BlueCruise micro adjustments

[SnBGC]

This ^^^

I think many are looking for reasons to not like it. I mentioned the car sickness to my wife and she said "oh, from your driving?" HA! Seriously, she said, "nope, noticed nothing as your passenger".

Or your car isn't exhibiting the same symptoms as others are reporting. It is fairly easy to notice by just placing your hands on the wheel during BCHF, you can feel it moving back and forth. Sometimes very slight, sometimes the amplitude is much greater.

In your car, when BCHF drops to BCHO and after a short distance BCHF re-engages. Does your steering wheel fight you because it wants to steer very close to the right lane marker before returning to center?

Mine does that most every time. When BCHF re-engages, I always have to look at my right side view mirror to make sure nobody is back there because they will sometimes honk at me when the car makes a hard veer to the right side of the lane. Other traffic thinks I am initiating a lane change which of course I am not attempting. So, if a car is there then I keep a good grip on the steering wheel until it is clear. Then I let it go, it pulls hard to the right and then migrates softly back to center and stays there until it drops put again. (Usually in 1 mile or 2....)

Are you having these same experiences?

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[RickMachE]

Nope.

 

[SnBGC]

Nope.

Glad to hear.
Those of us with these symptoms are not making it up. It appears to be a real issue for several owners.

 

[awp0]

In your car, when BCHF drops to BCHO and after a short distance BCHF re-engages. Does your steering wheel fight you because it wants to steer very close to the right lane marker before returning to center?

Mine does that most every time. When BCHF re-engages, I always have to look at my right side view mirror to make sure nobody is back there because they will sometimes honk at me when the car makes a hard veer to the right side of the lane. Other traffic thinks I am initiating a lane change which of course I am not attempting. So, if a car is there then I keep a good grip on the steering wheel until it is clear. Then I let it go, it pulls hard to the right and then migrates softly back to center and stays there until it drops put again. (Usually in 1 mile or 2....)

Are you having these same experiences?

That is a perfect explanation of what I experience with Bluecruise reengagement. It's pretty sketchy in traffic.

 

[SprManKalEl]

I hate the BCHF rides the right side of the lane. I tend to drive towards the left side. I also hate that is pulls pretty far right then centers out.

What I hate more is when someone gets in front of you and it hard brakes. I think it's an overreaction. Especially when you're traveling 60+ and traffic suddenly stops but the car smoothy stops. It is weird.

Most of my commute is highway driving and I use BCHF in slow traffic but sometimes all the way down the highway. I wouldn't give it up.

 

[Skip Towne]

I have found that lane centering seems MUCH better now that I finally got BlueCruise on my 2021 Job 1. It did ping-pong a bit before with just Lane Centering. I'm not sure if it got an update, or the map integration helped, but it is better.

However - it still seems true that smooth lane centering requires decently visible lane markers. On worn, faded or missing lane markers (I know, shocking that old lane paint happens) the car does wander much more.

 

[Mach1E]

I hate the BCHF rides the right side of the lane. I tend to drive towards the left side. I also hate that is pulls pretty far right then centers out.

What I hate more is when someone gets in front of you and it hard brakes. I think it's an overreaction. Especially when you're traveling 60+ and traffic suddenly stops but the car smoothy stops. It is weird.

Most of my commute is highway driving and I use BCHF in slow traffic but sometimes all the way down the highway. I wouldn't give it up.

Best advertising I can give for BC I got from a long video posted here last year:

Treat BC like what it is, a drivers aid, and you’ll be fine.

It isn’t self driving. It’s intelligent cruise + lane keep + eye sensors so you CAN go hands free. But you don’t have to.

Don’t wait for the car to brake or steer if you can see that you should brake or steer. Don’t treat it like a “toy” to see how close you can get before it takes over.

If you see traffic ahead or rough rough or large turn? Take over as needed.

I love it for long boring sections of highway or stop and go traffic.

If it’s going too far to the right or ping ponging? Just keep your hand on the wheel.

It uses cameras to view the lanes, so if the lines aren’t great, the car is going to move around a bit.

 

[Guss-E 2021]

I've never noticed anything peculiar with BC driving. In fact, I had to tell my wife that the car was driving on its own because she was unaware of it.

Yes, especially in slower stop and go traffic (though that might be obvious). Ford is close on this so I would expect the next iteration of the technology to be much better.

 

[Guss-E 2021]

The MME also has an algorithm that learns your steering/lane habits and will adjust your lane position based on how you drive.

Wait! What? ? All the time? My girl loves to hug the outer white line when I let her drive. Drives me nuts and we fight about it. I guess I should keep fighting with her until she learns my way or the highway (unless we are already on the highway and then it is my way or the rural route....where was I going with this....)

 

[SnBGC]

Wait! What? ? All the time? My girl loves to hug the outer white line when I let her drive. Drives me nuts and we fight about it. I guess I should keep fighting with her until she learns my way or the highway (unless we are already on the highway and then it is my way or the rural route....where was I going with this....)

The preferred lane position (off center) feature no longer functions once BlueCruise Hands-Free is installed. Everyone that I know who has BC has lost that feature.

 

[Blue highway]

I really hope you’re wrong and it’s not actually designed to work like this. When it goes into ping-ping mode (which is not the majority of the time for me) it’s not acceptable and I have to turn it off for fear of looking like a distracted driver. My Kia Telluride stays centered much better than my MME so I know it’s possible.

It may be helpful to understand how BC works... it looks at the stripes on the road (cameras in the mirrors)... if the stripes are:

• not painted in nice straight lines, or inconsistent radius in turns
• lanes vary in width... extra wide is especially a problem
• faded or have lots of overspray

the car will adjust to try to stay in the lanes.

On roads with clean straight striping, I don't notice any ping pong. Where the stripes are wonky, yes but I can usually see where it's going to have an issue by seeing what the stripes are doing.

 

[Blue highway]

Glad to hear.
Those of us with these symptoms are not making it up. It appears to be a real issue for several owners.

I agree, I don't think anybody is making anything up...but... we are not comparing same road to same road and ping ponging is a perception thing. Crappy striping is ok to drive with, but not with BC. "Crappy" striping is in the eye of the beholder.

Is it the camera calibration?
is it the road striping?
is it the the sensitivity setting used
is it a difference in describing the same event

FWIW I drove 120 miles on BC this weekend... it was very good.

 

[SnBGC]

I hate the BCHF rides the right side of the lane. I tend to drive towards the left side. I also hate that is pulls pretty far right then centers out.

That is bothersome for sure. If you try and hold the wheel so the car drives down the center of the lane then the car fights you. It will keep trying to move to the right until eventually I get tired of arguing with the car and just let go of the wheel to let it move over to the right and then it migrates back to center. It gets pretty darn close to that white line on the right side. Maybe 12" or so? It's easy to see now far off center the car is tracking when you look at the side view mirrors.

Interesting enough, I had to run to the office last evening after dinner. 22 miles each way. BlueCruise Hands-free worked just about the entire way. Only dropped twice and both times it dropped out of cruise control completely. Not to Hands on....not to ACC.....all the way off. Displayed a symbol on the screen that looked like BCHO but in orange and the text "Cancelled".

This morning, back to the same routine. BCHF drops into BCHO and then drops again to ACC and sometimes it just cancels cruise control completely. Then it pops back on into BCHO and maybe a little later BCHF and back again. In 22 miles, it drops and re-engages about a dozen times at least.

I am pretty sure that isn't the intended operation.

 

[SnBGC]

I agree, I don't think anybody is making anything up...but... we are not comparing same road to same road and ping ponging is a perception thing. Crappy striping is ok to drive with, but not with BC. "Crappy" striping is in the eye of the beholder.

Is it the camera calibration?
is it the road striping?
is it the the sensitivity setting used
is it a difference in describing the same event

FWIW I drove 120 miles on BC this weekend... it was very good.

I am talking same road to same road. I drive around the valley here in Phoenix quite a bit. Most of it are on BC routes. The performance is not consistent. Sometimes it won't engage at all. Sometimes it drops very frequently into hands on mode and sometimes it drops into just Adaptive Cruise and occasionally it drops out completely with no cruise control at all. Try and re-engage cruise and I get a message that says cruise control is not available.

On weekends, early mornings or late evenings it works MUCH MUCH better. The only difference that I can observe is the traffic is much lighter during those times. On my end, it seems like when traffic is heavier than BC struggles quite a bit. Not sure if that is a clue or not.... ???

 

[awp0]

I agree, I don't think anybody is making anything up...but... we are not comparing same road to same road and ping ponging is a perception thing. Crappy striping is ok to drive with, but not with BC. "Crappy" striping is in the eye of the beholder.

Is it the camera calibration?
is it the road striping?
is it the the sensitivity setting used
is it a difference in describing the same event

FWIW I drove 120 miles on BC this weekend... it was very good.

In my case, I'm 100% certain that the occasional ping ponging is not always related to crappy striping, because it has happened in perfectly crisp and bright striping. That said, I can't figure out what kind of conditions cause it to freak out. Maybe wind? Maybe traffic? Maybe a curve that it over-corrected with? Sun glare?

When Bluecruise is working well (not ping ponging), it's a really good system and the only thing I'm bothered about is how it feels a little off-center to the right, which is commonly reported and generally manageable. But when it's ping-ponging, for whatever reason, it's not good enough to use and I turn it off.

Kia's system also uses cameras and handles lane centering way better. Apparently they're the gold standard and tough to compare with.....but I don't know why Ford can't figure this out.

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