Three months experience with my "hated" S650

[CzechMate]

Frontal collision assist is finicky, even at the lowest following distance.

I didn’t know you could change the distance for the frontal collision assist. I know you can adjust it for adaptive cruise control, which by the way I don’t use at all. I don’t like how it reacts — it makes the driving jerky and unnatural.


Frontal collision assist is different. It’s one of those features you don’t even know is there. It just silently watches how you drive and, when it thinks you’re about to collide with another car, it simply slams the brakes. No warning, no discussion.


I’ll dig into the settings to see if there’s a way to turn it off by default, but knowing how stupid EU regulations are — and how much hand-holding the EU forces on car manufacturers — I’m afraid it will be ON by default as well, with no option to disable it permanently.


I hate the EU. Honestly, I probably hate it the same way — or even more — than I hated the communists who ruled my country during the Soviet era.

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[Gregs24]

For the keyless - if it is inconsistent it is very likely the 12v battery is low on charge - an overnight charge will work wonders.

Lane assist - easy to turn off with the button on the steering wheel - thank you Ford as many cars are not this easy.

Collision warning should be a warning first then braking if you take no action. If it is slamming on the brakes then you are either very close to another vehicle or something is wrong with the calibration. Mine certainly doesn't do that and rarely activates at all even with the warning.

Auto high beam works well for me - maybe another calibration issue as it uses the same camera?

 

[CzechMate]

Lane assist - easy to turn off with the button on the steering wheel - thank you Ford as many cars are not this easy.

Collision warning should be a warning first then braking if you take no action. If it is slamming on the brakes then you are either very close to another vehicle or something is wrong with the calibration. Mine certainly doesn't do that and rarely activates at all even with the warning.

If it hadn’t happened to me — during an EXTREMELY safe merging maneuver, one that I literally do 100× a week and where this has never happened before — I would probably be replying exactly the same way you are now: “It never happens, you must have done something, you were too close…” etc. I’d be suspicious too and assume user error.
Until it happens…


Regarding how “easy” it is to switch lane assist off — as I already mentioned, in the EU it turns itself ON every single time you start the engine. So yes, technically it’s easy to turn off… if you remember to do it every time you drive. That’s not how a car should behave, at least IMHO.


As for the rest, calibration might indeed be a factor, but when multiple systems (collision assist, auto high beams) behave oddly in edge cases, it doesn’t exactly inspire confidence.

For the keyless - if it is inconsistent it is very likely the 12v battery is low on charge - an overnight charge will work wonders.

This might be a good hint actually. I am using parking surveilance camera and although it does have battery protection feature, it gets the battery down to 12V before it switches off. So the battery is probably constantly at about 25% capacity.

I never thought I’d say this, but in many ways the user experience was better with the S550. There are things I’m happy about, but there are also important things I’m not happy about — actually, not happy at all. The driver-assist features are one of them.

I will keep investigating how to disable them using Forscan.

 

[Gregs24]

If it hadn’t happened to me — during an EXTREMELY safe merging maneuver, one that I literally do 100× a week and where this has never happened before — I would probably be replying exactly the same way you are now: “It never happens, you must have done something, you were too close…” etc. I’d be suspicious too and assume user error.
Until it happens…


Regarding how “easy” it is to switch lane assist off — as I already mentioned, in the EU it turns itself ON every single time you start the engine. So yes, technically it’s easy to turn off… if you remember to do it every time you drive. That’s not how a car should behave, at least IMHO.


As for the rest, calibration might indeed be a factor, but when multiple systems (collision assist, auto high beams) behave oddly in edge cases, it doesn’t exactly inspire confidence.



This might be a good hint actually. I am using parking surveilance camera and although it does have battery protection feature, it gets the battery down to 12V before it switches off. So the battery is probably constantly at about 25% capacity.

I never thought I’d say this, but in many ways the user experience was better with the S550. There are things I’m happy about, but there are also important things I’m not happy about — actually, not happy at all. The driver-assist features are one of them.

I will keep investigating how to disable them using Forscan.

But the point is the calibration of the camera could be causing the warnings and high beams - it may be faulty.

Lane Assist - it is what it is. All new cars have it here in Europe.

 

[LouG]

It's not just the EU that's foisted this witchery on us. But at least Ford made it easy to switch off.
A double click of the mode button to custom mode and ASS goes off in the mode I set up.
Double click the lane assist and that's off. Much easier than the PIA system in our Skoda.
The other great thing with Ford is that you can carry out these changes as quick as you can press the buttons. VAG make you wait while each change initialises.

 

[rugedraw]

Unfortunately, that is not how it works here in Europe. One press activates a message on the screen that says "Press again to turn the lane keeping OFF". When you press again, it deactivates the lane keeping system, but only for this ride. Once you kill the engine, it re-engages again.

You can disable it with FORScan here in the IPMA. In the US market, the Mustangs show an E in this location which enables LKS with LK alert, LK Aid and LCWA (lane centering with assist).

Assuming yours also has an E there, changing that value to a 6 will only allow Lane Keep Alert to work, so you'll get the message in the cluster, but nothing will happen on the steering wheel in terms of feedback or correction.

CMB (collision mitigation by braking) can be disabled in the ABS module here:

You can turn these of at your own risk, of course.

 

[CzechMate]

You can disable it with FORScan here in the IPMA. In the US market, the Mustangs show an E in this location which enables LKS with LK alert, LK Aid and LCWA (lane centering with assist).

Assuming yours also has an E there, changing that value to a 6 will only allow Lane Keep Alert to work, so you'll get the message in the cluster, but nothing will happen on the steering wheel in terms of feedback or correction.

CMB (collision mitigation by braking) can be disabled in the ABS module here:

You can turn these of at your own risk, of course.

I will try. Thank you!

 

[CzechMate]

It's not just the EU that's foisted this witchery on us. But at least Ford made it easy to switch off.
A double click of the mode button to custom mode and ASS goes off in the mode I set up.
Double click the lane assist and that's off. Much easier than the PIA system in our Skoda.
The other great thing with Ford is that you can carry out these changes as quick as you can press the buttons. VAG make you wait while each change initialises.

I didn't drive Skoda in a very long time, despite being a Czech guy. What you are describing sounds like hell!

 

[LouG]

I didn't drive Skoda in a very long time, despite being a Czech guy. What you are describing sounds like hell!

It is a pain, they just don't do infotainment well. The car is basically good though, a long way better than the pre VAG Skodas.

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