Assistance systems causing dangerous situations (serious)

[TomekGnomek]

I enjoy the car a lot but this continues to undermine my driving confidence.

I’ve had several instances of assistance systems (lane keep, front cross traffic alert) taking over unnecessarily and creating dangerous situations. Today it almost caused a crash on a roundabout. So far I've experienced:

1) Tried to enter the roundabout with multiple lanes on it. First lane was empty, started driving to join the roundabout and the car detected cross movement from the left (cars on center and inner lanes). This caused a very abrupt full stop, I thought something had hit me. Guy after me barely made it, cars on the outer lane had to stop because I was stuck mid lane blocking traffic, I had to figure out what's happening and convince the car it's safe to drive forward (even though the alert was still going on). This was serious and given winter conditions could have easily caused a serious accident.

2) While driving on a straight good road (visible lanes and markings, flat surface, good weather) the lane keep assist suddenly forced the car to correct left as if I was about to cross the right lane (I wasn't). This caused it to almost hit the left curb, I had to overpower the steering wheel and correct its mistake. This happened several times and in some cases the steering wheel was shaking left/right as if had troubles finding the lane center. This was not innodrive, I was manually driving the car which suddenly wanted to take over and go left past the road, scary skynet shit.

3) On highway tried to switch to the left lane. Lane was empty, used blinker but the blind spot monitoring detected cars going the other direction (from the other side of highway partition) and blocked this maneuver. Detecting cars from distant lanes or cars going in the opposite direction happened more than once but this time it took over the steering and I had to force brake not to run into the car I was about to overtake.

All these situations look like these systems are over sensitive and react very strongly to misread situations which causes stress and in some cases can contribute to a crash. This is very serious and after the roundabout case I'm going back to the dealer to have this checked out.

4) One other case I had was a sudden "driver's door open" alert which caused an abrupt brake (to be honest I don't know if the car used brakes or I did or we both did - the alert caused an immediate reaction on my part). The door was closed (I was driving fine for 30 minutes before this happened), tried to open/close it several times, had to turn the car off and on for the alert to go away. This was on a quiet city road, imagine something like that happening on a highway.

At first I was not concerned as these systems sometimes go off for wrong reasons (other brands allow to adjust the sensitivity) but it keeps happening and every now and then it's not just alerts but the car taking over steering/brakes.

Have you noticed anything like that?

 

[cottony]

I disabled lane keep assist cause I also felt it was very sensitive.

My blind side monitor on left side has a lot of false positives (light on when the lane is empty or if I’m on one lane road or left most road) I think it happens exclusively at night.

one other issue I didn’t notice you post is that there’s occasional phantom braking in reverse. Each time I thought I hit something cause the car makes a thud sound when it smashes the brakes

 

[TomekGnomek]

I disabled lane keep assist cause I also felt it was very sensitive.

Tried to disable it as well but it always reverts to on for the next ride.

one other issue I didn’t notice you post is that there’s occasional phantom braking in reverse. Each time I thought I hit something cause the car makes a thud sound when it smashes the brakes

OMG had this also many times, usually when parking on my driveway. Sorry forgot about that. And this thud sound of smashing brakes is what I had after pressing the accelerator to join the roundabout.

If it's not just me this is not good as given enough of these false positives it will eventually cause an accident.

 

[prime]

I enjoy the car a lot but this continues to undermine my driving confidence.

I’ve had several instances of assistance systems (lane keep, front cross traffic alert) taking over unnecessarily and creating dangerous situations. Today it almost caused a crash on a roundabout. So far I've experienced:

1) Tried to enter the roundabout with multiple lanes on it. First lane was empty, started driving to join the roundabout and the car detected cross movement from the left (cars on center and inner lanes). This caused a very abrupt full stop, I thought something had hit me. Guy after me barely made it, cars on the outer lane had to stop because I was stuck mid lane blocking traffic, I had to figure out what's happening and convince the car it's safe to drive forward (even though the alert was still going on). This was serious and given winter conditions could have easily caused a serious accident.

2) While driving on a straight good road (visible lanes and markings, flat surface, good weather) the lane keep assist suddenly forced the car to correct left as if I was about to cross the right lane (I wasn't). This caused it to almost hit the left curb, I had to overpower the steering wheel and correct its mistake. This happened several times and in some cases the steering wheel was shaking left/right as if had troubles finding the lane center. This was not innodrive, I was manually driving the car which suddenly wanted to take over and go left past the road, scary skynet shit.

3) On highway tried to switch to the left lane. Lane was empty, used blinker but the blind spot monitoring detected cars going the other direction (from the other side of highway partition) and blocked this maneuver. Detecting cars from distant lanes or cars going in the opposite direction happened more than once but this time it took over the steering and I had to force brake not to run into the car I was about to overtake.

All these situations look like these systems are over sensitive and react very strongly to misread situations which causes stress and in some cases can contribute to a crash. This is very serious and after the roundabout case I'm going back to the dealer to have this checked out.

4) One other case I had was a sudden "driver's door open" alert which caused an abrupt brake (to be honest I don't know if the car used brakes or I did or we both did - the alert caused an immediate reaction on my part). The door was closed (I was driving fine for 30 minutes before this happened), tried to open/close it several times, had to turn the car off and on for the alert to go away. This was on a quiet city road, imagine something like that happening on a highway.

At first I was not concerned as these systems sometimes go off for wrong reasons (other brands allow to adjust the sensitivity) but it keeps happening and every now and then it's not just alerts but the car taking over steering/brakes.

Have you noticed anything like that?

Agree with this. I’ve had multiple instances where lane keep assist has aggressively corrected almost into the next over lane with a vehicle present. Worst when road starts turning and vehicle is next to a wall/ median think carpool lane. Turning feature off. I’m surprised this wasn’t noted in the dozens of car reviews by journalists.

 

[PanameraFrank]

I've had a couple of these issues and just turn the systems off now.

It is unacceptable but I hate to say it's not just Porsche. I don't think these assistance systems, especially the intrusive ones, are very good in almost any car.

My Rivian emergency braked me multiple times with nothing around. It would basically always show "ghosts" and would show cars veering into my lane when they were just going straight.

I've had the nannies be crazy in BMWs as well and while Tesla people will defend their technology as the best you can find complaint after complaint about these things happening.

I don't think these systems are at the level marketing would like people to believe. Just my 2 cents.

 

[TomekGnomek]

I've had the nannies be crazy in BMWs as well and while Tesla people will defend their technology as the best you can find complaint after complaint about these things happening.

Say what you want about BMWs but I've had more of these false positives over 5k kms in this Macan than over 100k+ in BMWs. Also this is the first time these systems are actively trying to do something really stupid and dangerous like driving off the road because of lane keeping. Plus we are not talking about FSD in Tesla or other autonomous driving software, this is basic tech that's been available in VW Golf for years.

 

[iPadOnWheels]

I had a couple of instances where the lane keeping assist tries to push me into upcoming traffic on our too narrow roads. Now my startup checklist consists of turning off the audible speeding warnings with the diamond key and the the LKA with the little button on the stalk.

 

[PrudentOcean]

None of these systems are infallible, the car manufacturers are doomed if they are too sensitive, and they are doomed if they are not sensitive enough.

Older, more analog cars don’t have these issues and are more enjoyable to drive. But let’s not overlook that the manufacturers are being forced to equip cars with these systems by law, regardless of how imperfect they are.

 

[krissrock]

i've been turned off LKA because it's too strong.
the last straw was, i was driving down a road and lady was jogging on the right side...so i attempt to cheat over to the left, and LKA was pushing BACK to the middle closer to the lady... I didn't like that, so i keep it off now.
today was the first time i had InnoDrive or ALK with Cruise control on....and there were a couple times i thought it was going take into the side of another car... but i think it's just that the system REALLY wants to keep you in the very center of the lane. So it keeps you closer to cars on turns that most humans would feel comfortable with....
but honestly, otherwise the system is good and super smooth wit the turns

 

[Wivenhoe]

As the problems with Lane Keeping seems to be manufacturer wide, I wonder if it’s the safety rating agency’s requiring them to be aggressive to ‘protect‘ inexperienced and hopeless drivers. Perhaps if they’re not aggressive enough then the car doesn’t get 5*

 

[dgkhn]

Being in the US, at least LKA on our cars retains its settings. I am leaving it off most of the time now, for the same reasons others have mentioned. It's dangerous! In particular, in my driving I find it misreads some road surface irregularities and painted over lane markings, as if they were active lane markings and it responds very aggressively. My wife does not drive my Macan, but I've still warned her about this several times, in case she ever does. If I could, I'd keep the HUD lane-keep warning but shut off the steering correction.

As the problems with Lane Keeping seems to be manufacturer wide

This is not true of all such features in other cars; my wife's Volvo has a very gentle assist that is quite effective but has not misbehaved once in the year we've had the car. My Macan was doing it several times a week.

The misinterpretation of round about traffic as dangerous cross traffic reported by the OP, while not something I've experienced, sounds very scary.

 

[SteveInKirkland]

By my nature, I do not trust any of these systems. I hold the wheel and keep my right foot ready to brake or accelerate. I think turning on your turn signal completely disables LKA ... so, when I'm avoiding someone walking on the right side of the road, turning on the turn signal towards the left will stop LKA from ping ponging you. Similarly, when entering a round-about, I use turn signals because (a) it is actually required by law where I live and (b) I believe it deactivates LKA.

My car has Innodrive and I know in some circumstances it behaves differently than a standard LKA car because of that. I agree that LKA seems aggressive and wants to ping pong you into the sides of the lane. There are very few times that I drive when LKA does not alert or push the car (typically towards the right, because I'm in the left lane and trying to stay away from someone on the right side of me).

I actually like the Innodrive version of active lane centering, especially on highways, so far. I also find it to be better than most cars with similar features. Innodrive has successfully navigated (without me guiding the wheel) a road full of roundabouts at low speed at night while I was testing the car last week.

Finally, I'm pretty certain I know of scenarios where the distance measuring and braking system is just impaired by condensation from humidity and doesn't function correctly. As I do more experiments, I'll write this up.

 

[PanameraFrank]

I will note the blindspot monitoring seems especially bad in the eMacan. It was perfectly fine on my Taycans but I get tons of ghost triggers on the eMacan. Pretty much constantly.

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