Honda City ADAS pros and cons: My experience using it for 2 months

I found the Lane Departure Mitigation to be subtle and not sudden. It is one system we have come to trust.

BHPian Raptor6492 recently shared this with other enthusiasts.

It's been a little more than 2 months since we purchased a Honda City ZX CVT and I have been actively using ADAS on various occasions. Here are the problems and advantages I have come to:

Problems:

Sudden acceleration while on Adaptive Cruise

While on Adaptive Cruise, the car slows down gradually and smoothly if there is a slower car in front of you. But when the car moves or you change lanes, the car accelerates at a rate which is too fast for my liking, so much so that it made me panic a couple of times. Me and my father both found it a bit dangerous and expected a gradual acceleration. But the car simply tries to accelerate as fast as possible to the set speed and there have been occasions where we ended up disabling the cruise (by touching the brake pedal).

Emergency Braking Issue on really steep climbs

Now this has not happened once but twice. Both times the car was slowly climbing a steep stretch of road (the type where you need to get out of a parking on a lower level). I would say that in both instances the climb was really steep (Maybe more than 45 degrees). {Please don't say that the City doesn't have that kind of approach angle lol. It was a gradual climb}.

When on the steepest part, the emergency brake warning went off and the car braked to a complete stop. After talking to a couple of friends we came to the conclusion that maybe the camera could not comprehend the steep climb and it came to the decision that the car was about to crash into the road itself. I know it sounds dumb but we couldn't come to any other conclusions. I am going to tell this issue to the Service Centre on my next visit and will update what they say. Also please let me know if anyone else has had this.

No audio warning when the adaptive cruise is disabled

When the car slows below 20kmph, the adaptive cruise control turns off and you have to set it again using the controls. But I don't remember hearing a beep once it's gone off automatically. There might be a visual warning but you can't always be looking into the instrument cluster to notice it.

Overtaking on single-lane roads

If you try overtaking someone on single-lane roads, you need to use the blinkers while you get out of the lane. But after the overtake when you try getting back into your lane, the lane departure will again send warning beeps and the steering vibrates. You must use the blinker even when getting back in your lane. Now this is not a problem but it takes getting used to, hence putting it up here.

Advantages:

Works in rain

I had seen several people saying that the Honda ADAS only has a camera and no radar and hence it might not work well in rain and fog. Now I have not used it in fog, but it worked perfectly well in moderate rain for me.

Perfect lane keep assist

The lane keep assist (above 72kmph) works perfectly fine as long as there are proper markings on the road. Also, I found the lane departure mitigation to be subtle and not sudden. It is one system we have come to trust.

Here's what BHPian Kevinrevvz had to say about the matter:

I own a Facelift City Hybrid ZX and I'd like to add a few more points:

Problems:

Lane Keep Assist trigger speed too high

The LKA only activates at 72Kmph and gets deactivated once it comes down to 65Kmph as opposed to most brands like Hyundai and Kia where it works above 30Kmph and in some brands like MG and Mahindra it even works from 0Kmph. This reduces the usability drastically.

Adaptive Cruise with Low Speed Follow distance too high (e:HEV exclusive)

The Hybrid variants offer a Stop & Go feature for the ACC where it works from a standstill as opposed to above 30Kmph on iVTEC models. This feature is used as the Traffic Jam Assist in most brands. However, even the minimum distance maintained when following a car in traffic is more than one car length whereas radar based systems in other brands have a significantly closer follow distance. This renders the feature useless in our traffic conditions where everyone tries to cut into the gap.

Advantages:

Best calibration of Autonomous Emergency Braking

The AEB of Honda is the most well calibrated of any mainstream brand's ADAS I've experienced. It doesn't panic brake even in our complicated driving conditions with people cutting in and out frequently. It just warns when you're too close or too fast behind someone and takes action only when it's absolutely necessary. One of the few cars in our market where AEB can always be left on.

Warning chimes

Honda has one of the least intrusive warning chimes for LKA's "Apply Steering", Lane Departure Prevention and forward collision warning as opposed to brands like BYD where the car screams at you at full volume for any minor inconvenience on the road.

Here's what BHPian dhanushs had to say about the matter:

With so much tech being accessible to everyday vehicles and not extremely expensive premium cars like it used it, it's good to see enthusiasts get their hands on it and get into explaining in detail what they find good and bad. I'm sure it will help OEMs to calibrate the tech to make it better.

It might be old school, but, I for one will not trust driving aids completely.

ALWAYS keep in mind, they are just aids. You are the driver.

Here's what BHPian vattyboy had to say about the matter:

I was taking the drive of Honda Elevate ZX Cvt with ADAS. I was driving at around 80 kmph on the right lane on 4 lane highway. At the road crossing suddenly an Auto came out of nowhere and joined the highway. My first instinct at that time was to change lanes to the left to avoid a collision but ADAS interrupted, so I had to brake very hard and by the grace of god, the collision didn't happen.

I think for Indian Roads, ADAS is not useful. In future, if my car has ADAS then I will only use Adaptive cruise control rest I will turn it off. I don't like its Artificial feel.

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