Travelling along the M4 on Tuesday, it was sleety snow much of the way and after a while the Adaptive Cruise Control stopped working, with a message showing something like 'ACC sensor fault'.  My right foot had to take over (+ left foot occasionally).  Sometime later, still snowing, ACC came back for a short while, but then packed up again.  Finally, coming into Bristol along the M32, I decided on a pit stop at IKEA and half expecting it, noticed that the plastic 'box' in the radiator grill centre (that I believe houses the ACC radar) had a snow coating, so I scraped it off.

 

Having filled up with meatballs jam & chips + a bit of retail therapy exiting the store while negotiating the IKEA shopping maze, I was able to briefly test the ACC before getting to Bristol city centre and thankfully it was now working again OK.

 

I'd had a similar failure in very heavy rain along the M4 London bound a few weeks earlier - the weather was so bad there were 5 accidents in different places causing traffic jams en route - a dreadful journey that time.  Don't know what some drivers get up to in bad weather.  The ACC came back while still driving along, when the rain had eased a little.

 

ACC had only failed once previously 2 years ago, again when it was tipping it down on the M4, but then only came back after stopping at the services.  So not yet quite good enough for autonomous cars.

Good that you have to take over control of the car in adverse weather conditions. 

Drive with due care and attention on possible changes in road conditions. 

 

Snow / sleet on sensors or leaves, dirt or even just H20 is going to have an affect of their effectiveness. 

Didn't fail, just couldn't see 😀

Yes Ootohere - no drama when it happened, I think there was a ping & the car began to gradually slow down. so failed safe.  Last Tuesday roads weren't slippery, so my foot soon got car back up to 70mph.

 

sussamb - I think the message that came up did say sensor failure, but I suppose that is a bit misleading.  In fact the message did actually make me do a double take when it first happened... did it mean a trip to the garage, or even car is 5.5yrs old and electronics beginning to get unreliable... so time for a new car... should I go EV... etc. etc. until I thought things through.  While wafting along the motorway, you have time to chew these things over in your mind.

Had a similar thing whilst snowing, front sensor impaired message

 

pulled over, found a sleety icy slush was stuck to it.  Wiped it off, restarted car and error cleared few seconds later.

 

Wouldn't call it a fault.

For some reason, my headlights came on, on one of the brightest days for some time, about 1pm. Cleaned windscreen / sorted.

Came on because the sensor was dirty.

11 hours ago, Choclab said:

For some reason, my headlights came on, on one of the brightest days for some time, about 1pm. Cleaned windscreen / sorted.

Sensor covered so it thought it was dark out.

Maybe these sensors should be fitted with mini windscreen wipers to make them dependable in all weathers - for autonomous cars at least!!!!!!!!

Absolutely.

But you have a Skoda and just one more thing to go wrong.    First they must sort the latest Software Failures, then charging issues with electrified models.

Maybe Sunroof drains, fuel fillers that fail to open when icy conditions etc. 

 

For now the drivers might just have to do the driving in VW Group vehicles other than in a Bentley.