New Car Faulty Steering

[peter scott]

We just arrived in Spain this afternoon and collected a car rather bigger than we wanted. It's a VW T-Cross. My first reaction was that it must have electric powered steering and the switching arrangement was faulty. Not impressive in a car with only 5000km on its clock. I noticed this as I changed lanes a few times and the effect was that it initially ignored my command and then suddenly and second or so later responded indelicately.

After a bit I noticed a little green synbol in the instrument panel consisting of two straight lines angled inwards at the top with another dotted vertical line in between them and it dawned on me that this was a deliberate "fault" to persuade me not to change lanes. I assume to wake me up if I wandered out of lane unintentionally. After reaching our destination I discoved that there appear to be two of these nanny state features. One called Lane Assist which I turned off and the other called Front Assist and it cautioned me not to turn that off and I'm not sure I know what it seeks to control.

Peter

[Mike Watterson]

:D
:D
https://xkcd.com/1897/

[Pye Man]

Please tell me there’s a way to turn this stuff off.

The more I hear, the more than ever I’m determined to keep my twenty year old runabout hack going as long as possible.

I’m dreading that moment when you have to apply the brakes sharply and a pop up on the screen asks: ‘Are you sure?’

[Mike Watterson]

Or you can't leave the driveway

System updating [ ][ ][ ][ ][ ]

I think the USA made some fighter aircraft like that and the UK has bought some for their aircraft carrier?

[Craig]

Front assist detects whether you are heading for a stationary or slow vehicle, and haven't seen it. You get a warning sound, and then it automatically hits the brakes. In the past I have very nearly rear ended a stationary queue on a couple of occasions, and left a good deal of rubber on the road as a result.

My Kuga has it. The salesman showed it off by putting a beer crate at the end of the a straight section of tarmac at the side of the garage, and drove towards it at 30mph. Bang - on went the brakes, stopping in good time.

But I don't have lane assist, although most cars now have that, at least as an option.

[Craig]

After all, you wouldn't want to turn off ABS, or the more recent derivatives that prevent a skid in adverse road conditions. So why would you want to turn off the latest safety features?

[radioman]

Yes, my VW Tiguan has all of these features and they're a PITA.
I've switched off the Lane assist in mine and had to decrease the 'sensitivity' of the radar based Front/Driver Assist. (switching it off gives constant warnings)
Just a fortnight ago, after I'd got my car back from an MOT, my car rammed on the brakes as I was approaching a bend on the road.... the reason ?
There is a metal road sign directly in front of you on the grass verge, warning that the road bends to the right and the car thinks I'm going to collide into it !
MOT testers have to test all these devices if your car has them fitted but they don't put them back to the settings that they find them at, or at least my one doesn't !
My car's also got auto-dipping headlights (too slow to react) automatic wiper blades (rip the rubber of your blades during frosty mornings), 'Lane assist' as above plus some others I've forgotten about.
If these things don't work 100% correctly every time then they are faulty IMHO.
I do hope that driverless cars never appear on the road as I'm convinced they'll cause loads of accidents.

Andy

[peter scott]

Please tell me there’s a way to turn this stuff off.

You can turn off the Lane Assist but........don't expect it to remember your choice when stop the engine and restart. VW are clearly very keen that all drivers "benefit" from their "clever" safety feature.

Peter

[Murphyv310]

Hi Peter.
Wait till you drive a Tesla it's alleged to be even worse.
Andy has told me previously about the Tiguan, just makes me wonder if a following car could be involved with a shunt if say the driver was glancing in the mirror when the Tiguan decided to do an emergency stop!!

[Murphyv310]

Another issue here with driver assist is I was lead to believe that the vehicle is not tested on the road, so how does the MOT tester test this feature?
One for Bob Howe.