pb65stang

Great info! Thanks for making my decision easier. I agree park assist might just end up taking longer than parallel parking on my own (but the 360 will come in very handy). I was thinking the ACC may be more of a pain than it's worth it, and it sounds like you agree. If I use cruise, I'm in a situation where I'm going down an interstate and not in a heavy traffic situation. I think I can manage with normal cruise control.

Diggitydog

One thing that I overlooked with Adaptive Cruise Control is the collision warning component. It's not talked about a lot but definitely should be included in the discussion of ACC. Does anybody know how the collision warning system in the new F-150 works? Does it just warn and preload the brakes or will it actually apply the brakes?

sunshadow

Looks like just warns & preloads.
Class-exclusive adaptive cruise control and collision warning with brake support Adaptive cruise control and collision warning with brake support uses radar in the front of the truck to measure the distance and speed of vehicles ahead. Using this information, the F-150 can automatically slow to keep a consistent following distance set by the driver. The slower speed will be maintained if adaptive cruise control is activated. Collision warning triggers visual and audio alerts if the system detects the following distance is diminishing too quickly and a collision may occur. It also pre-charges the brakes if the driver needs to stop suddenly

MP15TDriver

I know others may disagree with this (which is fine by me), but considering you're looking for info on ACC, I'll offer the following:

What I liked about it in the 2012 Explorer Limited --

• It really worked well at maintaining a preset trailing distance from the car in front of you. If that car slowed down or sped up to your set speed, the ACC would follow. It worked incredibly well in even allowing you to follow a car off an exit and come almost to a complete stop without having to hit the brakes. On our Explorer, it appeared it did this mostly through gearing/downshifting, but I'm not positive.
• It was nice in that if you were caught off guard, the system was already slowing the car for you.
• When you are backing out of a space and you can't see what is coming, the collision alert is helpful.

What I didn't like about it--

• It is more conservative than I like. The minimum settable gap between your vehicle and the car in front of you is large enough to easily allow other cars to merge in. This is probably "safe", but it is larger than most people trail the car in front of them in my area, so it tends to invite everyone to jump in front of you.
• When a car merges in to the gap, it immediately slows down to establish the aforementioned conservative gap now relative to the person who "in some cases" cut you off. This aggressive slowdown can tick off the car behind you as you seem to be braking unnecessarily or dramatically.
• Passing a slower car in front of you requires you to change lanes much farther back before the system detects the car and starts to slow you down. That means you are getting in the passing lane much farther back than is customary in my area. Unless you're willing to manage the throttle manually, this pass will be awkward.
• Sometimes the system gets confused if you are going around a curve on a multi-lane highway and it detects the car in the lane next to you. That can lead to some strange, unexpected slowdowns.
• I find that the ACC actually causes me to modulate my speed more than a typical cruise control because of all of the slowing and speeding up described above.
• The collision avoidance alert, especially the alert lights and noise of a frontal collision, is a bit excessive and again conservative. If someone is making a turn in front of you and you haven't completely lifted you foot from the throttle, the system will flash the heads up light on the windshield and signal an audible alert. There were several times when this happened and I was not even close to the car in front of me.

Again, I realize some will disagree, but for me I would rather have a traditional cruise control system. At least it would have been nice if I could choose to use the "adaptive" part of the system or not.

YMMV

Derodeo

I've had Adaptive Cruise on my MKX for 4 years and IMO it is the one of the very best features available in a modern vehicle and the fact that it hasn't been available until now is the main reason why I have waited so long to buy a new pickup.

Regarding some of your points:
Audio and visual warnings when reversing is part of the Cross-Traffic alert, not ACC.

At the shortest gap distance I am not sure I have ever had a vehicle cut in front of me. Interesting driving behaviour if that is common in your area. In fact I have the opposite complaint in that the longest gap distance could be made longer in the case of high speeds and relatively poor driving conditions.

It is true that passing a car may require a bit of advance planning because the system will detect an slower moving vehicle fairly far in advance and gradually begin slowing down at that point. Of course use of the accelerator pedal at any time overrides ACC.

I have only very rarely experienced a case of a vehicle in another lane affecting the system. It can happen but I've been very impressed by how rare that is - the system does account for the steering angle of your vehicle. The Collision Avoidance alert is another system that I had activate only very rarely and only a couple of times in a "false" scenario (once was a train travelling on a curved track in front of me). In the dozen or so times this system has activated over the years, it is usually the result of someone in front slowing down to make a right turn. That can be a bit annoying but it may also have saved me from a near collision once or twice. The sensitivity of that system can be adjusted and is also dependent upon gap distance.

Now the one big problem I've had with the system is that it used to fairly frequently disable itself due of faulty sensors (i.e. not a result of dirty sensors). When that happens, you either have to stop/restart the engine or change over to conventional cruise control. It took Ford / my dealership a couple of years before they finally got that problem mostly licked. It still will often disable itself when in the vicinity of radar installations.