BlueCruise micro adjustments

[hybrid2bev]

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?

If I let go of the wheel just as soon as BC engages (screen goes blue and the display changes to 'hands free'), then it will almost always pull to right line and then bounce back to the middle of the lane.

Though I've found that if I hold firmly onto the steering wheel when BC engages, count to 5 (1-one thousand, 2-one thousand......) and then release the steering wheel it doesn't always pull to the right anymore. It'll track down the middle. Seems like maybe it takes a beat for the lane centering system to fully engage.

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[ChasingCoral]

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?

No, I haven't run into either one of these problems. It may be your system is misaligned.

 

[SnBGC]

If I let go of the wheel just as soon as BC engages (screen goes blue and the display changes to 'hands free'), then it will almost always pull to right line and then bounce back to the middle of the lane.

Though I've found that if I hold firmly onto the steering wheel when BC engages, count to 5 (1-one thousand, 2-one thousand......) and then release the steering wheel it doesn't always pull to the right anymore. It'll track down the middle. Seems like maybe it takes a beat for the lane centering system to fully engage.

I don't know if I have held it that long. I'll give it a try.
Last week I made a mistake that was kinda fun in a kinda scary way. Driving down the freeway in BCHF and it drops to BCHO. Of course I always keep my hands on the wheel anyway so not a big deal. Then I migrated over to the left side of the lane because it is much smoother sailing on that particular stretch of the road. Then BCHF re-engages and out of habit, I let go of the wheel so it can do it's thing. It veered HARD over to the right but did NOT cross the white line. It got close but didn't touch. Of course the traffic around me freaked out a bit, I even got honked at.

So now when BCHF engages, I move the car over to center or just right of center and then let go of the wheel. I then started watching the lines in my side view mirrors to see how close it gets. The available space (total width of the lane minus total width of the car) is split to 1 part on the right and 2 parts on the left. Just for a few moments though....then it migrates slowly back to center and holds that position quite nicely.

Until it drops out again in a mile or two and then I have to go through the set up all over again.

 

[SnBGC]

No, I haven't run into either one of these problems. It may be your system is misaligned.

The dealer re-aligned the camera when they finally got Blue Cruise working.
When I picked up my car, the tech said "Well it works. I drove it for about 15 miles and it did okay. Not great. Just okay. If it acts up then bring it back and we'll try replacing some parts and see if that works any better."

I drove BCHF in other vehicles.....the dealer's FCTP Lightning and their GT. BCHF worked pretty well in both of those vehicles. The GT was just a short trip down the highway and back. The pickup truck I had more time with (all the way to my office) and it did pretty well.

My brother's car doesn't have the hardware for BCHF so just has ACC+LKA/LC but it works pretty good. I drove it over the weekend. The off center lane tracking preference works pretty well still. I miss that the most I think....

My brother-in-law's car has the hardware but they can't get BC to work still. The dealer tried installing and he has the OTAs and still same as before. After seeing how it works in my car....he isn't at all interested in having it operational in his car. I told him that it might work better for him but then again. Maybe those of us with problems are the same people that have had trouble getting BC to install in the first place? ?

 

[Blue highway]

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.

one of the variables is lane width. I've noticed that if the lane striping is creating extra wide lanes, it is not happy.

 

[awp0]

one of the variables is lane width. I've noticed that if the lane striping is creating extra wide lanes, it is not happy.

Yeah, that makes sense. I've also been paying attention to things that "look like" lane lines that might be confusing the car. For example, a guardrail that is close to a lane (no median) might appear to a camera/computer as a "line". Or some highways that have a strip of textured pavement to wake up drivers when they're beginning to cross into a median and it's often right next to the lane marker. I also think BC was a little wonky after some rain, for about 30 minutes when there were dry "lines" in the pavement from traffic driving over it, while the rest of the pavement was still wet and darker. I don't know if any of this really is confusing BC, truthfully it's been kind of hard to pin down what causes ping-ponging.

 

[Woeo]

Last night was our first time using blue cruise and found it ping-ponging on turns. On one occasion there was a semi next to us, needless to say I turned it off and took over.

You don’t need to “turn it off”. Just take control of the steering wheel
to adjust your position in the lane if you feel crowded by a semi. Hands On Driving with Blue Cruise enabled isn’t difficult.

 

[awp0]

You don’t need to “turn it off”. Just take control of the steering wheel
to adjust your position in the lane if you feel crowded by a semi. Hands On Driving with Blue Cruise enabled isn’t difficult.

It isn't difficult, but it isn't especially useful either.

 

[Blue highway]

Yeah, that makes sense. I've also been paying attention to things that "look like" lane lines that might be confusing the car. For example, a guardrail that is close to a lane (no median) might appear to a camera/computer as a "line". Or some highways that have a strip of textured pavement to wake up drivers when they're beginning to cross into a median and it's often right next to the lane marker. I also think BC was a little wonky after some rain, for about 30 minutes when there were dry "lines" in the pavement from traffic driving over it, while the rest of the pavement was still wet and darker. I don't know if any of this really is confusing BC, truthfully it's been kind of hard to pin down what causes ping-ponging.

here is a stripe like thing I've seen it confused by on rare occasions. shiny tar stripes. Yep. The road maintenance crew tared the asphalt cracks along the edge of the road to shoulder crack. When the sun is in the right place, its real shiny. When the white stripe departed from where the tar stipe was BC didn't like that. It turns off BC and lane centering goes gray.

 

[Mach1E]

It isn't difficult, but it isn't especially useful either.

Strongly disagree.

“Hands on Bluecruise” is exactly what lane keep assist on most cars is.

On my wife’s Lincoln Aviator, the hands on lane keep is great for the highway. Especially on long boring drives. It does “most” of the work for you. Your hands are on the wheel mostly for the “just in case you need to take over.” But it does the rest.

 

[awp0]

Strongly disagree.

“Hands on Bluecruise” is exactly what lane keep assist on most cars is.

On my wife’s Lincoln Aviator, the hands on lane keep is great for the highway. Especially on long boring drives. It does “most” of the work for you. Your hands are on the wheel mostly for the “just in case you need to take over.” But it does the rest.

Not really, please keep in mind this is about ping-ponging. Keeping your hands on the wheel to prevent ping-ponging and swinging too close to a truck in a neighboring lane isn’t the experience that hands-on Bluecruise is meant to be. I agree with you that hands-on Bluecruise is useful. But hands-on to fight the car’s scary ping-pong behavior is not the same and hardly useful.

 

[SnBGC]

Not really, please keep in mind this is about ping-ponging. Keeping your hands on the wheel to prevent ping-ponging and swinging too close to a truck in a neighboring lane isn’t the experience that hands-on Bluecruise is meant to be. I agree with you that hands-on Bluecruise is useful. But hands-on to fight the car’s scary ping-pong behavior is not the same and hardly useful.

Agree. When BC is working like it should....it is a nice bit of assistance. When it is malfunctioning, it is unnecessarily exhausting.

We went out to dinner with my daughter in law to celebrate her birthday. I didn't even engage LKA because I didn't want to deal with the hassle of fighting with the car about how to drive. It was actually kinda nice just with ACC. Maybe even a bit more relaxing than trying to use LKA/LC.

Prior to BC, I used ACC+LKA/LC quite often. Now I am starting to shy away from that lane keeping feature because it just doesn't work as well as it used to.

 

[Mach1E]

Not really, please keep in mind this is about ping-ponging. Keeping your hands on the wheel to prevent ping-ponging and swinging too close to a truck in a neighboring lane isn’t the experience that hands-on Bluecruise is meant to be. I agree with you that hands-on Bluecruise is useful. But hands-on to fight the car’s scary ping-pong behavior is not the same and hardly useful.

Yeah, agreed on that. If you HAVE to keep your hands on the wheel, kinda defeats the purpose of “hands free.”

That said, when I’ve used it, most of the time didn’t need to. It definitely seems to depend on the road as well as your speed.

 

[Vgkfan]

i Got my mme in May 22. The first time I used BC on the bypass he ping ponging was really too much, but over the the last 3 months it is definitely better. Still likes to hug the right side which I don’t like, but hopefully Ford will address that, as it seems to be a very common complaint.

 

[Geesh]

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?

I follow you. It took me awhile to get used to it. BC seems to want to center the driver in the lane (car towards right side of lane). This has gotten less noticeable over time, but maybe that's because I find myself in the center lane more often these days... trying to stay under 75 (the need to watch my efficiency has become a bit OCD).. maybe the center lanes are less noticeable, or maybe it is actually getting better... hell if I know... but was disappointed at first...

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