Brand new TRD ORP nearly killed me

I have never had radar cruise control before, so I decided to try it on my first highway drive. It seemed to work just fine when the car ahead of me slowed down and it actually seemed to follow it up and down is speed. I became complacent in its ability and wasn't attentive when the car ahead slowed way down to enter a sharp curve. I think what happened is that the curve was sharp enough that the radar lost track. When it did, the transmission immediately shifted down two gears and full throttle was applied. It way too much acceleration for being in a tight curve and I almost couldn't get on the brake fast enough to avoid going through the barrier on the side of the road and possibly going over the side.

Has anyone experienced this fault (IMO) of the cruise control? Is there any way to adjust the acceleration rate?

 

If you press and HOLD the button for about 3 seconds, the cruise control changes from Radar, to old school. It will never speed up or slow down on you again.

 

The only adjustment is the following distance for the radar.

 

Check your owners manual pages 258-260.

"Driving safely is the sole responsibility of the driver. Do not rely solely on the system, and drive safely by always paying careful attention to your surroundings.
The dynamic radar cruise control provides driving assistance to reduce the driver's burden. However, there are limitations to the assistance provided."

"Even when the system is functioning normally, the condition of the preceding vehicle as detected by the system may differ from the condition observed by the driver. Therefore, the driver must always remain alert, assess the danger of each situation and drive safely. Relying on this system or assuming the system ensures safety while driving can lead to an accident, resulting in death or serious injury."

"Situations unsuitable for dynamic radar cruise control Do not use dynamic radar cruise control in any of the following situations. Doing so may result in inappropriate speed control and could cause an accident resulting in death or serious injury. ●Roads where there are pedestrians, cyclers, etc. ●In heavy traffic ●On roads with sharp bends ●On winding roads ●On slippery roads, such as those covered with rain, ice or snow ●On steep downhills, or where there are sudden changes between sharp up and down gradients Vehicle speed may exceed the set speed when driving down a steep hill. ●At entrances to freeways and highways ●When weather conditions are bad enough that they may prevent the sensors from detecting correctly (fog, snow, sandstorm, heavy rain, etc.) ●When there is rain, snow, etc. on the front surface of the radar sensor or camera sensor ●In traffic conditions that require frequent repeated acceleration and deceleration ●When your vehicle is towing a trailer or during emergency towing ●When an approach warning buzzer is heard often"

Its basically only meant for straight line highway driving.

 

Try not to rely on the radar cruise control too heavily. I don't believe it's designed to be a "self driving" feature and if you treat it like one you could be putting yourself in a bad situation.

Personally I use radar cruise control a lot but my foot stays on the gas slightly and I'm still very attentive to my the road ahead of the car in front of me. Keeping my foot barely touching the gas pedal keeps my vehicle from slowing down abruptly when someone slows down unnecessarily or cuts me off. Doing this effectively overrides the proximity setting you've selected. The truck will then accelerate when the car in front speeds up or moves over.

I like the system but it takes some getting used to. I wouldn't recommend using it on roads with corners or during bad weather as stated in the manual.

 

Why you use adaptive cruise in a tight curve? The version of in the 5G is not that advanced..

you have learned the limitation of this system

 

Welcome from Arizona.
Check the manual,it could save your life.

 

If I remember correctly in the setting you can adjust the sensitivity, I believe you have 3 options. It's in the manual and it will give a description of each sensitivity setting. We had a situation with our Limited where it slammed the brakes on us seemingly out of nowhere. The traffic ahead was slowing down and I already removed my foot of the gas pedal and was about to start braking when the 4Runner just slammed on the brakes and scared the crap out of us. The braking was so severe that my son's snack flew out of his hands spilling in the cab, he started to cry, my wifes purse lunged up in the air and her belonging spilled to the floor, she stared screaming. I was like wtf, still plenty of room left to slow down and stop if need to. That was and experience that's for sure.

 

Anyone else shocked that OP is surprised and thinks it's a design fault?

They're going to have to start forcing people to take training courses before using vehicles with newer technology so they don't kill or injure themselves, their families, or others on the road.

People never cease to amaze me

 

Toyota wrote it up real well in the manual. I can tell they’re a company who actually hate these systems and rather them not exist.

I use it pretty much as they describe. As a convenience, my attention to the road ahead remains intact.

 

Even though I paid for them, I don't use the dynamic cruise control, pre-collision system, or auto high beams, as they are too dumb and too slow on the 4Runner. Toyota is only about 20 years behind BMW on this technology. They might get there by the time the 7th gen is introduced.

 

Thanks for your kind responses. you could have gotten away with calling me an idiot.. I won't be using dynamic cruise control anymore. But, I believe that the application of full, or near full, acceleration is not good for safety reasons as well as for fuel economy.
A suggestion to Toyota would be to have a read me first card that points out any important dos and don'ts before driving instead of burring it in a 600 page manual. Am I supposed to read that before leaving the dealership?

 

I had a similar experience in my subaru when I first got the adaptive cruise. Love the feature, dont love the limitations. Now I understand. That said my 4Runner does not have the feature. My Subaru does have a feature to set the acceleration as well as the trailing distance.

Cheers.

 

I am glad OP posted this, as I could see myself making the same mistake. This is only obvious in a hindsight.

 

you dont have to use any of these features right after leaving the dealership. You can read them at home then try them on a safe road while you're still learning them.

This is the equivalent of turning on the steering wheel turning assist in some newer models and complaining that you almost died because the car didnt turn on its own on a sharp freeway curve.
Or using regular cruse control without knowing how it works and almost crashing because the car was moving at a constant speed in heavy rain.

All these features are not a replacement to not pay attention, they're only here to assist and help with driving comfort in certain situations. It's still good to know when to use them or not use them.

I hope you have a better experience once you are comfortable using it properly.

 

Yeah man, RTFM!





But all kidding aside, no one reads the entire manual or even part of it. I know I didn't. My thinking is "Well, if I have a question or problem, I'll Google it or ask the salty-ass guys I know on the 4Runner site."

 

I would suggest reading the pertinent section about features you've never used before, before actually using them, especially if it involves on-road handling characteristics.

 

There's a popular meme out there that says something like, "Car owners manuals in the 1900s told you how to adjust the valves. Now they tell you not to drink the contents of the battery."

Because of lawyers, and things like "runaway" Toyotas with stuck accelerators from 15 years ago (which actually turned out just to be stupid people with poorly laid floormats), we now have 600 page owners manuals. You get half a page of useful info to 4.5 pages of warnings and legal disclaimers.

 

Zero sense to use adaptive cruise control in a tight curve.. what the !? You expect the car in front of you to dictate how fast your 4r takes the tight curve? What if it’s a corvette you are following?

Does anyone even use manual cruise control set to 30mph for going off a tight off ramp?

 

Just Chevy Chase in Vacation.

 

Deleted.

 

I am too. Knowledge through others is always good.

Now i wont feel so bad ragging on these nanny systems. lol

 

Tech dependency = Bad

I was literally just talking about this on the auto braking mandate thread.

 

I'm not sure that your comments even deserve a response. I don't expect the vehicle to take off at full throttle when resuming! Does that make sense to you?

 

Indeed, and not a lot of traffic where the system constantly has to slow you down and cook the brakes.

 

This is a function of the cruise control itself, not the radar. I don't have radar on my 2011 (obviously), and I've had similar situations with the cruise control. I think it's a combination of the gearing, and the cruise control doing it's job to keep a set speed. The transmission is going to downshift at least one, likely two gears to obey the cruise control. Why anyone would have cruise control set entering sharp curves is beyond me, anyway.

 

A good rule is if you don't know how something works, look into it before you use it.
Nobody buys these for fuel economy, if you did, go back to the dealer and get a Corolla (and then read the manual).
Full or near full acceleration is not a problem if you were using the system properly in the first place.

Personally, I could do without all this crap, it just makes people worse drivers and allows them to pay less attention (and they do). When you are behind the wheel, you have ONE job...drive.

 

I look at Tech Dependency like trusting the government. Then I remember this:

 

No. You set the speed. The vehicle attempts to maintain it. Of course it will take off at full throttle, if that's what it takes to reach the speed.

 

Everyone makes mistakes, and it’s admirable to own up to them. That’s the first step in analyzing what was behind your close call, and how lucky you were that you didn’t lose complete control in this situation. One big error as mentioned, is using the cruise control in a situation where you needed full control to maneuver through a turn. The other error, is that the speed set on the cruise control was excessive for the curve. If it wasn’t set so high, it would not have accelerated as hard as it did. Radar assist cruise control was designed with the assumption that cruise control is being engaged in appropriate conditions (and in those conditions, it works well).

If you are a new driver, an another lesson is that you are in control and reaponsible for operation of the vehicle…not any technology, buttons, or radars on the vehicle. Even if a Tesla salesman (Elon in this case) tells you a Tesla is “full self driving”, you have to realize those are just misleading marketing terms used by irresponsible business people with their own agendas. You are still in command, and you are still fully legally liable for safe operation of your vehicle. Period.

Unfortunately, a lot of drivers seem to be very naive in terms of what all these driver assists can actually do. At least toyota takes is a bit more conservative with how they name assist features, and are pretty transparent about their limitations.

Testing out the system for yourself is kind of difficult, since it’s always out on the open road. But that’s what has to be done. Find an open road with little traffic, and see how it behaves. Even then, you have to tread carefully, since there will always be a situation that might catch you out. I had a few unexpected accelerations myself because I didn’t notice how much my speed had decreased from the set speed due to the traffic ahead. So when it suddenly opened up in front of me, the radar cruise accelerated hard. Now I always reset my cruise speed if I decide to go with the flow of slower traffic. But that’s if I use it. Honestly, the distance holding feature is rarely useful on a day to day basis. It only comes on if I have a couple of hours of driving on open interstate.