MIINTY

Chaps

Need your help...

So I was driving around on the weekend for the frist time since I got my car (2004 530) and decided to try out the lilttle gadgets the car comes with. One of which is the cruise control. I set it to 40mph and continued on the dual carriageway. I then encountered a steep gradient going down. I've been down this road before, so I know there is a GATSO speed camera at the bottom. I thought to my self. hahahahahah your not going to get me I have cruise control tha sticks at 40... Right? WRONG.. it sped up... good job the brakes work.

Is this the way cruise control works on these things? If so its rubbish!! THe Ford Taurus I used in Canada used to stick to 40 regardless of whether you're going downhill or uphill!

pinguhk

I use it all the time on bypass and going uphill will speed up but will not go pass the setting eg 40mph, so yes the CC will speed up if itis not doing that speed.

nmc

As far as I know the versions up to the LCI will not slow you down when running under cruise control. The LCI certainly does.

e60scotland

To my knowledge Cruise Braking was only introduced for LCI's, this brings me to a point which i was going to bring up as a separate thread but i'll toss it in here.......

I spend most of my commute with Cruise set to approx 73mph, on the odd occasion i have to speed up (for safety reasons , on these occasions the Cruise Braking kicks in pretty hard taking me back to my set-point, on one occasion I breached 100mph and then let the throttle go to allow me to cruise at 73mph....

The question is do the brake lights come on at this point ? given the fairly aggressive response from the car taking me back to my set point and the look on the face of the driver following me i would hope BMW have thought this through, it seems the faster I go the more aggressive the system is at getting me back to set point.

Any thoughts ???

I'll try this the next time I'm out at night as it's about the only way I can check unless i have a friend follow me at silly speeds which would i guess be a tad risque.

pinguhk

what about going uphill?

Russ1974

We have an E70 (new X5) and I wondered exactly the same thing - so a few days ago I drove down a dark road and set the cruise control, then forced it to brake for me, and indeed the brake lights did come on! I am sure it's the same across the entire BMW range, as like you say, over looking this could quite easily cause a crash!!

MIINTY

Tried it again to day on a road not so steep, but steep enough for it to increase speed. Set it a 40mph and started to go down hill and it seemed to stick there.. thererfore is it based on the gradient. When I'm going uphill the speed is maintained.

Iceman

CC can't use the brakes, therefore teh car speeds up when going downhill.

ACC is using the brakes.

kscarrol

The standard cruise control will back off the gas, but not apply brakes, when the car starts to gain speed down a hill. If the grade is shallow enough, that can be sufficient to maintain speed. If too steep, the car will accelerate as you found out.

Russ1974

That's incorrect for LCI E60's, the E70, and probably most of the new BMWs. Cruise control now also includes, as standard "brake control". In pre LCI, if you are doing 80mph on cruise control and knock it back to 30mph, you have to wait for the car to slow down naturally. In the new cars, do the same thing, and the car will brake (quite heavily!) to bring you down to the new speed. It really is a big improvement - when driving the car with the new cruise control, you can be on the motorway and see heavy traffic and rather than having to use the foot brake (because the car historically would not have slowed down quickly enough), you can speed up and slow down quite effectively using just the CC stick.

This is completely independent of ACC, just standard CC...