

 

[devmach-e]

Yes, about five minutes after I purchased the car

And since an update a few months ago, I now get reminded that I am using normal cruise control upon startup. Every. Single. Time.

I hate Ford software engineers...

I had to ask. I've run into too many people in my career in IT who insisted on calling something the wrong name, or conflated something with something else, which then led to problems getting at the root of their actual problem.

 

[SlicerOnSteam]

I hope you have better luck but welcome to the Hell me and my wife were in for the last several months. There is a known issue with a fix for a front camera problem but the problem kept happening anyway after we had it serviced.

My wife wasn't even interested in using cruise of any kind but could not escape this message popping up over and over and over and over again.

Traded in for a used 2019 Tesla last Friday and Teslas are laughably superior in every way except the pony lights. I'm a fool for not test driving one before our MME purchase.

 

[SlicerOnSteam]

Have you explicitly turned off Adaptive Cruise Control? Every Mach-E has ACC. Not every Mach-E has BlueCruise. And again, there's two forms of Cruise Control we're talking about here: ACC, which automatically slows and down and speeds up depending upon traffic; and then there is the traditional version, which just sets a speed, and it is up to the driver to notice they're about to slam into the back of a semi that just cut in front of them at 55 MPH while CC is set to 70 MPH.

There's a 3rd form of ACC in there that is not blue cruise. If you enable auto steering with ACC, a big blue wheel comes up, tells you to keep your hands on the wheel, and does the steering too. All that is still not blue cruise. That is just basic ACC and lane keeping functionality on par with a 2020 Kia Niro and the MME is laughably horrible at it. With the added bonus that it freaks out randomly because of the shoddy face tracking.

The absolute worst thing about this ACC and steering is that you can travel through the same curve multiple times with cars in front of you and the car will take the curves gently just because it's maintaining the following distance. But then you go to that same curve one time with nothing slowing you down and the car will veer into it recklessly at full speed and then fail to steer at the last second and beep for you to take over. After seeing a 2019 Tesla slow down on its own and navigate a similar curve, I am shocked at how reckless Ford is with this auto-steering and face-tracking pretending to be something it is not. It is unsafe and needs to be recalled by NHTSA. Recalls aren't just for broken things, they are also for things so far out of alignment with expectations that they create a dangerous situation for the typical driver. Ford's lane keeping screws up an order of magnitude more often than Kia's so it is not safe enough even with eyes on the road and hands on the wheel. You don't realize it's going to drop until you are already in that curve too fast.

And to be absolutely clear, the Tesla slowed down to take a curve when it was on "Enhanced Autopilot" - this is not the full self-driving mode - this is just the equivalent of what other models call adaptive cruise with lane keeping. Telsa's regular "Autopilot" is just adaptive cruise without autosteering.

Ford can cry all day that no one would have extra expectations if it weren't for Tesla pushing the envelope to ridiculous heights but that's just tough. It's called real market competition and we're still pretending to be a functioning capitalist society at this point. No one should pretend like Ford didn't set the base price right next to the Model Y so they are the ones who agreed to compete there. After you've built a face-tracking system into your car it's too late to pretend like you didn't intend to compete - you simply failed miserably at the competition.

A simple software update to mark the autosteer as a "beta" function would be sufficient for a bare-minimum safety recall.

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