[SkykingUSA]

Tonight, I was driving along just fine and everything was going well. I was sitting at an intersection where there are two left turn lanes in both directions. I was in the right-most left turn lane. When the left arrow turned green for both directions, everyone started their left turns. Since I was in the right-most left turn lane, I would be passing the oncoming left turning car somewhat closely. To my complete surprise, the car emergency braked on its own leaving me stopped in the middle of the intersection. Fortunately, there was no one behind me because they would have likely rear-ended my car - I wasn't travelling fast so the stop felt almost instant. I'm glad my wife was not in the car because she would have surely hurt her neck from the sudden unexpected stop.

After looking through the manual I learned that this feature is in the section called "Forward Collision Mitigation with brake intervention". Since my car was accelerating towards the other left-turning car, the system thought we were going to collide and slammed on the brakes. The first thing I wanted to do was turn it off, but then I figured maybe it's better to turn down the sensitivity somehow because it could still be useful in the case of a "real" impending accident. Unfortunately, if you turn it off it will only stay off for the current trip, and will turn itself back on again at the start of the next trip. Also, there doesn't seem to be any way to adjust the sensitivity of the feature. You can adjust the "warning time" but I think that only changes how early or late you see a notice on the instrument cluster and not whether the system will activate or not. Although it does say below that the system will issue warnings and reactions, it's not clear whether the reactions will be later as well as the warnings, or if it's just the warnings that will be later, with no change to when the reactions occur.

I'm not happy with this feature as it is, and was wondering if anyone else has had a similar situation and what your warning time is set at (options are Early, Medium, and Late if I recall correctly). I would think it's best to set it to Early so you get the most warning before the car decides to perform emergency braking, but I'm not sure if that will also cause the car to initiate reactions earlier too. I'm pretty sure my car was set to Early, so I think I'm going to try the Late setting and see what happens. I just don't know if it will just warn me at the last second, or if it will actually react in a less sensitive or later way too.

I have also seen the big red picture of the car in the instrument cluster before when I was driving on a residential street that was bending to the left. I didn't know what it meant at the time, but now I know that the car must have thought that I was going to collide with the parked cars because they were in-front of me since I was in a left turning bend. I'm glad the car didn't stop then, but I wouldn't be surprised if it does at some time in the future. That would be awful.

I sure hope I don't have to turn this feature off every single time I get in the car from now on. I really don't want to get rear-ended because the car is being over-protective.

Below are the three pages in the manual where this feature begins.

[OHV_44]

I experienced this a few times in the X3. You're very scared.
The time is “late” for me.
I can't say more about it, but I'll take a look later to see what else is possible to set up there.

[arkhi]

Specifically for the left turn intervention, it doesn't actuvate when your car is above 15mph.

[PsychDoc]

Frankly I don't really understand many of these "nanny" features. Things like autonomous driving just don't make sense to me at all. Why would anyone buy a $75k+ car only to sit behind the wheel, hands at the ready to grab the wheel should anything untoward occur. If I wanted to be driven, I probably would have bought a Lincoln and hired a driver. I think it's fair to say that you buy a car like a G60 because of its driving dynamics and similar variables. Lane keeping "assistance," "collision mitigation," etc. are all further examples of technologies that add little and which actually pose certain unintended risks.

My friend who owns a '23 S-Class M-B has had two or three incidents in which the car violently braked for no apparent reason (in one case possibly some snow on the front sensor) causing him relatively minor injuries (a sprained neck) and scaring the crap out of him.

I guess what I'm saying is do you buy a high end car to drive or to drive you? I, for one, prefer to drive my own vehicle.

[LVBMW]

I have driven in similar circumstances and never had this happen. I haven’t been alerted to parked cars either. It definitely sounds like a scary situation. I would not, however, consider features like this “nanny” features. Forward collision mitigation with braking is a truly valuable safety feature. The “nanny” features make long freeway drives more pleasant and less tedious. I’m delighted to have the car maintain a consistent speed with a safe distance from other traffic and centered in the lane with minimal effort. I’m sure everyone has heard of someone who was scared by a false alarm, but I’m sure there are many more cases where accidents were avoided and lives saved that we never hear about.

[scas12]

I have had the red car come up on the HUD a few times but never any hard intervention. I find the crash mitigation features generally helpful but they’re not perfect. I feel like the bit that’s missing from bmw and all car manufacturers is training on the systems and a good explanation of limitations. If you had the knowledge you would be able to better anticipate problems.

[Windshieldfarmer]

I too don’t like AEB in cars because of all of the false alarms. That said at one time I owned a Genesis G80…and this feature prevented me from rear ending another car stopped in front of me when I stupidly looked down at a text message on my watch.

[deutsch100]

I am so sorry. I have not experienced this (yet) in my i5, but my iX did something similar a few times and our 2020 Porsche Taycan would randomly activate forward collision prevention...and it was even more violent than the BMW system. The Porsche would make an insanely loud beeping, the dash would turn red, the seat belts would tighten and it would ABS hard brake.

I hate these nanny systems!!!! I am so sorry you experienced this.

[RichardInCA]

I’ve got mine set to “late” - the BMW genius set that up with me when I picked up the car last year - he told me that it would change how early the brake intervention happened and that “early” would potentially be a frustrating experience. I’ve had it intervene once or twice in stop and go highway traffic, and normally in a pretty positive way. I’ve not experienced your left turn situation - perhaps you crossed a speed threshold?

The other feature I’ve been wrangling a little is driving in D-adaptive mode (I’ve been trying to compare D with B efficiency). It’s a bit weird as sometimes you get the free-wheeling coasting, and then other times it switches to a B like mode if cars ahead get too close. Not knowing whether I’m coasting or regenerative braking makes it a bit weird tbh for similar reasons.

[richpat69]

Originally Posted by PsychDoc

Frankly I don't really understand many of these "nanny" features. Things like autonomous driving just don't make sense to me at all. Why would anyone buy a $75k+ car only to sit behind the wheel, hands at the ready to grab the wheel should anything untoward occur. If I wanted to be driven, I probably would have bought a Lincoln and hired a driver. I think it's fair to say that you buy a car like a G60 because of its driving dynamics and similar variables. Lane keeping "assistance," "collision mitigation," etc. are all further examples of technologies that add little and which actually pose certain unintended risks.

My friend who owns a '23 S-Class M-B has had two or three incidents in which the car violently braked for no apparent reason (in one case possibly some snow on the front sensor) causing him relatively minor injuries (a sprained neck) and scaring the crap out of him.

I guess what I'm saying is do you buy a high end car to drive or to drive you? I, for one, prefer to drive my own vehicle.

I'd very much like to have autonomous driving. I'd like to be able to go to a restaurant or bar and maybe have another drink or another glass of wine which I now don't. I periodically go on very long trips. It would be nice when you have hundreds of miles on an interstate to be able to do something other than stay focused.800 miles per day for three or four days is not always a pleasure, even in our very nice toys.

The big push for AV is the commercial sector, particularly large trucks. With AV trucking could occur during quiet traffic hours when roads are not clogged with traffic and there would be no limitation for sleep time from the DOT. Obviously, the labor savings would be huge.

My G-30 M550 would periodically come to a screeching stop when I was backing up, even if there was nothing behind me, particularly when a sloping driveway would meet the road.

[deutsch100]

Originally Posted by RichardInCA

The other feature I’ve been wrangling a little is driving in D-adaptive mode (I’ve been trying to compare D with B efficiency). It’s a bit weird as sometimes you get the free-wheeling coasting, and then other times it switches to a B like mode if cars ahead get too close. Not knowing whether I’m coasting or regenerative braking makes it a bit weird tbh for similar reasons.

I tried D adaptive mode in my i4, iX and now i5....and it drives me nuts!! I agree it is a bit weird and very mercurial. I greatly prefer to keep my BMW EVs in low regen for D, and then I just pop it into B mode when I want a more "one pedal" drive experience. Best of both worlds. My two i3S and Tesla...no choices between D and B mode, so I am happy the current i models allow us to choose.

[RichardInCA]

One other thought - did you have your left lane turn signal activated at the time? I’m wondering if the car thought you were going to somehow drive straight rather than turn.

The only slightly similar pebble-in-the-shoe thing I’ve had is two lane exits ramps from freeways where I’m near/next to a car in the right-most lane and if I’m either starting to signal a right turn or start to turn my wheel, I get the vibration feedback as though the car things I’m going to initiate a turn into the car next to me, rather than we’re both on a parallel exit path from the freeway (think 101S to SFO for Bay Area natives, or often times 580S to 24W)

[Scrapula]

After 3 months with this car, I have turned every feature to low, late, etc. I wish I could turn off the red car in the HUD. I’m not close enough to be considered tailgating. I will let a car in to go in front of me and it turns on.

[ezaircon4jc]

Originally Posted by richpat69

I'd very much like to have autonomous driving. I'd like to be able to go to a restaurant or bar and maybe have another drink or another glass of wine which I now don't. I periodically go on very long trips. It would be nice when you have hundreds of miles on an interstate to be able to do something other than stay focused.800 miles per day for three or four days is not always a pleasure, even in our very nice toys....

You still have to pay attention. You can/will also be cited for DUI if you had those drinks and you were behind the wheel. Synthetic driving or not, YOU'RE still the DRIVER.

[SkykingUSA]

Thanks everyone for the replies. I want to feel more confident in this system before ALWAYS using it, especially with the wife in the car. I set a shortcut to turn it off, and do so when I'm in the same situation at an intersection like that, and there are cars behind me, or my wife is in the car. If I'm alone, and there are no cars behind me, I will leave it on in those situations for testing, and be ready to see what happens.

Originally Posted by PsychDoc

Frankly I don't really understand many of these "nanny" features. Things like autonomous driving just don't make sense to me at all. Why would anyone buy a $75k+ car only to sit behind the wheel, hands at the ready to grab the wheel should anything untoward occur. If I wanted to be driven, I probably would have bought a Lincoln and hired a driver. I think it's fair to say that you buy a car like a G60 because of its driving dynamics and similar variables. Lane keeping "assistance," "collision mitigation," etc. are all further examples of technologies that add little and which actually pose certain unintended risks.

My friend who owns a '23 S-Class M-B has had two or three incidents in which the car violently braked for no apparent reason (in one case possibly some snow on the front sensor) causing him relatively minor injuries (a sprained neck) and scaring the crap out of him.

I guess what I'm saying is do you buy a high end car to drive or to drive you? I, for one, prefer to drive my own vehicle.

I hear you about this point. I was thinking the exact same thing a couple of days ago. Since all this technology is new to me, I have enjoyed trying it all out to see how it works and to see if I can be comfortable with it. However, for the past couple of days I stopped using most of it because it was taking the fun away from driving. I go back and forth - when I want to enjoy the drive, I drive. When I want to relax a little and take it easy, I turn on some of the driver assist features.

Originally Posted by RichardInCA

I’ve got mine set to “late” - the BMW genius set that up with me when I picked up the car last year - he told me that it would change how early the brake intervention happened and that “early” would potentially be a frustrating experience. I’ve had it intervene once or twice in stop and go highway traffic, and normally in a pretty positive way. I’ve not experienced your left turn situation - perhaps you crossed a speed threshold?

The other feature I’ve been wrangling a little is driving in D-adaptive mode (I’ve been trying to compare D with B efficiency). It’s a bit weird as sometimes you get the free-wheeling coasting, and then other times it switches to a B like mode if cars ahead get too close. Not knowing whether I’m coasting or regenerative braking makes it a bit weird tbh for similar reasons.

Thanks, that's good to know. I have mine set to Late now too and will test it out when I know I have no one behind me. Hopefully it will react later than when I had it set to Early, which is what it was on before. Outside of this one incident, it has reacted positively by slowing me down when needed.

I have been driving in D adaptive mode since I got the car a little over a week ago. I'm so used to just taking my foot off the accelerator to coast and I find it a relaxing way to come to a stop. When I tried the B mode, it seems awkward to have to feather the accelerator so precisely and to constantly have your foot on the pedal when driving - basically, there is no more coasting in B mode. I'm getting used to the D adaptive mode. Generally, it lets me coast as long as there are no cars in front which are too close. I'm getting used to it starting to brake for me as I approach other vehicles now.

Originally Posted by RichardInCA

One other thought - did you have your left lane turn signal activated at the time? I’m wondering if the car thought you were going to somehow drive straight rather than turn.

The only slightly similar pebble-in-the-shoe thing I’ve had is two lane exits ramps from freeways where I’m near/next to a car in the right-most lane and if I’m either starting to signal a right turn or start to turn my wheel, I get the vibration feedback as though the car things I’m going to initiate a turn into the car next to me, rather than we’re both on a parallel exit path from the freeway (think 101S to SFO for Bay Area natives, or often times 580S to 24W)

I honestly can't remember if I had my turn signal on, but I probably did because I usually do leave it on. Just not sure. I don't mind the wheel vibrations and warnings when I'm signaling and there is someone beside me. I get used to that pretty quickly.

[bmw_maniac]

Originally Posted by RichardInCA

I’ve got mine set to “late” - the BMW genius set that up with me when I picked up the car last year - he told me that it would change how early the brake intervention happened and that “early” would potentially be a frustrating experience. I’ve had it intervene once or twice in stop and go highway traffic, and normally in a pretty positive way. I’ve not experienced your left turn situation - perhaps you crossed a speed threshold?

The other feature I’ve been wrangling a little is driving in D-adaptive mode (I’ve been trying to compare D with B efficiency). It’s a bit weird as sometimes you get the free-wheeling coasting, and then other times it switches to a B like mode if cars ahead get too close. Not knowing whether I’m coasting or regenerative braking makes it a bit weird tbh for similar reasons.

what you are describing is the adaptive regeneration mode in D. I really like it as it adapts the regeneration to the specific conditions, ie impending turns, cars in front, etc.

When in D mode you can however change the regeneration from adaptive to low, medium, high. Try that and see if it works better for you.

[RichardInCA]

Originally Posted by bmw_maniac

what you are describing is the adaptive regeneration mode in D. I really like it as it adapts the regeneration to the specific conditions, ie impending turns, cars in front, etc.

When in D mode you can however change the regeneration from adaptive to low, medium, high. Try that and see if it works better for you.

Thanks - yes, I’m aware of the other modes; I was trying a head to head with B which has become my default driving mode and D-adaptive was the last setting I had used.

[Ossian]

I had this happen once in our 2024 X5, also during a low-speed turn situation -- have also had numerous ghost alarms from the side detection system. I have since set all of the auto-braking features to max distance. I sometimes I have a problem with my G30 braking on very steep driveways, if I don't take them very, very slowly as well. Startled as I was, I still feel like the systems have enough value to keep them activated.