Backup obstruction/collision warning tolerance

[TaxmanHog]

On a couple occasions, as I am backing out of my garage getting close to my trailer, I expected to hear the warning beeps but did not and I was very close.

It will work if there is cross traffic rolling by me as I am backing up even from a good distance away.

I had my wife do a walk around while I had it in reverse but not moving, the sensors picked her up as she passed each corner and back of the truck, but seems like the tolerances need adjustment in my opinion, it needs to "see & alert" further to the rear.

Have any of you noticed close calls when reversing toward a wall, car or pedestrian?

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[RickLightning]

I don't believe any adjustment is possible. People tend to trust the sensors too much, and do things like drive into a pole that the sensors don't see, or a 2x4 sticking off a truck that goes right through their rear window.

Keep in mind that there are several technologies at work. One is cross traffic alert. It is looking sideways for moving traffic (between 4 and 37 mph per my Mach-E manual). It is not looking backwards.

Another feature is Reverse Braking Assist, which uses sensors at the rear on the vehicle to detect a possible collision, when you are traveling 1 - 7 mph. If you're not moving, it doesn't kick in.

The rear parking aid sensors are active when you're in reverse and less than 5mph. They go out up to 71 inches and detect large objects. But they can miss small objects, or objects up higher. So if you are backing into something like a boat trailer, where the boat looms out over the trailer, but the trailer is tucked in, it's possible that it doesn't see the boat, but sees the trailer, and won't start beeping before you hit the boat.

 

[TaxmanHog]

I noted there is a switch for turning on/off reverse braking assist, mine has always been on.

Box trailer 7 foot wide, I would think the reverse sensors would react sooner, I just need to pay attention better, some old habits need adjusting, my former F250 had the rear camera display integrated into the rear mirror, I haven't adjusted my behavior to look at the giant screen on the center stack 100%.

The retraining of the driver is a slow process with all these new gadgets in new locations.

We got a saying in the motorcycle community "Look Twice Save a Life" I better bring that to my backing up game!!

 

[Drayday55]

My wife's st explorer gets blue screen random when backing up. It's a documented issue with the explorer st crowd. It's been at the dealer 5 times ( I paid once for the service call) to diagnose. They said 4 out of 5 times there was no fault. Funny.. it was the 3rd trip I was charged for. Now the 5th time, while it was in getting service for a ripped cv boot they said they found multiple codes and that they contacted Ford engineering for a solution. That was 3 weeks ago, they said they would call me once a resolution was found.

We don't trust the backup system all that much. It's always reported good distances for us when it's working buy most of the time it doesn't work. I feel it's just the connection but until it's out of warranty I won't try to fix it myself.

I hope our lighting doesn't have similar issues.

 

[VTbuckeye]

Our Volvo has reverse brake assistance. It does not like the flowers next to the driveway that sometimes stretch into the driven area. It also does not like blowing snow...or a leaf blowing across its field of vision. It feels like you hit a brick wall when it activates. I actually back out of the garage with my head back against the headrest. I hope the lightning will be gentler with a bit more tolerance.

 

[RickLightning]

Our Volvo has reverse brake assistance. It does not like the flowers next to the driveway that sometimes stretch into the driven area. It also does not like blowing snow...or a leaf blowing across its field of vision. It feels like you hit a brick wall when it activates. I actually back out of the garage with my head back against the headrest. I hope the lightning will be gentler with a bit more tolerance.

Nope. My Mach-E is the same way, did it backing in our relatives driveway for some weeds. Rude wakeup.

 

[RickLightning]

I noted there is a switch for turning on/off reverse braking assist, mine has always been on.

Box trailer 7 foot wide, I would think the reverse sensors would react sooner, I just need to pay attention better, some old habits need adjusting, my former F250 had the rear camera display integrated into the rear mirror, I haven't adjusted my behavior to look at the giant screen on the center stack 100%.

The retraining of the driver is a slow process with all these new gadgets in new locations.

We got a saying in the motorcycle community "Look Twice Save a Life" I better bring that to my backing up game!!

Very true. And in moving from vehicle to vehicle.

 

[Firestop]

I no longer trust the proximity alarms w/o visual verification after I let my truck try a auto back-in parking maneuver.

Two things happened: 1. My truck tried to back into a parked car adjacent to the open space. 2. The rear proximity warning alert never activated….I caught/stopped the pending collision by watching the cameras and mirrors.

The system is definitely an aid, not a panacea for inattentive driving….

 

[hturnerfamily]

I watch my center screen '360 degree' overview when backing, more than waiting for an alert, which I don't know if I trust quite yet. I also disabled 'reverse braking assistance' as I found that it seemed to require way too much pedal input to get the truck 'going' after a stop to check how close you are - then, when you need to move only 1" more to get under your trailer's coupler, it suddenly 'lets go' and moves way TOO much... I don't turn on the 'brake hold' either, unless I am in stop-n-go traffic, or driving thru a LOT of city stop lights, etc.

 

[blpublic]

I wish there was an option to show the 360 camera by default under 5mph when first putting into drive. It's too hard to turn on the camera each time. It would help me.

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