Manoeuvre Braking

I think the automatic braking is my least favourite feature on my Superb. I do want to leave it on most of the time "just in case" it is ever needed, which is fortunate because you cannot permanently turn it off. But it is far too sensitive and erratic for me to be comfortable with it.

Here are some places where it has fired off for me:

1. Reversing into a parking bay with a footpath that ran across the back of the bays. The path was separated from the parking bays with a fence, I was edging back slowly, and was still more than 3m away from the path when a pedestrian walking along it set off the automated braking.

2. Going up a curved ramp on a multi storey car park. This time going forwards at walking speed. I think it was the raised kerbs on the narrow ramp that triggered the brakes. The driver behind me was not at all pleased that I appeared to brake check him on the ramp.

3. Backing into my garage at home. I need to remember to turn off the automated braking every time or the car will never let me into my own garage. It is a little tight through the doorway with only 20cm to spare on each side, but (unless the car is going to jump sideways) there is no chance of actually hitting it when reversing in a straight line. However, the brakes always come on if I forgot to disable them.

4. Today's example must win a prize! It happened while slowly reversing at 2-3mph along a shared drive with at least 2m clear on either side of the car and over 15m clear behind. The paved drive is surrounded by houses on either side and garages at the end, so nothing like bushes or tall grass to set it off. The brakes fired, so I checked surrounding in case I had missed something. It was all clear so I started to reverse ... and the brakes fired again, and then again. The only thing that was moving behind the car was the vapour coming from my exhaust in the cold air. I wonder if the camera saw this and decided to brake in order to protect the vapour from being injured?

Now, these false alarms would be annoying but acceptable if they were just warnings. My Mk3 Superb did just that, leaving plenty of time for me to brake manually and decide whether it was safe to proceed. But instead we get violent braking (I can think of no better word) whenever the car decides there is the remotest possibility of hitting something. My back and neck are still sore from this morning's event; perhaps that is why Skoda decided to put massagers into the chairs?

Some future software update might fix this behaviour, but I really don't expect that Skoda will ever do anything about it. I suspect instead that their designers and programmers are all high fiving each other about all the wonderful safety features they have built into the cars.

What examples of unexpected slow-speed manoeuvre braking have you experienced with your car?