[ZeE46]

Hi all,

Was driving home from work last night, car in front of me was approx 5/6 car lengths ahead. A couple cars behind me but luckily not too close.

Driving along at 40mph then i had 2 instances of the auto brake kicking in when there is no apparent danger/collision ahead! Sh*t me up to say the least. Was ok for the rest of my commute home.

Has anyone experienced this? Could there be a larger issue at play? The only thing i can think of is that there was a low sunset directly infront of me - could this impact the camera/sensors? Bloody frightening!

Thanks
Zee

[AP]

I had this once on my previous pre LCI g30
Guy walking out from the pavement to get in to his car
My car applied the brakes
I was just as surprised as the guy walking out , he wonder why I had stopped ( so did I!)

Never had a reoccurrence

It’s a worry more so because people tend to drives too close behind so the risk of damage to your car is high

Luckily no one behind in my case

I think the so called safety systems have gone past where we want them. Lane departure is another potentially dangerous one

[bmnut]

Originally Posted by AP

I had this once on my previous pre LCI g30
Guy walking out from the pavement to get in to his car
My car applied the brakes
I was just as surprised as the guy walking out , he wonder why I had stopped ( so did I!)

Never had a reoccurrence

It’s a worry more so because people tend to drives too close behind so the risk of damage to your car is high

Luckily no one behind in my case

I think the so called safety systems have gone past where we want them. Lane departure is another potentially dangerous one

I get the collision warning every time, and if the car feels I'm approaching too fast will slow the vehicle down, at one particular location close to where I live. The circumstances are that there is only on-road parking outside some properties and one resident has a council painted 'Disabled' bay marked out for his convenience which I have absolutely no problem with whatsoever...however....some bright spark at our local council thought it would be a really good idea to construct a pedestrian refuge in the middle of the road literally a few yards away from this guy's disabled bay and I'll leave it to your imagination how awkward it is to manoeuvre around the island and his parked car without the car's 'collision warning system' having a fit!
The local buses have a nightmare with it and if there aren't any vehicles or pedestrians about they often go the 'wrong side' of the 'Keep Left' bollards!

As you say these systems are are very well intentioned but perhaps not that well executed in 'real world' scenarios?

....and as for 'Steering Intervention'...well that was switched off right from the start!

[Jimbon1973]

i had an Alfa Giulia (lovely car) prior to my M340i G21 and it had a very, very intrusive auto-braking system. There's one bit as i get into town on my daily commute where the road winds a bit (no more than that) and the bollards on the near side set the auto-braking off very often. It even slammed to a complete stop about 7 or 8 times, and this was at 30mph speeds. Almost had cars into the back of me a couple of times. Took it to dealer and they confirmed it was doing what it should do.

Thankfully the M340i has only part braked once in my 20 month ownership now, but the systems still aren't brilliant IMO. Anyone seen that electric Jag that went mad on the motorway this week- speeds of 100+ and driver couldn't slow it down?!

[thescouselander]

Yes, this happens a lot to me and I'll probably switch it off because it's getting dangerous. I've already turned the lane assist off because of dangerous interventions by the system.

[paulockenden]

If someone behind hits you in this situation then they are driving too close!

[thescouselander]

Originally Posted by paulockenden

If someone behind hits you in this situation then they are driving too close!

It's not just that, the auto braking comes on quite hard and locks the wheels, not good on corners which unfortunately are one of the more common places for the fault to occur.

[ha03274]

Is this a standard feature on the facelift M340i or only ones with Tech plus?

Thinking of getting a M340i and just want to know what I'm letting myself in for

[SilverGrey]

The brake assist option with PDC sometimes slams the brakes on as I’m reversing into my garage even though there’s plenty of clearance. I think sometimes it ‘sees’ the exhaust plume as an object that it’s about to reverse into. Well, that’s my theory as it can be a bit random!

[AP]

Yep had that aswell. I turn that off.

There is more to come.
So this year speed limit warnings are on new cars which can be defeated but has to be done every time you start the car

I believe they are talking about lane departure warning being mandatory next year that you can’t turn off
And even worse is mandatory speed limiters basing the speed on the satnav database or overridden by speed limit signs seen by the cars camera

That will be a very sad day for cars in the EU

We all know that the car can either fail to read a speed limit sign or read the wrong one on a parallel road or similar
It can be overridden by applying full throttle but still…
It’s a tough one to argue against as you are basically saying you want to exceed speed limits…..

[paulockenden]

I’ve had the auto-brake stop me from hitting a darkly dressed pedestrian stepping out between two parked cars. There’s no way I could have seen them and braked in time. I’m prepared to accept the occasional false positive when it sees a flying crisp packet or whatever in return for not killing or seriously hurting a person or animal.

[MisterG]

Originally Posted by ZeE46

Hi all,

Was driving home from work last night, car in front of me was approx 5/6 car lengths ahead. A couple cars behind me but luckily not too close.

Driving along at 40mph then i had 2 instances of the auto brake kicking in when there is no apparent danger/collision ahead! Sh*t me up to say the least. Was ok for the rest of my commute home.

Has anyone experienced this? Could there be a larger issue at play? The only thing i can think of is that there was a low sunset directly infront of me - could this impact the camera/sensors? Bloody frightening!

Thanks
Zee

Does your car have DAP?

There are settings in the idrive you can change for sensitivity of the collision avoidance system.

On cars without DAP, the windscreen camera is used to identify vehicles/pedestrians in the road ahead and do lane keep - obviously this has its limitations based on visibility.

Cars with DAP have a more advanced set of cameras (3 of them) - plus multiple front radars, so have a much better "view" of up ahead, as well as sides and rear.

[alFR]

Originally Posted by SilverGrey

The brake assist option with PDC sometimes slams the brakes on as I’m reversing into my garage even though there’s plenty of clearance.

Has also happened to me a couple of times as I'm reversing out. Slammed them on so hard I thought I'd hit something! I assume it was the radar or acoustic sensors picking up a reflection from the door frame and the car thought I was moving towards it too quickly.

Originally Posted by AP

That will be a very sad day for cars in the EU

Might be one advantage of Brexit.

Originally Posted by AP

It’s a tough one to argue against as you are basically saying you want to exceed speed limits…..

Not encouraging speeding at all but speeding gets targeted a lot because limits are easy to enforce despite the fact that excess speed is only a factor in a relatively small percentage of accidents. Unfortunately focussing totally on drivers exceeding the limit totally ignores the fact that going at the limit might be inappropriate depending on the road conditions / number of hazards present. The government would be much better spending the money raising driving standards overall by promoting post-test advanced training (e.g. IAM, RoSPA) or periodic retests IMHO. Easier to just keep bunging more cameras up though...

[The_Tok'Ra]

I have DAP in my car and had to turn down the sensitivity quite a lot as it was jumping in and braking and also the steering wheel was vibrating and steering me off the line I needed to follow quite often, even within the first few days of owning the car I noticed this.

The car taking over was rather intrusive and that was really freaking me out, to the point it was nearly causing an accident simply by distracting me so much.

These systems are no doubt very effective on the motorway, but in tight town driving when the roads are very narrow or you have a t- junction on a fairly tight 90° bend for example, the system does not cope well with a vehicle pulling up fairly quickly to the t-junction while you are on the bend, and thinks the other car is about to run into you. It nearly sent me into oncoming traffic going around said bend the other way, and that was enough for me.

Clever technology, but no substitute for an attentive human being.

[paulockenden]

Originally Posted by The_Tok'Ra

Clever technology, but no substitute for an attentive human being.

It’s meant to be a back up rather than a replacement. It’s there for things we don’t notice (if anyone thinks their attentiveness is perfect then I think they need a dose of reality). Plus, the systems will see things that you can’t. Like I said above, I think I’d have either killed or seriously injured someone without DAP. I don’t think even the most ultra-attentive driver could have braked in time.

Yes, I’ve had a few false positives. Maybe ten in my three years of ownership. But that one case more than makes up for those, in my humble. I realise not everyone will agree. I probably wouldn’t unless this had happened to me.

Having said that, I have the settings fairly dialed back. So most times a false positive just makes a noise and flashes up the red car image. It usually doesn’t apply the brakes.

[xenon]

^ what Paul said.

[The_Tok'Ra]

Originally Posted by paulockenden

It’s meant to be a back up rather than a replacement. It’s there for things we don’t notice (if anyone thinks their attentiveness is perfect then I think they need a dose of reality). Plus, the systems will see things that you can’t. Like I said above, I think I’d have either killed or seriously injured someone without DAP. I don’t think even the most ultra-attentive driver could have braked in time.

Yes, I’ve had a few false positives. Maybe ten in my three years of ownership. But that one case more than makes up for those, in my humble. I realise not everyone will agree. I probably wouldn’t unless this had happened to me.

Having said that, I have the settings fairly dialed back. So most times a false positive just makes a noise and flashes up the red car image. It usually doesn’t apply the brakes.

Fair point well made.

[bmnut]

Originally Posted by xenon

^ what Paul said.

Yup!...me too!

[thescouselander]

Originally Posted by paulockenden

It’s meant to be a back up rather than a replacement. It’s there for things we don’t notice (if anyone thinks their attentiveness is perfect then I think they need a dose of reality). Plus, the systems will see things that you can’t. Like I said above, I think I’d have either killed or seriously injured someone without DAP. I don’t think even the most ultra-attentive driver could have braked in time.

Yes, I’ve had a few false positives. Maybe ten in my three years of ownership. But that one case more than makes up for those, in my humble. I realise not everyone will agree. I probably wouldn’t unless this had happened to me.

Having said that, I have the settings fairly dialed back. So most times a false positive just makes a noise and flashes up the red car image. It usually doesn’t apply the brakes.

If these systems were a backup and the overall outcome was safer driving I'd be all for them but with BMWs implementation its just another system to monitor in addition to normal driving so overall it's detrimental to safety IMO.

[paulockenden]

Originally Posted by thescouselander

If these systems were a backup and the overall outcome was safer driving I'd be all for them but with BMWs implementation its just another system to monitor in addition to normal driving so overall it's detrimental to safety IMO.

You obviously missed the bit about it stopping me from hitting someone.

[Mason Hatcher]

Originally Posted by thescouselander

It's not just that, the auto braking comes on quite hard and locks the wheels, not good on corners which unfortunately are one of the more common places for the fault to occur.

Locks the wheels?

[thescouselander]

Originally Posted by Mason Hatcher

Locks the wheels?

Yes, absolutely until the abs kicks in.