Rapid Roger - can you describe your complaint in greater detail? Is the problem that it once worked well and now it works poorly or that it has always worked poorly? I originally thought it was the former.
If it is the latter, that it has always worked poorly, and the performance appears to be the same as another new vehicle, then the short answer is: that's what you get for being on the bleeding edge. Adaptive cruise systems such as this are very much imperfect. It is not just GM products. If you ever get the chance, test drive a Jaguar or a Mercedes with one of these systems. Jaguar is in fact even worse. My experience with a Mercedes S-class over several days also demonstrated a "hit or miss" performance. In fact, my experience with the S-class led me to swear off such systems completely for the next few years - it's disconcerting the one time out of ten it fails to work.
This is the nature of the beast. These things are very much state-of-the-art and you can expect a lot of teething pains to go along with these systems.
I hope this is not a case of high expectations - I know how lousy that can feel.
Rapid Roger - can you describe your complaint in greater detail? Is the problem that it once worked well and now it works poorly or that it has always worked poorly? I originally thought it was the former.
If it is the latter, that it has always worked poorly, and the performance appears to be the same as another new vehicle, then the short answer is: that's what you get for being on the bleeding edge. Adaptive cruise systems such as this are very much imperfect. It is not just GM products. If you ever get the chance, test drive a Jaguar or a Mercedes with one of these systems. Jaguar is in fact even worse. My experience with a Mercedes S-class over several days also demonstrated a "hit or miss" performance. In fact, my experience with the S-class led me to swear off such systems completely for the next few years - it's disconcerting the one time out of ten it fails to work.
This is the nature of the beast. These things are very much state-of-the-art and you can expect a lot of teething pains to go along with these systems.
I hope this is not a case of high expectations - I know how lousy that can feel.
Nosro....It works intermittantly......I drove a lexus with this system and it worked perfectly.In my case it may or may not see a car in front(A light lights when it sees a car) if it does not see the car it will not apply the brakes or speed up as necessary.
My dealer agrees that there is a problem with my car and another new car we test drove.I can see no reason why it should not work as well as that on the Lexus............
My dealer agrees that there is a problem with my car and another new car we test drove.I can see no reason why it should not work as well as that on the Lexus............
I wish the press could understand how incredibly complicated these systems are. These are not just "stupid" radar guns pointed ahead. There is an incredible amount of signal processing that has to occur just to differentiate between a truck and a manhole cover or to differentiate between the car immediately ahead of you or an oncoming car in an opposing lane.
What you say is equivalent to saying "I see no reason why Anti-lock brakes on a Chevrolet can't be as good as that on a Mercedes" in 1990 when ABS was still state-of-the-art technology. There were vast differences among different ABS systems. Today, with 15 years of experience, it is true that ABS is now similar in performance on all cars.
As I said, if you want an eye-opener, try a Jaguar. The Lexus is OK, but if you spend as much time in it as you have in your DTS, I have no doubt you would have similar complaints.
I hate to be the bringer of discouragement, but I highly doubt you will find anything wrong or get any improvement, especially if another new DTS behaves the same way. It is simply the nature of these first-generation systems (or any first-generation system of any new technology).
Funny, my 2006 DTS Perf Level still has the ACC problem I posted here a long time ago.
It fails in the sense that it occasionally sees a phantom vehicle right in front of the car, sounds the alarm and does hard braking (well as hard as ACC braking can be).
The failure is very intermittent and it will fail with absolutely no reflect object anywhere in front of the car. The common element is that there is always a police car in the vicinity. Of course the police say there is no way, they can cause this.
The dealer suspected alignment and it checked out to be good. I strongly suspected it was good as I can drive thru a toll booth and the car never picks it up.
Anyway, the failure is still there (fails once per month or so). The NTSB never reacted to my input and I am not going to spend time trying to teach a pig to sing.
I always just hit the off button when it fails and keep from disrupting traffic by coming to an abrupt and unanticipated stop.
Overall, I really like the feature and I understand this ones unique frailities.
It fails in the sense that it occasionally sees a phantom vehicle right in front of the car, sounds the alarm and does hard braking (well as hard as ACC braking can be).
The failure is very intermittent and it will fail with absolutely no reflect object anywhere in front of the car. ...
This is very common in these first-generation systems (not just Cadillac). This is not a "failure" in the sense that there is nothing broken and everything is working as designed. There will be no trouble codes found.
These first-generation systems work on a very probabilistic basis. That is, for situations involving a certain amount of traffic, it generates false-positives (brakes when not required) "X" percent of the time and it generate false-negatives (does not brake when required) "Y" percent of the time due to situation-to-situation variations.
As these systems mature, "X" and "Y" should decrease. But be clear - it probably will not go to zero within the next two decades. (Think of it this way - even though anti-lock brakes have been around for almost two decades, there are still cases of "X" and "Y" errors.)
This is very common in these first-generation systems (not just Cadillac). This is not a "failure" in the sense that there is nothing broken and everything is working as designed. There will be no trouble codes found.
These first-generation systems work on a very probabilistic basis. That is, for situations involving a certain amount of traffic, it generates false-positives (brakes when not required) "X" percent of the time and it generate false-negatives (does not brake when required) "Y" percent of the time due to situation-to-situation variations.
As these systems mature, "X" and "Y" should decrease. But be clear - it probably will not go to zero within the next two decades. (Think of it this way - even though anti-lock brakes have been around for almost two decades, there are still cases of "X" and "Y" errors.)
I have experienced this failure on a 4 lane divided highway with no cars near me, no side barricade walls or nothing else that could offer any reflection. There was however a police car parked far off of the right side of the road who I assume was using his RADAR. I was in the inside lane and just as I passed him the ACC alarmed and braked. Even tho I am far too old to be an I/T propeller head I still have the reflexes to reset the ACC and hit the gas before I get run down from behind.
The good news is that the ACC is sometimes a stealth RADAR detector
The bad news is that it is intermittent
Additional Bad news is that the failure causes stopping for no apparent reason and could really be exciting in heavy traffic.
I'm sure that they have a lot of the engineering, technology and manufacturing learning curves to traverse on this function and we all know that we are nothing more than testors for most tech products we purchase. However, it is a shame that the lack of published design objectives and specifications lets them define almost anything as "normal operation".
I have experienced this failure on a 4 lane divided highway with no cars near me, no side barricade walls or nothing else that could offer any reflection. ...
What the eye sees and what radar sees are two different things. A manhole cover and a Coke can both have the potential to look like a car. In the radar world, differentiating between a manhole cover and an 18-wheeler is not necessarily easy.
As I said, this is what happens with first-generation systems. If manufacturers wait until the system is perfect, they'll never get it to production because they need real-world usage to perfect the system. So the approach with bleeding-edge technology is always to get it to high-end users first and use those vehicles to further develop the technologies towards a second-generation system.
Consider yourself one of a few elite beta testers!
My wife's 2008 DTS came with the Adaptive Cruise Control which we did not ask for. When she wanted to put an all-metal grill on in place of the plastic Cadillac grill, the dealer said that the ACC would probably not work. I said that was OK but the normal cruise control had to work correctly, and since I didn't order it to start with, I would not pay for the ACC. They agreed to everything. The Vogue manager (source of the after-market grill) tested the car, determined that the ACC did in fact not work with his grill, but the normal cruise functioned properly with the gap reduced to zero. The dealer took the $1700 for the ACC off of the price of the car.
When we went to pick up the car. The Vogue manager had found a special ACC repositioning kit that moved the ACC down below the grill behind the all plastic facia (bumper???). It had been installed and the cost of the ACC was still removed from the car price. When I asked if the ACC now worked properly, they said yes but refused to add it back to the car price. As far as I can tell, the ACC works exactly as it should. The only problem is that because the ACC is positioned lower, the "CLEAN RADAR" warning comes on more frequently. Reducing the gap effectively solves this problem.
Update.....My dealer has had the car for a week.......They have called in a specialist from the regional office to deal with this problem.So far he has not solved it.He is saying it needs some kind of reprogramming.
As I posted before,they have eliminated the E&G grill which I installed before I took delevery.They have been very nice and I have a DTS to drive until it's repaired.
They offered me my car and a promise to call me when they figure out a fix.I declined and mentioned my stance would change drasticaly if they keep it more than 21 days.........
