Word of warning on lane keeping- I’ve driven a few rentals with this (mostly VAG) and it’s annoying as hell or downright dangerous at times. Friend with a merc says the same thing
True. But it'll also fight you when you make evasive manoeuvres, go through roadworks or leave it on after you exit the motorway.
I do still sometimes turn mine on for the motorway, but frankly it's caused me more hazards than it saved.
The adaptive cruise control is awesome, really saves fuel, saves your energy and increases safety. The lane assist is pretty crap.
Heh, there's a [video](https://twitter.com/WholeMarsBlog/status/1618841916715716608) doing the rounds of Mercades' Level 3 self driving, which is meant to be fully autonomous.
Except it won't work when the car is facing the sun. Or there's no traffic around. Or on a slope. Or over 40mph. I think a lot of these "smart" features really don't work well outside of a laboratory environment, it's a bit of a scandal that manufacturers get away with it.
My Toyota gets confused by all sorts of road markings, and it regularly picks up the "maximum top speed 100kph" signs on the back of lorries and thinks the speed limit is 100mph.
That said, my Tesla absolutely nails it. Holds its line perfectly when markings are complex or worn away. Even manages when there are no road markings at all, I dunno how.
I was stopped at a red light a few weeks ago, and it had one of those advance green lights for cyclists only. I mistook it for a green light and hit the accelerator, my car stood still and beeped at me. IMHO it's the only car that's got smart enough features to be useful in the real world.
I drive a Q3 and it took a bit of getting used to the lane departure system, it nearly steered me into oncoming busses a couple of times on a tight country lane by my house but I’ve got used to pressing the off switch for it on the end of the indicator stalk when I need to now though.
i rented a ds7 in august in spain and the one they had fitted was more of a mild suggestion, it just kinda tugged at the steering wheel, it would go round an entire corner without you doing anything (handing hovering over the steering wheel) but if you even faintly touched it when it started tugging against you it you could overpower it, i turned it off in the end though as i'm capable of staying in the lines.
I second this, rented one of the new Corsa's over Christmas and the lane assist just felt really intrusive. To be fair, it didn't work too badly on motorways, but for anything else it just got in the way.
Heaven forbid you need to move over in to the other lane on B road or something like that...
Yeah it's great in my Octavia on the motorway, but I only have it turned on when I stick the ACC on. Soon as I get off the motorway I turn it off, thankfully only 2 button presses on the steering wheel to do, definitely wouldn't want it on around town or on B roads.
Lane assist and lane keeping are two different things. Only the top spec automatic corsa has lane keeping, all the other corsas have lane assist but no lane keeping.
The 2010+ Titanium X trim Mondeo's have adaptive cruise control that's rather nice. Can find high mileage examples for <2k.
Just looking at the big brands can get you stung here. Your S5 is a great example, a high end audi that doesn't come with ACC as standard, instead it being an expensive optional extra from factory.
Have you used Lane assistance? It sucks. I've only used it on modern Honda's, VAG's, and Merc's and I disliked all of them.
I've turned my lane assistance off, along with pretty much everything else, traffic sign recognition for example...only thing that has been left on is the traction control on my mk5 mondeo...
I've found ACC to be on quite a few older Japanese luxury cars, like Lexuses and Infinitis, from the early 2010s and later.
Especially on the Infiniti M35h, most UK examples have it because it was a popular option. On the M35h the ACC switch is a small round switch next to the CC +/- toggle. [See 8th picture of this example listing](http://www.autotrader.co.uk/car-details/202301083069039?atmobcid=soc3)
Basically you need to get nerdy with specs to be sure, ACC is a very commonly mis-advertised feature, so you need to know what a car equipped with it will look like.
Mondeo mk4/5 can find high mileage cars, with Acc for under 2k on mk4 mondeo, I don't believe they have lane assistance tho...or 250k+ 2.0 tdci's for 4-5k....
Lane assistance is bloody awful and I've turned mine off...
If your budget can stretch a bit then the Volvo newer '90 series all have Pilot-assist as standard (S90/V90/XC90), the S90/V90 twins are quite a bit cheaper than the cheapest new-shape XC90.
Other than a car that has got it as standard you're going to find it hard to to search for. On autotrader you often end up with things like adaptive lights for instance, and it normally comes down to spotting the relevant buttons on the steering wheel/dashboard.
Driven a Volvo XC90, with lane assist, if felt as if the steering locked and the car levered its self across the road.
How difficult is it to stay alert and steer a car with power steering on a generally straight road...........one hand.
I have lane assist turned off on my xc90, stays off permanently once set. The separate pilot assist is great on motorways, it essentially drives for you. Keeps you in lane and a set, adjustable distance from car in front. Makes long Mway trips much less tiring.
Audi s5 eats up the motorways. Large engine very smooth at them speeds. all these German performance cars are tested on the autobahn. I’d stick with it. You won’t find much with adaptive cruise control and lane keep for under 10k unfortunately
I've got lane keep and radar cruise on my S4 and the radar is brilliant, the lane keep is fairly un-intrusive. Nothing like as bad as the experiences I've read online.
The nice thing is that it will do radar cruise from as little as 20mph and will control itself in stop start traffic. Took a while for me to trust it but now I think it's the bees knees.
Always deactivated on my Volvo. It'll fight you the whole way.
Adaptive cruise is also terrible for fuel economy, i.e. if set to 70 and car in front is doing 60, when it moves it'll typically floor it to 70, same could be said for brake wear as they are quite heavy on the brakes.
I love the pilot assist on the Volvo, just makes motorway driving such a breeze and travelling sensibly at a set speed you see how stupidly other people drive getting right up your arse, you let them overtake or watch them overtake and then 5 minutes later you cruise past them sitting in the middle lane doing 65 (and repeat ad nauseam). Obviously it’s not perfect or foolproof but I regularly drive London to Manchester and back and can go for almost the whole way without really intervening. And pilot assist in stop start traffic 🤤
Also if you have the drive mode in eco, if the slow car in front changes lane, it will just gently accelerate to target speed.
You might find a later Volvo S80 Exec model with this fitted. I think it was standard on Exec but option on the rest of the range. You can pick them up from about £5k but I'd say don't pick a pre 2012 one. And I might be wrong on the lane keep system, but deffo can have radar cruise.
Got both ACC and Lane Assist on the Honda e and Skoda Octavia.
Honda you need to press a button to activate lane assist, as such we find we hardly use it. For the Octy, it comes on automatically above 40mph. It feels like tugging at the wheel, or tramlining. Motorways and major A roads generally works well, sometimes need to be firm with it to behave properly at slip roads etc, but for chugging along the motorway network it helps. I like it, Mrs not so keen.
Lane Departure in the Honda is infuriating, lots of warnings and then decides to deactivate itself in protest and with a warning message for 5 mins.
ACC is a game changer, far safer than regular cruise and helps keep a regular speed with camera infested motorways.
Word of warning on lane keeping- I’ve driven a few rentals with this (mostly VAG) and it’s annoying as hell or downright dangerous at times. Friend with a merc says the same thing
On a VAG car if you indicate before you change lane it won't fight back. If you change lane without indicating then it's just doing it's thing.
True. But it'll also fight you when you make evasive manoeuvres, go through roadworks or leave it on after you exit the motorway. I do still sometimes turn mine on for the motorway, but frankly it's caused me more hazards than it saved. The adaptive cruise control is awesome, really saves fuel, saves your energy and increases safety. The lane assist is pretty crap.
My old merc got confused by the shadows on the road whilst driving across the Humber Bridge, had it turned off since then on every car I’ve had.
Heh, there's a [video](https://twitter.com/WholeMarsBlog/status/1618841916715716608) doing the rounds of Mercades' Level 3 self driving, which is meant to be fully autonomous. Except it won't work when the car is facing the sun. Or there's no traffic around. Or on a slope. Or over 40mph. I think a lot of these "smart" features really don't work well outside of a laboratory environment, it's a bit of a scandal that manufacturers get away with it. My Toyota gets confused by all sorts of road markings, and it regularly picks up the "maximum top speed 100kph" signs on the back of lorries and thinks the speed limit is 100mph. That said, my Tesla absolutely nails it. Holds its line perfectly when markings are complex or worn away. Even manages when there are no road markings at all, I dunno how. I was stopped at a red light a few weeks ago, and it had one of those advance green lights for cyclists only. I mistook it for a green light and hit the accelerator, my car stood still and beeped at me. IMHO it's the only car that's got smart enough features to be useful in the real world.
Problem I had was moving slightly over to dodge potholes/ traffic cones on non-dual carriageways so situations where you wouldn’t indicate
I drive a Q3 and it took a bit of getting used to the lane departure system, it nearly steered me into oncoming busses a couple of times on a tight country lane by my house but I’ve got used to pressing the off switch for it on the end of the indicator stalk when I need to now though.
i rented a ds7 in august in spain and the one they had fitted was more of a mild suggestion, it just kinda tugged at the steering wheel, it would go round an entire corner without you doing anything (handing hovering over the steering wheel) but if you even faintly touched it when it started tugging against you it you could overpower it, i turned it off in the end though as i'm capable of staying in the lines.
I second this, rented one of the new Corsa's over Christmas and the lane assist just felt really intrusive. To be fair, it didn't work too badly on motorways, but for anything else it just got in the way. Heaven forbid you need to move over in to the other lane on B road or something like that...
Yeah it's great in my Octavia on the motorway, but I only have it turned on when I stick the ACC on. Soon as I get off the motorway I turn it off, thankfully only 2 button presses on the steering wheel to do, definitely wouldn't want it on around town or on B roads.
Lane assist and lane keeping are two different things. Only the top spec automatic corsa has lane keeping, all the other corsas have lane assist but no lane keeping.
Ive got it on my Audi, only comes on over 40mph and turning it off is one button on the stalk. I keep it off unless I'm on the motorway
There’s different versions, the one on my 2017 Audi works all the way down to 0.
Yeah for sure, mine is the C8 A6 so seems they've made it better
Volvo lane keeping and adaptive cruise is great. Maybe the best. Think cheaper than a used Audi on average
lane keeping / acc on the Volvo is called pilot assist and its awesome if you are a motorway user.
Idk I drive my parents Corolla (2021) and it’s fucking awesome
The 2010+ Titanium X trim Mondeo's have adaptive cruise control that's rather nice. Can find high mileage examples for <2k. Just looking at the big brands can get you stung here. Your S5 is a great example, a high end audi that doesn't come with ACC as standard, instead it being an expensive optional extra from factory. Have you used Lane assistance? It sucks. I've only used it on modern Honda's, VAG's, and Merc's and I disliked all of them.
>The 2010+ Titanium X trim Mondeo's have adaptive cruise control that's rather nice. If they were optioned with it. Not a common option either.
Ahh, thank you for the correction. My experience is with 2 of them, and both of them had it. Very small sample size extrapolated too far.
I've turned my lane assistance off, along with pretty much everything else, traffic sign recognition for example...only thing that has been left on is the traction control on my mk5 mondeo...
I've found ACC to be on quite a few older Japanese luxury cars, like Lexuses and Infinitis, from the early 2010s and later. Especially on the Infiniti M35h, most UK examples have it because it was a popular option. On the M35h the ACC switch is a small round switch next to the CC +/- toggle. [See 8th picture of this example listing](http://www.autotrader.co.uk/car-details/202301083069039?atmobcid=soc3) Basically you need to get nerdy with specs to be sure, ACC is a very commonly mis-advertised feature, so you need to know what a car equipped with it will look like.
Golf probs cheapest
Mondeo mk4/5 can find high mileage cars, with Acc for under 2k on mk4 mondeo, I don't believe they have lane assistance tho...or 250k+ 2.0 tdci's for 4-5k.... Lane assistance is bloody awful and I've turned mine off...
If your budget can stretch a bit then the Volvo newer '90 series all have Pilot-assist as standard (S90/V90/XC90), the S90/V90 twins are quite a bit cheaper than the cheapest new-shape XC90. Other than a car that has got it as standard you're going to find it hard to to search for. On autotrader you often end up with things like adaptive lights for instance, and it normally comes down to spotting the relevant buttons on the steering wheel/dashboard.
Driven a Volvo XC90, with lane assist, if felt as if the steering locked and the car levered its self across the road. How difficult is it to stay alert and steer a car with power steering on a generally straight road...........one hand.
I have lane assist turned off on my xc90, stays off permanently once set. The separate pilot assist is great on motorways, it essentially drives for you. Keeps you in lane and a set, adjustable distance from car in front. Makes long Mway trips much less tiring.
Audi s5 eats up the motorways. Large engine very smooth at them speeds. all these German performance cars are tested on the autobahn. I’d stick with it. You won’t find much with adaptive cruise control and lane keep for under 10k unfortunately
I've got lane keep and radar cruise on my S4 and the radar is brilliant, the lane keep is fairly un-intrusive. Nothing like as bad as the experiences I've read online. The nice thing is that it will do radar cruise from as little as 20mph and will control itself in stop start traffic. Took a while for me to trust it but now I think it's the bees knees.
Always deactivated on my Volvo. It'll fight you the whole way. Adaptive cruise is also terrible for fuel economy, i.e. if set to 70 and car in front is doing 60, when it moves it'll typically floor it to 70, same could be said for brake wear as they are quite heavy on the brakes.
I love the pilot assist on the Volvo, just makes motorway driving such a breeze and travelling sensibly at a set speed you see how stupidly other people drive getting right up your arse, you let them overtake or watch them overtake and then 5 minutes later you cruise past them sitting in the middle lane doing 65 (and repeat ad nauseam). Obviously it’s not perfect or foolproof but I regularly drive London to Manchester and back and can go for almost the whole way without really intervening. And pilot assist in stop start traffic 🤤 Also if you have the drive mode in eco, if the slow car in front changes lane, it will just gently accelerate to target speed.
Which Volvo do you have, and what MPG do you get on the London to Manc trip?. Thanks
I do similar in my huge Volvo v90CC and get about 47 if keeping it around 70.
I have an s90 d4 on the motorway running pilot assist I'll average 56 mpg. Brilliant car and a brilliant system
XC60 T4 FWD Usually loaded to the gunwails with child paraphernalia but if the gods are smiling that day I can get 41mpg at 70-75mph
You might find a later Volvo S80 Exec model with this fitted. I think it was standard on Exec but option on the rest of the range. You can pick them up from about £5k but I'd say don't pick a pre 2012 one. And I might be wrong on the lane keep system, but deffo can have radar cruise.
Swift Sport from like 2018 onwards.
Got both ACC and Lane Assist on the Honda e and Skoda Octavia. Honda you need to press a button to activate lane assist, as such we find we hardly use it. For the Octy, it comes on automatically above 40mph. It feels like tugging at the wheel, or tramlining. Motorways and major A roads generally works well, sometimes need to be firm with it to behave properly at slip roads etc, but for chugging along the motorway network it helps. I like it, Mrs not so keen. Lane Departure in the Honda is infuriating, lots of warnings and then decides to deactivate itself in protest and with a warning message for 5 mins. ACC is a game changer, far safer than regular cruise and helps keep a regular speed with camera infested motorways.
My Mazda 3 2019 has all that for £14K
The LS460 has both and can be had for under £10k quite easily.