I signed up for a Volvo S60 track day and as part of that a dealer phoned me for a test drive. I said yes as it can't hurt and I did this yesterday afternoon in a fully loaded S60 D5 sedan (the gorgeous V60 estate has not been launched yet). It has an amazing array of safety gadgets I have to say all working pretty unobtrusively. But it was my first time ever using a car with adaptive cruise control. WOW! For those that don't know the cruise control has a radar "eye" in front of the car measuring distance to other cars. You can toggle this distance to be short (when in slow traffic) or longer for when on the motorway. You then set the cruise control speed to what you want and the car will slow down AND BRAKE (!) by itself to maintain this distance. Right down to coming to a complete stop if the car ahead of you stops at a roundabout / traffic light. It works. By golly does it work! But it was really scary the first time to not have your foot on the brake when the car ahead of me came to a complete stop! But after a few stops like this and then sitting in a queue of slow moving traffic doing NOTHING but steering the car I was sold. Makes driving so relaxing and if you are distracted the car will still be looking out for you and slow down when needed.

(By the way this full system only really works on an automatic car, on a manual it won't do the queue and slow moving business as only an automatic can work like that with cruise control since you need all the gears - a manual switches the cruise off the moment you hit the clutch - same as on a Yeti. So this system on a manual will keep the distance but will only really be of use on the motorway and not in slow moving traffic.)

But now I want this on my Yeti! Grrr. And I know you can get this on a Touareg and other Audis which presumably uses the same basic CANBUS software to control the car? Hmmm. One day someone will make a retro-fit adaptive cruise control I hope.

Edit: fatfinger

Edited 13 September, 201015 yr by 900000

I would guess this is a cost issue and also a premium brand style of situation. This technology is still cutting edge and even Volvo have not brought this out on every car yet. I suspect this will have to go through the premium VW cars first of all, then to the Superb and then eventually the Yeti.

We can't have it both ways unfortunately. We like the price of the Yeti against say a Volvo XC60 but we want the luxury and gizmos that come with a £30k Volvo. I am sure that this device will roll out and become standard over the course of the next 5-7 years but it is over optimistic to expect it to reach the Yeti in the near future.

Incidentally, I agree with you regarding the S60 and especially the estate version. I would not go back to a saloon car again, I have just come from an S40 that was excellent but the boot opening drove me mad. The S60 estate resolves that and is mighty handsome. They are not cheap though and that is why Skoda are picking up so much of their business (anecdotal comment, not based on fact)

There are lots of nice gadgets in the VW/Audi parts bin that would be lovely on the Yeti. Rear-view cameras, infra-red night vision (on some Audis), adaptive height air suspension. Mmm. And what about a 2.0 litre 200bhp petrol engine while we're at it? It's available in a Tiguan after all... :-)

I suspect that with the increasing standardisation of chassis modules, engines, and various other parts that are shared across ranges, the manufacturers desperately want to keep some sense of differentiation between their brands. So the best toys are kept for the most expensive marques.

Seems like there should be something of a market for retro-fitting these parts to compatible cars, but I'm not aware of anyone who does offer such a service.

Seems like there should be something of a market for retro-fitting these parts to compatible cars, but I'm not aware of anyone who does offer such a service.

It is a pricey option from new as well and the retro fitting of that eye will also be pretty tricky as it is such a weird shape. The Volvo one can be seen in this pic - it is the rectangular black thing on the main grille to the left of the Volvo logo. On BMWs it is a hideous black round thing they fit off-centre next to a fog light (it looks like they fitted a domed CCTV camera there!)

The only problem with this technology is that it doesnt always work. And put simply; that would put me off using it or even speccing it on a new car.

Adaptive cruise control is fitted on my wife's Honda CRV (56 reg) - I'm used to using it and it works pretty well. Even though it's a manual, the cruise control is modified on these cars so you can change gear without the CC disengaging (ie clutch use doesn't turn off the CC/ACC and, thinking about it, I'm not even sure that brake use does - after all that's partly how the ACC works).

Actually in practice it's more use on A roads with heavy traffic (giving frequent slowing/speeding up again) than on motorways. On motorways the ACC can take a few moments to register that a slower moving vehicle that was blocking your lane has moved out of the way and your car can accelerate away again, which can be mildly irritating. And it's not perfect on bends sometimes, when it can be distracted by a slower car in a nearside lane and you find yourself slowing even though your lane is clear. But overall yes a useful new toy.

Frustratingly, this ACC has been in the Golf Mk 6 brochure from day 1, but it' still not available in the UK (sound familiar, Yeti-owners?). So its development definitely has been completed for Golf-platform cars and, one would think, ACC ought to be available on the Yeti one day.

The best adaptive cruise control I have found is the Distronic Plus system on Mercedes cars. It's absolutely excellent.

This guy in Italy retro-fitted ACC to his Audi A8:

http://audiforum.us/...l-retrofit.html

But then the car was designed for it with parts and part numbers for that car. Whole different ball game if you want to mix and match VAG parts to a Yeti I'd imagine. And not something I'd be in a hurry to try and do either!

Edited 13 September, 201015 yr by 900000

I looked at retrofitting Distronic to my Mercedes S500 I had earlier this year and gave up because it was going to cost me 3,000Euro.

I've tried the ACC system on an A4 and it worked really well although not as smooth as the Merc system.

Got it ordered on a passat cc along with lane assist so will wait and see.

This technology on Volvo's is the same as what's used in this video, I think!

Not something I would consider fitting on any car unless it was model specific, it's not like retro-fitting basic cruise control.

With earlier talk on this forum and in the magazines about VW wanting to put some distance between Skoda and the premium VW brands, I think it unlikely that high end options such as this will be available anytime soon. But then if enough people want it.........

But then if enough people want it.........

I want. I want. I want. (and I'm sure it will find a lot of takers on the Superb too!)

I think it'll appear on the Superb first but not for for 12-24 months. It's impossible to be certain though!

Poor Volvo! It has happened AGAIN and this time there were also video cameras present!

http://www.autoblog.com/2010/09/27/video-volvo-suffers-another-auto-stop-safety-system-failure-in/

So as people said lets not trust our cars just yet to do everything!

I agree about the benefits of adaptive cruise: I had it on an Audi A8 a few years back, and found it made motorway driving much more relaxing.

Another valuable feature, briefly available on the Superb but now I believe removed from the options list, is a solar panel sunroof to keep the vehicle cool when parked in summer.

In fact, my ideal car would offer these two features plus 4wd for winter. I'm not sure whether there's any car, at any price, that combines all three options - and certainly none at a reasonable price...

Volvo has declared that its aim by 2018 is to have all its new cars fitted with safety devices that make it impossible for anyone to lose their life in a collision in one of their (new) cars. Part of this is developing technology that prevents collisions in the first place, by taking control away from the driver. They say this includes impact from any angle, but quite how they will achieve this if the car that is about to run into the back of your Volvo isn't another Volvo, I don't know!

Let's hope it's not a 600K.G.bail of straw rolling down a hill.

Let's hope it's not a 600K.G.bail of straw rolling down a hill.

Or an easter European lorry driver who's fallen asleep at the wheel