So headed from Houston to Corpus Christi Friday night and returned Saturday.

Went through on of the worst rain storm I've ever been in. Couldn't see 50 feet in front of the car for about 45 minutes, was only going about 20 mph, along hwy 77. But thats not really the point.

So decided to try out the active cruise control feature. Got to say it has its ups and downs.

It is nice if your just cruising and not worried about getting there quickly. From Houston to Corpus, cruise set at 79, used it all the way once outside of the city until about Refugio (nearly 100 miles). I never had to touch the accelerator or brake once. It maintained distance and speed very well, even when cars would move in front of me or as I appraoched them.

Coming home was using it and then it shut off auto matically when the rain got to heavy, couldn't turn it back on. Kind of a nice feature once I thought about it. After the down poor from hell, that would never end, I put it back on and realized the down side to using it. It would maintain a distance from the car in front of me until that car moved out of the way, well cars just kept passing me on the right and moving in front of me therefore slowing me down more, for about 15 minutes this went on while a dozen cars passed me on the right and I was unable to make any ground to pass the car that everyone else was passing. It was pretty amusing after I realized what was going on.

But all in all I like this feature for casual long distance driving.

Now the pictures, not great but I like pictures.



it was so humid this was the only shot I could get in the morning before the lens fogged over



on the seawall

 

Wow, that is one steep driveway! Thanks for sharing your experience. I have not used the active cruise control feature yet.

 

Steep doesn't begin to describe it. I tried going up it and ended up spinning the rear wheels while the VDC tried to figure what the hell was going on. Decided to just park on the road and while "backing" (more like descending while easing off the brake) out to the road rubbed the front lip on the pavement . I'll never try to make it up that thing again.

 

Is that first pic in Corpus? Or do you live in some part of Houston I haven't seen, with actual elevation changes?

What part of Houston? I'm in the NW - PG with partially debadged G35S

 

Both pics are in Corpus taken today. (regardless of what the date stamp says)

I'm NW also about 1 mile from the SAM Houston Racetrack.

 

The G's come with active cruise? As in the car will slow down by it self if a car gets in front of it? If it does, it comes on all models?

 

Yes it is available. You have to get the technology package to get the intelligent cruise control. I think it's available for AWD, Journey, and Sport models. The car will slow down by itself if a car gets in front of it.

 

And then speed back up to your set cruise point when the area in front of the car is clear.

 

And you can set the distance you want to allow between you and the car in front of you. I believe the three options are 150, 100 or 50 ft. IMO 150 ft is way too far - I prefer the 50 ft setting.

 

I may wrong, but I thought that the actual distance maintained by the three settings varied with the speed driven.

I rarely use the longest setting, but the middle works well for less traffic or hov lanes while the shortest setting is needed is heavier traffic or someone is always cutting into the gap ahead of me.

 

/\ +1

 

Yep, played with the ICC for the 1st time last night. As others have noted, I noticed the surging issue while going downhill.

With ICC, how does the car slow down? Engine braking, applies brakes?

 

Engine brake and if that's not enough, it will apply up to 25% brake as well.
My wife was behind me on the way home from picking the car up and I turned the ICC on for just a minute and when I approached the car in front of me, it slowed down, and the wife saw my brake lights come on, and I hadn't touched the brake pedal.

Pretty cool stuff.

 

Very cool stuff!

I was pretty skeptical about ACC, until I tried it. Now I see it as a safety feature...Your car will be constantly adjusting speeds to the traffic in front of you, often before you could possibly react by yourself. (When the driver in front of you slows down, the first thing he does is lift his foot off the accelerator. His car will slow, but his brake light won't show yet. Your depth perception at speed on the highway isn't good enough to detect this initial deceleration, but the ACC has already reacted - and drawn your attention).

 

I also appreciate that if a car in front of me slows suddenly, the system will apply the brake immediately and by the time I hit the brake it's already "pre-primed" and my braking gets a faster and stronger response. I would guess that this is even more effective than the systems in some cars now that move the brake pads in if they sense a sudden stop may be needed.