I my opinion the ACC is potentially dangerous/life threatening.
1) in the case you highlighted beaware that signalling disengages ACC
2) If you pull out behind a overtaking car the car may decide to brake and the car behind will be in the back of you.
3) If a overtaking car pulls in front of you your car will brake/rapidly slow down just because he has taken your space. The human brain would say "no bother he is going the same speed and is pulling off at the sliproad coming up"

The only time i use it now is in the 50mph roadworks queue on motorways.

 

I my opinion the ACC is potentially dangerous/life threatening.
1) in the case you highlighted beaware that signalling disengages ACC
I was in control of the car at all times. Hands on the wheel and foot resting on accelerator, ready to brake if needed.
2) If you pull out behind a overtaking car the car may decide to brake and the car behind will be in the back of you.
If they did hit me then they shouldn't have been close enough to do so...
3) If a overtaking car pulls in front of you your car will brake/rapidly slow down just because he has taken your space. The human brain would say "no bother he is going the same speed and is pulling off at the sliproad coming up"
This scenario has happend me 100's of times while on an M'way or even on an A road driving at 60mph, when someone cuts in or overtakes me and maneuvers in front of me. I find the ACC copes very well in this situation. I have yet to have the ACC stab on the brakes, instead it has always read the situation very well noticing that the car cutting in was driving faster than i was. You can feel the car letting off the power and coasting to ease off the gap, or if needed it will apply some brake/regen to slow the car more if needed to gain a bigger pre set gap.

The only time i use it now is in the 50mph roadworks queue on motorways.

Replied in Bold

 

What @buck eejit said.

But also for point 1, if you have ACC set at a higher speed than you are currently driving, then indicate to overtake the car will often start to speed up marginally just before you actually pull out into the other lane. Then when it's clear ahead it accelerates up to the set speed. So indicating definitely doesn't disengage ACC. Pressing the brake pedal does though. I've only used ACC overtaking on dual carriageway/motorway, on single carriageway I manually disengage it and overtake myself before re-engaging it.

 

What @buck eejit said.

But also for point 1, if you have ACC set at a higher speed than you are currently driving, then indicate to overtake the car will often start to speed up marginally just before you actually pull out into the other lane. Then when it's clear ahead it accelerates up to the set speed. So indicating definitely doesn't disengage ACC. Pressing the brake pedal does though. I've only used ACC overtaking on dual carriageway/motorway, on single carriageway I manually disengage it and overtake myself before re-engaging it.

I would also normally disengage the cruise in this situation. But this time I just wanted to see how Smart or Dumb the ACC was in this situation. From now on I'll cancel ACC and do the maneuver myself. You're also correct about the ACC not cancelling if speed is set higher. My speed was set @55. As soon as I had turned the wheel to overtake the car started to pick up speed, and as soon as it saw the road was clear it ramped up the power getting back to 55.

 

you could also just press the gas to overtake (in case you need to do a quicker overtake) .. when you are done, just release the gas pedal, the ACC will automatically (re)engage ..

 

Very true. Despite doing just that quite often I forgot about it when I wrote my reply earlier.

 

What's everyone's view on using ACC in the rain? I was always taught to never ever use cruise control in wet conditions as it can lead to the losing control when unable to grip the road.

 

Hmmm... I can see the reasoning but don't quite buy it unless you've got loads of standing water. Normal rain I'm not worried about.

I got a new warning this evening. ACC unavailable because sensor was impaired. I think it was because I was driving through a heavy snow shower with those big, sticky kind of snowflakes. Normally no issue with the weather.

 

I always use it motorway and city driving it’s very useful and in no way dangerous. Obviously you have to know what limitations it has and manage that just as you would normal cruise potentially ramming the car in front... Mine will also keep it between the lines without input from me.. again you have to know the limitations of the tool.

 

Had ACC and got a red "brake now" light and car braked itself at 35mph in very heavy rain yesterday. Turned it off. Today I got the huge red collision warning out of nowhere and ParkPilot beeped for no reason. Probably shouldn't have driven in such heavy rain.

 

I had the red 'brake now' and long beep in normal conditions the other day. I wondered why it was telling me to brake when the ACC was on and it was braking already.

Since the service last month I have noticed that I'm getting more red 'exploding car' warnings, and half of them are on empty country lanes.

 

I'm super impressed with it more every day. It even spots middle lane hoggers on the motorway and doesn't undertake.

I love it in stop/start driving. There are some roadworks near me which cause queues. I leave ACC engaged and a quick press of resume if you're stationary for too long and it'll set off again. Fantastic and very relaxing.

 

I should have said when you indicate it disengages the radar distance control , not the cruise control. It will still stop you hitting the car in front. This is in the manual also.

 

Shame ACC systems can't understand hazard lights.

 

A friend of mine had all sorts of problems with ACC on a car he bought It didn't seem to follow cars in front properly and as some have suggested, got far too close to cars in front when they slowed down. He never trusted it and always manually braked.

Eventually he took the car back to the dealer and complained, saying that he thought that the ACC wasn't working properly and was just plain dangerous.

The dealer had a look, and the explained that it wasn't fitted with ACC, just normal CC.

True story, I kid you not.

 

I think I read an article once about Tesla's autopilot having the same problem..

 

I think having acc on in any conditions is a plus. If I don't notice something that it does and it starts to slow me down that has to be beneficial, and if the car starts to slow down I'm going to notice that and be more alert.
Non adaptive cc I can see being an issue in bad conditions but with the ability to slow for traffic is rather it was switched on. I know I'm not as observant as I was 20 years ago.

 

Did my first long trip in the eGolf this week (370 miles from Surrey to Norfolk and back). Used ACC for quite a lot of the motorway driving and I found it a really useful tool. The drive was a great experience really, didn’t buy this car for long journeys but found it really comfortable nonetheless. It’s a terrific car IMHO.
I wouldn’t use ACC in heavy weather, same as I would probably takeover in the cyclist scenario, but I was impressed with how it handled busy motorway traffic and people diving in and out of lanes on the M25. It’s a tool like any other, it’s really effective in the appropriate circumstances but shouldn’t be relied upon at all times, overall I’m a fan of how it works in the eGolf.

 

Can you share more about the trip? How many stops? Average speed/consumption?

 

Strap in TLDR all went well.

Took it fairly conservatively and got really held up at the Dartford tunnel but using the ACC set to 65 managed 4.2 both ways.
Tail wind going (very back end of Ciera) small head wind going back but a consistent 7degress.
Had the air con at 21 all the way there and drove in Normal mode apart from when in stop/star traffic (B mode). When ACC wasn’t active I knocked it into D1 for downhill parts and, if nobody behind who’d get held up, approaching roundabouts with a burst of B when nearer the line.
Stopped a couple of times on the way up, mainly to check out where things were for the future and to test the various RFIDs, accounts and apps - all worked seamlessly, only stopped once on the way back for a longer charge (about 45ms to get to 95% and be sure of making it all the way home).
Tried ECO for last 90 miles and made it back with just nesrly 50miles still in the tank.
This was something of a fact finding drive and I have come away from it very pleased and unafraid of future long journeys.
I’ll try to attach a screenie of the app, just know that it didn’t take 5hrs to drive it, there were stops additional to charging.

 

I love the ACC, but clearly recognise some of its constraints. As I live in the sticks with narrow lanes with stone walls or hedges then I have had the warning come on if I'm in ACC mode. This is also why I didn't bother with the Lane Assist - white lines are a rarity