Today we had the first snow of the season. I was driving with the CC set at 50 mph when the snow started. Then I noticed I was rapidly closing the gap with the car ahead. I pushed the brake pedal, and wonder about the thing. Engaged the cc again and again sped up closing the gap with the car ahead. I increased the pre-determined distance to no avail. It wasn’t until about 3 miles later that the system was disabled and I got the message that the radar was obstructed. That’s not good. Of course I don’t rely on the system and fully understand it is a nice assistance, but never a substitute for my attention and control. But I can see someone getting in trouble. It should have disabled from the moment it got obstructed. I used to complain about my other car being a whiny disabling the system quite often with bad weather. Now I understand the reason.

 

Yup. My previous vehicle also disabled things early and often, even without adaptive cruise turned on. I had enough alarming behaviors even with that to cause me to only use cruise and adaptive cruise in the daytime in good weather. I'm less trusting of this truck than I was of that car based on what I've experienced so far. It waits too long to brake even in clear conditions, even with the follow distance set very long.

 

Setting cruse on a slippery road isn’t the best choice to make.

 

On a long road trip up north a couple summers ago, the suburban I traded for my truck got so covered in bugs that it disabled the cruise. Unfortunately there was no way to make that thing "regular" cruise so it was pedal only until i cleaned the front off.

 

Snow and ice will disrupt the adaptive cruise.. Blocks the radar I assume. We turn it off when driving in that weather and go back to regular cruise

 

In light snow I have already had ice freeze over a sensor resulting in my parking proximity alarms going off while driving. Might be getting really good at switching those off.

Note to Ford engineers- need to send heat to those elements

 

Yeah I believe the F-150 manual advises against using ACC in inclement weather. The system will disable at a point, but much like the sensors for the auto wipers, they can sometimes be slow to act, act when it isn’t entirely needed (heavier dew in the morning), or just not act at all. Like you said already, just have to always be ready to take over.

 

Vulnox, you must be young. More distant past 2012 🧐. My first car was 1974 Land Rover 😀