Hello, can someone that has the adaptive cruise tell me your thoughts of it? I am wondering if it is worth the extra $ or not. Thanks for the help.

 

I'm a big fan of the adaptive cruise control since I do long trips every other week. Basically it allows you to not worry about adjusting your speed when you come up to cars doing about the speed you want. Whether its worth it? that really depends on how far and how often you travel. One thing to note is in traffic if a car cuts in front of you it will slow you down to keep the set distance, this means you have to be aware of cars behind you. It not really a big deal and you can override it by putting your foot on the throttle. If you are planning on using it in heavy traffic where people change lanes frequently then I would say its not worth it.

 

I'm a fan if it on my ride, any built in safety measure is worth while imo!

 

It is fantastic on the highway but I've noticed some drivers see the "safe distance" gap as an opportunity to cut in front of you, which will lead to auto braking, which will lead to more people passing/cutting in front of you... insert Florida drivers quip here

In the city, however, it can get a bit buggy and smash the brakes when a car in front of you merges into a turn lane or the car turns into driveway and is no longer in your lane of travel or anywhere near your car's bounding box.

Overall I do think it is a worthy addition to the Citadel pkg but it's an expensive sensor for long-term owners if you hit a curb/rock/etc.

 

I didn't want the expense of what I thought would be a gimmick. The Durango I bought had it. I love it! I agree with the comments above. In traffic I turn it off because of the lane hoppers. Out on the freeway it is awesome.

 

Thanks for the comments.

 

From one of our overseas brethren, it is also indispensible in heavy fog conditions. The adaptive cruise radar can 'see' through it and if you set your follow distance to 2 or 3 lengths you would never be surprised by a car with dim, weak, or NO lights appearing in front of you without warning.

Don't worry too much about vehicles behind you; if the ACC applies the brakes, the brake lights illuminate just the same as if you had hit the brakes.

I do agree with the lane hoppers assessment and when folks stop to turn in an adjacent lane; the ACC gets a bit confused and will practically panic-stop, but if you use it appropriately and don't let your attention wander you can easily anticipate its reaction and apply pedal pressure until you clear the 'obstruction'

Wouldn't want to live without it on long drives

 

Fog is not a big concern in West Texas but dust storms are. It seems it would be invaluable in that situation and I hadn't even thought of fog/dust scenarios before. Thanks for the input.

 

Its a great piece of equipment especially on long road trips...its worth the money imo. Besides it can be set to normal if you don't want it in adaptive cruise all the time.

 

This is our first car with adaptive and we absolutely love it. We are so happy it came standard on the Citadel. As much as we love it, would I still pay extra for it? I don't know. Beforehand, if it had been an option, I can picture myself having passed on it since I didn't really know how good it is. I guess just depends on price.

I have not really experienced any of the falsing issues others have seen. I've read about them and I think they'll happen but they don't. For example I get passed and somebody cuts in front of me, but if they are still accelerating, my brakes never applied. Sometimes, "rarely", if I'm switching lanes from behind one car to behind another car, when I'm in the middle of switching, it will accelerate slightly as it sees the empty zone between the two lanes, trick is just to switch lanes quicker. What's cool though is if I switch lanes to an empty lane, it will really get into the gas to get us up to speed!

It's so good I'll even use it around town at speeds between 20-50. It's now just habit for me to immediately press the cruise button and turn it on to have it ready to go. It also helps me get even better mileage around town, maybe 1-2 mpg better? Plus, less likely to get a speeding ticket. But then my wife drives it and has fun and kills my "score". I just wish there was a feature where it could read the speed limit from the garmin gps and auto set itself to that.