BlueCruise ... worth it or not?? My Take.

[RickMachE]

BlueCruise is one of those features that shows a) how different some drivers are and b) how change is not welcome by many.

I find it hilarious when people on a different forum (truck) freak out at new features like Start/Stop technology, backup noise, etc. It goes to show that no matter what "innovations" are put into vehicles, someone will always hate them.

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[dbsb3233]

My wife flipped out the first time I used it, but now she doesn't care

I was testing it out on the highway one day. The lines had been recently repainted, and there was a spot by an on-ramp where a vehicle had tracked wet paint into the center of the right lane we were in. The car saw that and jerked us violently part way into the left lane. Disconcerting to say the lest. I was stunned, and my partner was pissed ("Turn that #&$%ing thing off!").

 

[dbsb3233]

BlueCruise is one of those features that shows a) how different some drivers are and b) how change is not welcome by many.

I find it hilarious when people on a different forum (truck) freak out at new features like Start/Stop technology, backup noise, etc. It goes to show that no matter what "innovations" are put into vehicles, someone will always hate them.

Some of the new features in the Mach-E are great. Others are just so buggy and undependable that they're more trouble than they're worth. PAAK is another that fits that description for me. Has nothing to do with refusing to change, the good old fob is just more dependable.

 

[RickMachE]

We hit a stretch of road recently where each individual dashed line was at an angle, i.e. not straight. Never seen that in my life. BlueCruise was not happy. ?

 

[bellyer]

I used BlueCruise for the first time this past weekend to drive almost the entire stretch from Cleveland to Chicago. It was incredible! The only issues we encountered were in a few stretches where the lane lines were not painted well, so it warned me that I needed to take over steering. There was a little confusion with it kind of wanting to follow along a couple of exit ramps that we did not want to take, which required a very slight correction on the steering wheel from me, but those were usually spots that were close to where I wanted to change lanes anyhow. I was extremely impressed, especially since I was someone who never thought I would trust a car to do the driving for me. On a really windy day when a 6-hour drive would have left me with sore arms at the end of it, BlueCruise was a godsend. I cross my fingers that one day it is able to handle lane changes and stop-and-go traffic.

 

[dbsb3233]

On a really windy day when a 6-hour drive would have left me with sore arms at the end of it, BlueCruise was a godsend.

I will add a caveat to my prior post regarding that... when I'm in highway cruising mode, I just steer with my arms sitting in my lap (which is where they'd be when using BC anyway). I like to keep the seat high, and the steering wheel low, and my right hand just holds the wheel at the bottom (index finger inside that spoke gap). I one-hand it most of the way, and just grab on with my left hand when passing/turning/etc.

If I were actually doing the "hands at 10 & 2" thing the whole way, I'd find BC a godsend, because my shoulders and arms get really sore doing that for very long. But because I cruise with arms in my lap anyway, that's a non-issue for me. Thus I prefer to just stay in control and steer full-time. The seats are very comfortable in this car too, so I get almost no soreness driving this car all day.

 

[Eugene]

Intelligent cruise control is all I need, just a little bump to the wheel with my knee every 10 seconds does the trick.

 

[Cm12]

Some of the new features in the Mach-E are great. Others are just so buggy and undependable that they're more trouble than they're worth. PAAK is another that fits that description for me. Has nothing to do with refusing to change, the good old fob is just more dependable.

This has been exactly my experience. Features like BC and PaaK need to work essentially 100% of the time or not be included. BC can cause a fatal crash if it doesn’t read the lanes correctly - something that happened to me countless times on my first road trip this last week. Ford half-assed BC and it’s probably going to result in fatal crashes at some point. I’m fortunate that I was driving on I-84 and and I-90 where there is minimal traffic and long, straight stretches of highway so that when it did freak out and unexpectedly disengage or aggressively jerk the car into another lane, no one was there to be harmed. And don’t even get me started on the eye nanny which was constantly going off even when I was staring straight ahead with my hand(s) on the wheel. Sometimes I actually had to stop paying attention to the road in order to stare directly into the eye nanny to calm it down.

When BC was working *properly,* it was fantastic. But that required me to be in the left lane on very straight stretches of mostly empty interstate highway, with my hands actually off the wheel so it didn’t impede the eye nanny’s view of my eyes. Right now, we’re all just beta testers. And unfortunately, everyone else on the road in our vicinity are too.

 

[Larry Paul]

I am liking Hands Free Blue Cruise on most freeways, but I have been pleasantly surprised how well hands on (green icon) Blue Cruise works on non highway situations. I am using it for much of my dull boring driving around town and more or less all of the time I am on a freeway. When I am in tight driving even hands free I may put my hands on the wheel, but when there is a great deal of space around the car, my hands are usually on my legs when the car is in hands free.

I do press the cancel/resume button when I see traffic stopping long before the car slows down at all. It will slow down in time, but I prefer to coast down a bit more and use regeneration gradually. As soon as traffic is flowing again I press the cancel/resume button...and back in hands on BC.

User tip: I have also changed my speedometer cluster backlight to be bright during the day time. It makes it more obvious when it goes dark blue (or back to a bright mode).

It took a few weeks, but I have learned its habits and it is consistent and repeatable on the same roads. It is fairly predictable now for me on when it will hand over control. For a 1.0 version, not bad. I do like the eye tracking and also how easy it is to take over and give control back.

Of course when I have a chance to actually drive, I don't use the system. Unfortunately much of my actual driving needs is on dull and boring roads in traffic.

 

[Logal727]

No, what is Atomic Clock?

I just use my Apple Watch, it’s dead on with the internet time servers, same as Disney uses

 

[MrsZuko]

Hail large enough to damage the glass roof will make your car's sheet metal look like a golf ball. Quite possibly resulting in your insurance company declaring the vehicle a total loss.

I have repaired three vehicles now due to hail damage in 2 separate storms (2 of them with broken glass and golf ball sized hail) and none of them were a total loss. I'd rather deal with the sheet metal and paintless dent repair then try to figure out a way to replace a very specific piece of glass. Now granted, none of them were total losses because they were all large/higher priced vehicles (Ram 2500, Dodge Durango and a Dodge Charger Daytona). With a $65k plus MME, I'm going to assume this is likely the case as well. It's just personal preference.

Honestly, I dislike glass of any type on the roof, I have never been a sunroof person. I just don't like it in general. Plus seeing some of the posts about how folks in Colorado cannot get their windshields and roofs replaced for the recall due to no availability of that specific glass makes me a little leery. That will improve with time I'm sure. To each their own, all I was saying there was I wished they didn't tie the roof to the Blue Cruise option. I would have probably considered it, I just didn't want glass. I know there are others that feel the same.

 

[MrsZuko]

No, what is Atomic Clock?

I will open the website time.gov on my phone (or let my husband do it) and then as soon as the clock hits 6:59 and 55 seconds, I start refreshing the queue. It works every time.

 

[MrsZuko]

I just use my Apple Watch, it’s dead on with the internet time servers, same as Disney uses

Interesting, I have found my iPhone (which syncs my Apple Watch) to be off, the time.gov website can actually tell you how close your phones time is to correct. It's usually only a couple seconds, but in this case 2 seconds actually matters. ?

 

[Logal727]

Interesting, I have found my iPhone (which syncs my Apple Watch) to be off, the time.gov website can actually tell you how close your phones time is to correct. It's usually only a couple seconds, but in this case 2 seconds actually matters. ?

iPhone syncs with cell towers which sync with gps, so it should be dead on. Might need to restart your phone or make sure you’ve got automatic time turned on

 

[Rt1AWD]

About 12 years ago, when autopilot wasn't a thing yet in the car world, it was a time to upgrade my cars....... I thought about it - what it will give me? Functionally nothing. Same 4 wheels, same engine, same problems. I had to pay for that nothing several tens of thousand dollars....... Soo If I'm paying that much, I need to get something out of that. On our another long trip I figured what I need. It is something that relieves me on long highway trips - autopilot.
So I made an oath to keep the old cars until they die or until somebody offers Autopilot..... Back then the oath seemed hopeless, but I kept waiting.......
Fortunately my cars survived and I managed to keep my oath..... until finally Ford presented Mach-e with Blue Cruise. So I figured it is time to go ahead with that looong overdue upgrade

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