Car with worst cruise control you had?

[eljefino]

Originally Posted By: javacontour

The idea of putting the cruise control on the turn signal stalk was not one of GM's better ideas.


My dad's ford fairmont let you honk the horn by pressing in on the turn signal lever. There wasn't anything special in the center of the steering wheel, just the "Fairmont Heraldic Crest", whatever that was.

 

[dja4260]

I had a 98 Civic. With the cruise on the car would accelerate and NOT disengage when you pressed the brake. Scared me enough that I only used it once.

 

[SwampSurvivor]

My Cherokee and a few others I have driven ALWAYS speed up 2mph from what you set the cruise at.

 

[Benzadmiral]

Originally Posted By: eljefino
Originally Posted By: javacontour

The idea of putting the cruise control on the turn signal stalk was not one of GM's better ideas.


My dad's ford fairmont let you honk the horn by pressing in on the turn signal lever. There wasn't anything special in the center of the steering wheel, just the "Fairmont Heraldic Crest", whatever that was.

The CC on the Buick Regal worked well on my trip to Amarillo last May. It has the controls on the left side of the wheel: switch it on by pressing a button, then set the speed by pushing down a scroll wheel, and a display of your set speed shows on the instrument panel.

I do wish, though, that we still had the old uncluttered wheel, at least on the spoke near my right thumb. That was always the way I blasted my horn in traffic when somebody cut me off, etc. I was much faster with it than I am with shifting my hand to the center horn pad!

 

[rjundi]

No bad cruise controls in Honda and Subaru vehicles.

 

[Ryan]

89 S-10 Blazer with TBI. Works great on flat land, but if you hit a hill, it panics and floors it and won't let up until it reaches its speed again. Fuel savings go out the window.

 

[itguy08]

Originally Posted By: MalfunctionProne
Self-explanatory title. Which vehicle you drove had the worst cruise, and why?

Please also note: Can be auto or manual trans.


The wife's Escape. +/-5 MPH on a good day. Had it in to the dealer when new and they said "normal". All our other vehicles were near dead on, including other Fords.

 

[babyivan]

I had a 96 civic ex 5 speed that had horrible cruise.
It routinely and me going too fast on even the slightest slope.

I know cruise control really can't help if you are going downhill, but this car was far worse at controlling any set speeds.

The older style vacuum cruise controls were great, just not as accurate as modern electronically controlled designs.

I had a 99 Solara 5 speed that was the best. I like how Toyota had the stalk mounted.

Also, the problem I see with some cruise set ups are the ease of controls. For example, I found my gf's dodge caravan to be tricky, always having to look down to remember what to do what.

 

[exranger06]

My 92 Accord has the worst cruise I've used. Any slight hill and the speed drops by about 5 mph, and stays there. I have to constantly hit the "accelerate" button to get it back to where it was previously.

 

[Hokiefyd]

Originally Posted By: babyivan
I like how Toyota had the stalk mounted.


I think the Toyota stalk is, ergonomically, the easiest cruise control interface to learn. It's intuitively very simple. Up for faster/resume; down for slower/set. Pull to temporary cancel. Push the end button to turn the whole system on or off. It's also right on the steering wheel, right where your fingers/hands already are. You shouldn't be required, in my opinion, to take a hand off the wheel to use the cruise control.

I like Honda's system on our CR-V well. The cruise main button is right on the wheel next to the other buttons. Then it's tap the rocker up for faster and down for slower. It has a separate cancel button, which is also great. The buttons are also lit, which is nice for night driving (but they're easy enough to remember anyway). Our Acura's system is similar, except that the cruise main button is on the dash. I never could figure that out.

The big shortcoming with GM's stalk-based system is there was (on most, anyway) no way to cancel cruise without either turning the whole thing off or tapping the brake. Tapping the brake should not be the mechanism for canceling cruise control, and indeed can have undesired consequences with more traffic on the road (especially at night, where others' seeing distances are naturally shorter already). I owned a number of GMs with the stalks and it was a rather non-intuitive design. Compound that with the fact that the markings would wear off the stalk...and it could be harder to use.

I rented an '05 300 once with the Mercedes stalk, and that worked pretty well. I'd rather something on the wheel where my fingers already are, but if I had to have it on a stalk, I prefer that system to GM's.

 

[supton]

Originally Posted By: Hokiefyd
I think the Toyota stalk is, ergonomically, the easiest cruise control interface to learn.


I'm going to respectfully disagree. I think my Jetta has a great cruise setup. So straightforward that now I'm forgetting how to use it... up/down, set and cancel (although I've always just tapped the brake).

There is a slide switch on the turn signal stalk to enable the system: but unlike Toyota, once cruise is enabled, it's on. For life. The only times cruise has been turned off is when I've gotten the car back from the dealer. I never have to enable it, just hit set and and done. It's not hard to hit the button to enable the Toyota cruise; I've never understood why I need to do that (probably because the first systems "required" a master kill) but a "set and forget" slide switch to enable has spoiled me.

I won't say the Toyota is bad by any means, but after a decade of using my left thumb it was second nature. Get to speed, hit set with thumb. Done. Rarely did I need I need to adjust speed; I guess I did resort to my index finger for that.

 

[cutter]

Originally Posted By: Hokiefyd
Originally Posted By: babyivan
I like how Toyota had the stalk mounted.


I think the Toyota stalk is, ergonomically, the easiest cruise control interface to learn. It's intuitively very simple.



Agreed. Worst so far to me? The Dodge Caliber. I was driving at night and whiffed every time I tried to reach for the stalk. Even when I tried to make note about where it was, I whiffed anyway and had to take my eyes off the road to find it.

 

[dishdude]

Originally Posted By: cutter
Originally Posted By: Hokiefyd
Originally Posted By: babyivan
I like how Toyota had the stalk mounted.


I think the Toyota stalk is, ergonomically, the easiest cruise control interface to learn. It's intuitively very simple.



Agreed. Worst so far to me? The Dodge Caliber. I was driving at night and whiffed every time I tried to reach for the stalk. Even when I tried to make note about where it was, I whiffed anyway and had to take my eyes off the road to find it.


Doesn't the Caliber have the same exact cruise stalk as most Toyotas?

 

[n5ifi]

78 Trans AM
Bought it brand new and it just hunted up and down.
It was terrible.

 

[DBMaster]

It's a good thing I don't like using cruise control. I tried it a few times back in the early 90's on my 89 Honda Accord. It did not hold speed very well on uphill grades. Driving in Texas, even on the interstate highways between big cities, requires too much speed variance and attentiveness to risk the complacency of cruise control.

The cruise on my 2012 Mazda 3 seems to work pretty well, but I have only tested it. I doubt very seriously I will ever really use it. It seems to be an option that has found its way into cars at just about all price points. As far as I'm concerned it's just another thing I have to keep functional for the eventual point of selling or trading in the car. I would have been just as happy if the car had not been equipped with it.

 

[Michael_P]

Cruise is awesome with a MT. No downshifting or in and out of lockup.

 

[01rangerxl]

I haven't ever encountered cruise control that was bad enough to stand out to me, but then again I have only ever really used it on a handful of Ford trucks and Chevy Colorados.

I didn't really like the stalk controls on the Colorado, but I could live with them. It worked and held speed fine.

I like the controls on my Fords...the cruise is the only steering wheel mounted control. Very easy to use and adjust with minimal hand/eye movement. The only slight complaint is that on a steep grade, it will mash the gas. So if cruise is set at 75 MPH, it's doing 80 MPH by the top of the hill and takes a few seconds to settle back down. That's understandable though...the truck can't see the hill, so as far as it's concerned, increased load = hit the gas.

Overall, I like cruise and wish people would use it more on interstates instead of varying their speed by as much as 20 MPH. Cruise isn't the auto pilot some people probably wished it was, but it does help maintain a fairly steady speed, which many drivers do not seem capable of doing on their own.

 

[eljefino]

Originally Posted By: DBMaster
It seems to be an option that has found its way into cars at just about all price points. As far as I'm concerned it's just another thing I have to keep functional for the eventual point of selling or trading in the car. I would have been just as happy if the car had not been equipped with it.


When you have drive-by-wire cruise is just a couple extra buttons and some programming. If it's left out, it's deliberate scrooge-iness on the part of the manufacturer to make a super-cheap shame-mobile.

 

[Jakob_1992]

I'll second/third (whichever it is) the comments regarding the Chrysler minivan family cruise control stalk. It's floating in space on the bottom right quadrant of the steering column and I've never been able to commit the directions to memory.

However, on the flipside, the cruise in my Volvo is wonderful: three switches. An on-off, on the top of the left "spoke" of the wheel, with two rocker switches underneath; a +/- switch, and a resume/cancel. Not to mention it's remarkably consistent speed holding ability.

 

[HTSS_TR]

Originally Posted By: Hokiefyd

I like Honda's system on our CR-V well. The cruise main button is right on the wheel next to the other buttons. Then it's tap the rocker up for faster and down for slower. It has a separate cancel button, which is also great. The buttons are also lit, which is nice for night driving (but they're easy enough to remember anyway). Our Acura's system is similar, except that the cruise main button is on the dash. I never could figure that out.

I set the main button in my S2000 once to turn it on then forget it, never touch it again.

If I don't want to use cruise control then I don't touch any button on steering wheel. Whenever I like to use cruise control I just push the appropriate buttons on steering wheel, I don't have to reach out to push the main button far away then push another button on steering wheel.

Personally, I think Honda should not include the main button for cruise control to reduce cluster on the dash. Cruise control should always be on and activated with appropriate buttons on the steering wheel.