Driving 30 mph on a single carriageway in town that had a pedestrian refuge in the centre (no painted zebra stripes on the road, no additional lighting or signage, just the refuge).  Four pedestrians crossed casually from the offside towards the near side about 5 seconds before I got there, stopping and standing in the central pedestrian refuge to wait for me to pass.  I noted their presence and continued as normal.  As I got close to the refuge, the Front Assist kicked in with a vengeance and slammed the anchors on hard.  (Luckily, no drivers were behind me at the time.)

 

I don’t know who was more surprised, the pedestrians, my passengers or myself.  I managed to recover myself and waved the confused pedestrians, who must have thought me a moron, across the street and then carried on.

 

Has this ever happened to you?  Any tips on how to avoid repeating it, apart from slowing down and waving pedestrians through?  I can see this being something that will happen again in future.

Just occurred to me as well - my ACC, while not set to a particular speed, was on ie. the lever was in the forward position - would this have contributed to it?

I've experienced the Front Assist kicking in unexpectedly a couple of times. Each time, like you, I had noted a potential hazard but concluded there was no risk so carried on, the car clearly thought differently. On each occasion I didn't need to lift off, brake, steer as no 'driver input' was needed.

 

However, in similar circumstances more recently, I have tweaked the steering slightly &/or lifted off slightly and the car Front Assist has not reacted - I assume those small driver inputs were enough to inform the systems that I've seen it, I'm reacting to it, I know what I'm doing.

I had Front Assist intervened a few times because of pedestrians, but it always started slowing down gently or just beeping at me. Never it slammed brakes. IIRC, according to car's manual, on speeds above 30 km/h it shouldn't start braking before giving alarm.

Manoeuvre brakes are other story, scared me a few times in my garage slamming brakes so hard as if someone hit me.

Edited 11 September, 20232 yr by Edela

I've been in a couple of situations exactly like the one mentioned by Steve and solved it similarly.

For example, another car might be turning off the road, crossing a raised walkway, with it's rear hanging slightly onto the road still. If the other car is moving, it will be well clear of the lane when I pass that spot and there's always been plenty of room to steer around it while even staying in my own lane, but the car seems to think otherwise. Front Assist would then start braking, beeping and showing me the huge red symbol on the dash. A touch of throttle input calms it down.

Edited 11 September, 20232 yr by Jorgeminator

Thanks all.  In my case, I had no prior audio warnings at all and if there a visual warning on the dash, I wasn’t aware as I was keeping my eyes on the road!  Just normal driving to BANG! full-on braking, solid warning beep and big red symbol on the dash.  Will be more aware in future.

The first thing I do when I get in my car is turn this and lane assist off. 

It’s like cars are being designed and built for morons these days, let ME drive my car, not the other way round. 

I’ve had it a fair bit too, not the about to crash braking though. Sometimes whilst at 70mph approaching an overhead roundabout with a limit of 30. The crappy satnav obviously thinks I’m on the slip road not the main carriageway. Brakes on, not a slam on though. 
Happened even more in Spain perhaps getting rhd/lhd muddled. Became a liability there. Shame because it takes a lot of stress out of driving unfamiliar roads in busy traffic

1 hour ago, Markeknows said:

Happened even more in Spain perhaps getting rhd/lhd muddled.

The dealer did a big software update on the car and afterwards when the ACC was on, if I tried to overtake someone on a dual carriageway or motorway, it would brake gently and throttle back to prevent me doing so unless I overrode it by pressing the throttle myself.  I’ve got an ODB11 and using it to scan the modules, I discovered that in the ACC module that “Overtake Right Prevention” had been activated again.  That’s the standard setting in Europe as it’s illegal to overtake (undertake) on the right in Germany.  Deactivated it again and all is fine now.

I've just tried disabling the Front Assist and now get a persistent nag from the display that it is disabled with an orange warning triangle.  Is it possible to get rid of those nags?

You should inform your insurance company that you've disabled a safety feature of your car.

 

See what they say

You on the other hand can live (or not) with getting a rear end shunt when the car takes the matters out of your hands.

5 hours ago, xman said:

You should inform your insurance company that you've disabled a safety feature of your car.

 

See what they say

I presume you’re joking when you say this.
 

Or do we have to tell them when we turn off the parking assist and stop / start too?

I have spent my career in the electronics industry designing software and systems.  In 4 months I have already had too many false positives from the front assist.  I am not having some incompetent nerd sitting behind a desk drive my car.

Edited 15 September, 20232 yr by avi4tor

6 hours ago, xman said:

You should inform your insurance company that you've disabled a safety feature of your car.

 

See what they say

and you should restrict yourself to public transport.

On 11/09/2023 at 13:35, Dillers said:

The first thing I do when I get in my car is turn this and lane assist off. 

It’s like cars are being designed and built for morons these days, let ME drive my car, not the other way round. 

 

 

Start stop, then lane assist and finally front assist, go to routine. 

 

A few times when i forgot the front/collision assist, parking gave me a heart attack with the breaks smashing on as if i had gone into a wall. 

1 hour ago, avi4tor said:

 I am not having some incompetent nerd sitting behind a desk drive my car.

Then you need to buy an older car, the Golf 8 (and related cars like the Octavia 4) have been released with many software faults and VAG are being very slow fixing them (and in some cases even accepting that they exist).

1 hour ago, PetrolDave said:

Then you need to buy an older car, the Golf 8 (and related cars like the Octavia 4) have been released with many software faults and VAG are being very slow fixing them (and in some cases even accepting that they exist).

I have, it's called a Triumph Stag.

Edited 15 September, 20232 yr by avi4tor

1 hour ago, avi4tor said:

I have, it's called a Triumph Stag.

Keep a particular eye on corrosion around the rear suspension points!