A4Driver

Today I was driving on the New Jersey Turnpike. It was raining, and the traffic had slowed to 60 mph. I was maintaining six or seven car lengths from the car in front of me.

All of a sudden, I hear a loud beep, and a big red triangle with an exclamation point in it shows up on my VC screen, with the words: Audi Pre-Sense.

My first reaction was: WTF? I was far away from the guy in front of me, and the guy behind me was several car lengths away, so why the warning? It kind of unnerved me because I could picture the car slamming on the brakes ... and the guy behind me hitting me, or worse, me going into a skid down a ditch on the side of the road.

The warning symbol stayed on for about five minutes, then went out. Thankfully, nothing bad happened.
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steelersmb

I've brought this up before because it has happened to me several times but it usually happens to me when turning left and crossing over the road. It's scary because it senses that I am turning too early if a car is coming the other way and it will slam on the brakes. This has happened to me now 3-4 times and it scares the crap out of you when it happens and it's also very dangerous if someone is following you or if there is a lot of traffic and it stops in part of the oncoming traffic lane.

bob m

So, the warning light came on, without the car starting to brake? Was the car on right trying to enter your lane? Maybe that's what triggered it. Anyhow, the fact that the warning stayed on would be a call or trip to the dealership for me.

bob m

I think it's doing what Audi says it should be doing, but the problem is just what you stated and IMHO, just as dangerous. A better solution (if they felt it was needed at all) would be a visible/audible warning sign, not to brake the car.

A4Driver

The warning came on, but the car did not brake at all. It was kind of freaky, because I was wondering what was going to happen. I was in the right lane; don't remember if anybody was on my left.

Yeah, I'll probably schedule a trip to the dealership.
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Donkihad

I really think there are 2 different things you guys are describing.

In rain, snow or ice you can get some false positive notifications. My car gave me a warning that the sensors are being turned off because something is obstructing them last week when the car was covered from freezing rain.

The other scenario being described is if you are taking a left and turning into oncoming traffic, the car tried to stop you if it detects oncoming traffic.

zillerkaz

I actually had a false pre-sense alert the other day sitting at a stop light. There were no cars behind me (not anywhere near me at least) and I had just come to a full stop. Pre-sense appeared and the seat belts tightened... it seems one step above the standard alert because while you have experienced an audible/visual alert while driving in the past (sometimes false and sometimes correct), I hadn't experienced the seat belt tightening yet. Scared the crap out of my wife since there was absolutely no reason for it to have been enabled in this scenario.

jimmyja4

I have been meaning to post about this. I have had a few false alerts where the car did not take any action, or did the 2nd step of a light brake. One of these happened in poor weather, so not sure if the camera might have picked up something that was not actually a threat.

But I had one incident that was scary. I was making my way into the left turn lane at around 30-35mph and the car did its full on brake action. Now I am not faulting the system because I believe it probably behaved as intended since I was coming up on cars, and the system had no idea that I was about to dart left. So I have learned that aggressive/spirited/reckless driving is a no-no with this new technology.

But I am worried about the possibility of a malfunction/false read where it could fully apply the brakes startling the driver into making a mistake or causing an accident from behind.

steelersmb

Yeah, I don't think there is anything wrong with the car, it's just scary and dangerous. Everyone starts moving to turn left when there is oncoming traffic. I always start moving when the car in the oncoming lane is about to come up on me so I can get a moving start to cross the road. The car thinks that I am going to run into the oncoming car and that's when it slams on the brakes.