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Getting Lane Centering to Work Properly

Ajzride

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I've decided to launch a new thread and branch off from the existing thread on a "hack for hands free driving" because that is not really what I am interested in. What I am interested in is getting lane centering to work like it should. For reference, my wife has a 2021 Mustang Mach E which has the same technology (co-pilot 360 active prep) and it works wonderfully, I do not have any of the issues in that car that I have in my F150. My issues are two fold:

1) If I keep my hands comfortable on the wheel and don't fight the lane centering motion, it constantly beeps to put my hands back on the wheel. If I do apply enough pressure to keep it happy, I feel like I am wrestling with the car and my arms literally get tired after about twenty minutes on the interstate.

2) If I am fighting the wheel enough to keep the nanny features happy, that car hugs the right line very close. It looks like about 2" from the right line and 30" from the left line when using my side view mirrors and pointing them at the rear tires. If I quit fighting the car it will ease onto the right line, then move itself back to center and stay then, then of course it complains for me to keep my hands on the wheel.

Since I don't have any issues in the Mach E, I know it's a fixable problem, and it does not seem to be consistent. Some people don't seem to have any problems, and looking at the "hack" thread there are some people who can go completely hands free with only a 13oz weight, whereas I can't even get it to stop nagging at me with two hands and a 2 pound weight hanging on the steering wheel. At some point Ford probably will provide a software fix if enough of us take our trucks in for service so the issue gets visibility. In the meantime I've taken inspiration from the hands free hack thread to try and mitigate my problems.

For reference, this is how I normally hold the wheel (9:00 and 3:00) on the interstate if there is any traffic or curves on the road:

Ford F-150 Lightning Getting Lane Centering to Work Properly Hands Pos 1


If it is an exceptionally long straight and there is no traffic (I drive a lot after midnight) then I will place my hand at 6:00

Ford F-150 Lightning Getting Lane Centering to Work Properly Hands Pos 2


Based on the hack video, I ran some trials at 3:30 in the morning on an empty stretch of toll road. First I added a 2 pound weight at 4:00 just like the video (the video used a 3 pound weight, but I couldn't find one locally, I have one on order):

Ford F-150 Lightning Getting Lane Centering to Work Properly Wheel Pos 1


That did not even get the nanny to stop nagging me even with two hands on the wheel, much less go handsfree.

Next I moved the 2 pound weight to 3:00 on the outside of the steering wheel:

Ford F-150 Lightning Getting Lane Centering to Work Properly Weight Pos 2


The cut the number of prompts to put my hands on the wheel (which they already were) approximately in half.

Lastly I tried having the weight hang out beside the wheel more so that none of the weight could rest on the wheel, this got me down to about 3 nag screens over 50 miles, which is really good compared to once every 30 seconds i was seeing with no weight, or once a minute with the weight closer to the wheel:

Ford F-150 Lightning Getting Lane Centering to Work Properly Weight Pos 3


It's been way too long since I took physics to be able to calculate the actual force on the wheel that 2 pound weight is generating hanging off to the side like that, but whatever that comes out to is about 2/3 of the weight required to stop the nag screen, because I'm still using my hands to apply pressure too.

I was hoping others who just want the system to work properly would have some experience they could share, and also hoping to inspire people to arrange service appointments so we can get this on Fords radar.
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spectre446

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Ford just needs to fix the way it detects your hands on the wheel. I can tell you from experience from using Tesla autopilot, the reason it nags you is because the system is not perfect. You still need to pay attention to the road. Even the Tesla system, arguably the most advanced one out there right now, still makes weird choices driving down the road.
 

JDinNFLA

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Everything you said is correct. Mine works the same way. Only way to keep the warnings away is to fight the wheel. System is terrible. Needs work. Not surprised.
 

Itsjustmd

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Following because mine is ridiculous too. Must be some type of update they can do. I have to actively remember to jiggle the wheel even though I've got my hands on it the whole time.
 
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Ajzride

Ajzride

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Everything you said is correct. Mine works the same way. Only way to keep the warnings away is to fight the wheel. System is terrible. Needs work. Not surprised.
I guess Iā€™m surprised because our Mach E works so well. I know my power boost weighs 50% more, but that should just be a different calibration.
 

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Merccat

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I think your plan of taking it to the dealer for service (and keep on taking it) is what is most likely to get Fords attention on the issue.

My wifeā€™s 4 year old Acura works very nicely, as long as my hands are on the wheel it does 95% of the minor course corrections without nagging me nor me having to fight or hack it, once hands are off within 5-10 seconds I get the reminder.

I donā€™t want a hands free hack, nor have any interest in being hands free. I just want the lane-keeping assist I paid an extra (whatever) for to work properly and actually assist. I donā€™t have my truck yet but if I have to fight the hands free I am going to take it in.
 

jcaspar

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What I do is similar to your 4th photo but with my arm, which weighs a lot more than 2 pounds. I grab at the 2:30 (or 9:30) position just above the horizontal bar and let my arm hang off the wheel. This eliminates most all of the reminders. Works amazingly well other than the recurrent reminders. Expect it will be amazing once Blue Cruise is available!
 
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Ajzride

Ajzride

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Expect it will be amazing once Blue Cruise is available!
I suspect there will be lots of places blue cruise isnā€™t mapped that we will still want lane centering to work correctly.
 

xtraman122

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That's crazy that yours needs that much weight to be happy, I find mine a bit annoying at the amount of force required and it's much less than yours. I definitely expect this to be one of the things we (hopefully) see significant changes in from OTAs time goes on.

I've also noticed a bit of the tendency to hug a certain side of the road that you mentioned; Ie you're in a fairly wide lane with clear markings and for whatever reason it chooses to go sort of 2/3 to one side instead of perfectly in the middle.

The other part that seems like it could use a bit of improvement is in how it handles turns, just seems like it's not looking quite far enough ahead, or doesn't know how to proactively start steering to match the turn you're entering for the first 1/3 of the turn, and tends to overreact a bit before it figures out the proper radius of the turn and can smoothly negotiate it and keep you centered through the rest of it.

Like I said, the plus side is these are all these things that should absolutely be able to be addressed with OTAs, we just need to make sure Ford knows the issues exist so they can work on them.
 

Madman

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That's crazy that yours needs that much weight to be happy, I find mine a bit annoying at the amount of force required and it's much less than yours. I definitely expect this to be one of the things we (hopefully) see significant changes in from OTAs time goes on.

I've also noticed a bit of the tendency to hug a certain side of the road that you mentioned; Ie you're in a fairly wide lane with clear markings and for whatever reason it chooses to go sort of 2/3 to one side instead of perfectly in the middle.

The other part that seems like it could use a bit of improvement is in how it handles turns, just seems like it's not looking quite far enough ahead, or doesn't know how to proactively start steering to match the turn you're entering for the first 1/3 of the turn, and tends to overreact a bit before it figures out the proper radius of the turn and can smoothly negotiate it and keep you centered through the rest of it.

Like I said, the plus side is these are all these things that should absolutely be able to be addressed with OTAs, we just need to make sure Ford knows the issues exist so they can work on them.
@xtraman122 -

I share your observations to a tee and will add one more that I have noticed -
On rainy nights with faded lane stripes, it sometimes does not find the center of the lane and will drift.

This system is perhaps my favorite feature on this new truck. I drove ~800 miles from NC to MA, mostly in the daytime, and it worked very well. IMHO, this feature is at its best on long and otherwise fatiguing highway trips.

That said, it is far from perfect but I expect Ford to tweak the algorithm and push out as OTA updates. Kudos to Ford for creating this!
 

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Steve2352

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I think your plan of taking it to the dealer for service (and keep on taking it) is what is most likely to get Fords attention on the issue.

My wifeā€™s 4 year old Acura works very nicely, as long as my hands are on the wheel it does 95% of the minor course corrections without nagging me nor me having to fight or hack it, once hands are off within 5-10 seconds I get the reminder.

I donā€™t want a hands free hack, nor have any interest in being hands free. I just want the lane-keeping assist I paid an extra (whatever) for to work properly and actually assist. I donā€™t have my truck yet but if I have to fight the hands free I am going to take it in.
My Infiniti 2019 QX50 works perfectly as well. Still waiting on my truck but very disappointing to here how bad this is.
 

xtraman122

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My Infiniti 2019 QX50 works perfectly as well. Still waiting on my truck but very disappointing to here how bad this is.
Iā€™ll say overall the system is great, itā€™s by far one of my favorite features of the truck. Donā€™t let our nitpicks make it seem like the system sucks.
Being an engineer in the IT field and knowing that 95% of everything in there is all done in software, any slight issues or changes weā€™d like to see should definitely be surfaced to those that can make these fixes because theyā€™re things that can actually be fixed with OTAs (Versus complaining about something like the suspension, tailgate, shape of an air dam, etc etc, things that canā€™t just be fixed remotely by Ford).
 

Heavishot

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I agree current lane centering settings make it like a wrestling match just to keep the dash from yelling at me. If it would recognize light hand pressure it would be much better.
 

Steve2352

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Iā€™ll say overall the system is great, itā€™s by far one of my favorite features of the truck. Donā€™t let our nitpicks make it seem like the system sucks.
Being an engineer in the IT field and knowing that 95% of everything in there is all done in software, any slight issues or changes weā€™d like to see should definitely be surfaced to those that can make these fixes because theyā€™re things that can actually be fixed with OTAs (Versus complaining about something like the suspension, tailgate, shape of an air dam, etc etc, things that canā€™t just be fixed remotely by Ford).
Good perspective. It also occurs to me that Fordā€™s plan for full hand free operation would need to include any needed updates or adjustments to lane centering which would also benefit our F150s via OTA.
 
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Ajzride

Ajzride

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I got to spend some early morning time in the Hwy 59 express lane this week. This is a single lane with concrete barriers on either side, so you can't veer out of your lane, no risk of crashing into someone else, just into the barrier and messing up your truck. While I was there all alone, I got a little braver with my experiments. It turns out that a 2.5 pound ankle weight at 4:00 is sufficient for hands free driving, but still nags when using your hands. A 24 once fishing weight at 3:00 is sufficient for hands free driving, but still nags when using your hands. My guess is that having my hands on the wheel at 6:00 or 9:00 offsets some of the weights I am hanging at 4:00 or 3:00, thus required more weight to kill the nag screen when driving hands on than it does to kill the nag screen when going hands free. Definitely very frustrating.
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