Cruise control radar feature.

That is freakin' cool!
Going around Ft Worth on loop 820 yesterday. Set the cruise control. Had the radar set for Max distance.
A vehicle slows in front of me. The truck reduces speed!
"Wow! The truck is slowing down."
My son says, "Your feet aren't on the pedals."

My question to all of you is these following.
Is the truck using the breaks, simply reducing the gas to the engine, or "taking the foot off the gas"?

 

My wife's Odyssey has this and it's awesome. It came to a complete stop once when a car in front of me came to a complete stop in order to make a right turn. I think it does a mixture of breaks and reducing gas.

 

just be mindful, if someone cuts you off don't be surprised if it slams on the breaks. I think I read on the forums this has happened but I have not seen it personally. but then again I hope it doesn't happen. I can see it being great feature during open interstate driving but rush hour interstate traffic could be an issue if does slam on the brakes.

 

Had some folks do that and it didn't hard break. I will say that when the other vehicles jumped in front of me that they were opening the distance from me pretty fast.

 

Yea, this feature is on our Acura and when a car merged in front of me and was slowing down to turn, the car’s emergency accident avoidance brakes initiated and the brakes were applied really hard. Unpredictably hard from the car behind me’s perspective, I’m sure. Just glad I didn’t get rear-ended. Couldn’t have been a bad sequence of events, but it’s like the car didn’t slow down enough/fast enough based on radar cruise and initiated the accident avoidance brakes. Not a Tundra, so may not apply directly.

 

good to hear, but not really anything you can test for really (as least for normal folks).

 

From what I have experience, it uses both depending on the situation. I was approaching someone on a dark country road, that was going considerably slower than I, and I noticed the brake lights come on. In a gradual situation on the highway, it feels more like a throttle brake, basically just lifting, thank wheel brake.

 

I almost had the option to test the pedestrian avoidance feature with a coworker about an hour ago. Seemed like a good idea at the time. Everyone in the office tried to get him to do it.

 

It will use a combination of letting off the gas and braking, depending on the situation and the speed of both vehicles. Sometimes when someone cuts you off it might brake a little harder than what you would do if you were 'in control', but they have to stay on the safe side.
One thing to keep an eye on, is when you are behind a vehicle that slows down for an exit, you will slow down accordingly. Then, when he makes the turn on the exit and is not in front of you anymore, your truck will 'think' the road is open and will accelerate back tot he preset speed, which might not be appropriate for where you are on the ramp.
(There was actually a funny story here on the forum a while back about a guy that this happened to - I can see it happen, although he was a little more dramatic about it than needed.)

 

Sometimes it will brake when it is not sure what is going on, like going between an 18 wheeler and guardrail. especially if there is one of those reflective signs at the front of the guardrail. I like it for the most part but as mentioned before, you will have to be sure you move over to pass slower traffic soon enough or it will start braking and sometimes it will get your attention as well as anyone behind you...and a few dirty looks.

 

I have tested this many times and the one that could be somewhat dangerous is the people that cut in front of you "moving slower than you" will cause some pretty heavy brakes applied, also when someone is turning out of your lane. I have had it brake very hard when the person was basically out of my travel lane, just a corner of the car on the shoulder moving away from the lane. If I had someone close behind me on the time when the car in front of me was turning out of my lane, I could have been rear ended.

In the case on the freeway, I just applied some gas when it wanted to try to slow down a little too much for freeway speeds when the person merged in front of me going slightly slower than my set speed and had merged fairly close to the front of my truck. I think if you have it set to medium or shorter distance it might not react as much as set to max distance.

Maybe the best way to use this feature is to set to minimum or mid level on freeways, on highways or surface streets might be best to set it to just above mid to max distance.

How many levels are there? 4? I need to check into this.

 

Only 3 levels; representing car lengths - one car length = the space that you would keep in between you and the car in front of you, 2 car spaces = the same plus the length of a car and it's space in between, and 3 = 2 cars in between with 3 spaces.

 

I had it set for three and was driving the speed limit in the slow lane. Our local NASCAR drivers like to get around slow traffic no matter what lane that they have to use.

 

I have found the distance increases with speed.

 

I had it on a purposely changed lanes into one with a slow driver to see what the system did. I can verify it presses the brakes for you. Also, the TSS system will "assist" with braking in an "emergency" situation . . . like when the guy in front of you stops short, but you're trying not to so the person behind you doesn't hit you, but you now stop short regardless and get rear ended because of that . . . true story

 

Better the a-hole behind you that's at fault than the a-hole behind the guy in front of you who's fault it is.

 

Correct, as it should. The faster you go the bigger the gap between you and the car in front of you should be, and the TSS is programmed accordingly.

 

I think it's 2 3 and 4 second following distances from my experience.

 

And talking to friends who drive Mazda's, they have a 1 second following distance option. Closes the gap instead of saying "please get in front of me".

 

so at 50 mph you'd be moving 73 ft/sec. So in 2 seconds you'd cover 146 ft. So between Medium and Long would be a 2 second following distance at 50 mph.

50 (5280 ft) / 60 min /60 sec = 73.3333 ft/sec

 

Sounds about right. That's why we were taught the "Thousand-and-one, Thousand-and-two" following distance rule.

 

actually the bars represent distance in feet.

3 bars (long) = ~160 ft
2 bars (med) = ~130 ft
1 bar (short) = ~100 ft

correspond to a vehicle speed of 50 mph (80 km/h). Vehicle-to-vehicle distance increases/decreases in accordance with vehicle speed.

 

Correct, I posted that information 2 posts up. The distances (160', 130' 100' are calculated based on safe following distance, which represent a car length plus safe following distance)

 

And thanks to everyone that provided information.