How is BlueCruise for you?

[PopsGG]

I think GM wants $25 a month for SuperCruise after the trial period on Bolts. I don't know if it includes anything else like OnStar.

Interesting. I fished around and it seems Ford wanted $600 for 3 years of Bluecruise. That is $16.67 a month.

I use Netflix as the benchmark to gauge the value of anything as a digital service. For $15 I can get 20+ hours of service a month. The amount/places I drive I would use Bluecruise maybe 4 hours a month max. That is why its only with $5/m to me.

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[beatle]

Well it wasn't a good BlueCruise day for me. I tried the different following distances as suggested, but they did correspond to increasing the following distance the more bars were shown, so no bug there. I had several people zooming around me while it was engaged.

I also had the system fail to notice traffic suddenly slowing in front of me. I waited until the last moment to see if it would respond, but it did not, so I manually hit the brakes hard enough to activate ABS. A fraction of a second later I got the pre-collision warning on the dash along with the alarm. Maybe the system would have eventually caught it, but I wasn't about to find out. It was a clear day with no glare, and the system was previously adjustfing for traffic. I guess it just fell asleep or something.

A little while later I tried it in stop and go traffic. It would sit a bit before coming away from a stop as traffic pulled away, but then as the car ahead would gradually come back to a stop, it would suddenly jab the brakes to slow down. I let it do this 2 or 3 times before I cut the system off and drove myself to avoid getting motion sick.

 

[PungoteagueDave]

Mine is like Tigger. Bounce, bounce, bounce. Terrible compared to Tesla's FSD, which I had in beta.

 

[bp299]

Maybe I'm doing something wrong but mine is flashing "put hand on the wheel" every 15 seconds or so. What's the point of having hands free if you have to keep nudging the wheel? Definitely wont be paying for this tech.

 

[EVTruckGuy]

Maybe I'm doing something wrong but mine is flashing "put hand on the wheel" every 15 seconds or so. What's the point of having hands free if you have to keep nudging the wheel? Definitely wont be paying for this tech.

Bluecruise is only hands-free on certain premapped highways. Bluecruise can be used elsewhere minus the hands-free feature.

The truck may prompt you to put your hands on the wheel even when driving on a hands-free highway for various reasons, and it will go back to hands-free mode automatically when able.

If your truck consistently prompts you every 15 seconds... You are likely not on one of the ore-mapped sections for hands-free driving.

 

[bp299]

I’ve been driving major highways in SoCal and I did a long trip on 395 to Mammoth and it always does it.

 

[805Badger]

Ok, probably silly question but we picked up our truck yesterday and Ford Streaming, Ford BlueCruise, and Connected Built-in Navigation are all "Activation Pending". I was able to activate the BlueOval Charge network. Does it take time for Ford to Activate these other items of am i missing where to do it?

 

[DroopyHippo]

Hit and miss.

To the bay area it worked great in stop and go traffic with 1 exception when vehicles merge out of your lane or one merges in the truck is pretty aggressive with closing the gap at times. Which can give the impression you're trying to not let someone in your lane.

When taking another trip traffic went from 65-0 and it seems like blue cruise was NOT going to break I gave it up to my comfort level to react but it did not so I braked for it and even got the preclusion warning.

Latest trip I was in the passing lane and it just seemed like it hugged the dashed line to close. It really needs to center better particularity around an 18 wheeler. I tried pulling it left but no luck just drifted back over. In the right lane I don't mind this so much as it keeps me away from center line.

Sometimes I get ping pong effect not sure what is causing that.

Unless it improves I wont be buying it in 3 years.

 

[davidf01]

Bluecruise seems to be working fine for me. No pingpongging stays in the lane nicely. I have no worries about it staying to close to one side or the other.

 

[Labs4Lightning]

Hit and miss.

To the bay area it worked great in stop and go traffic with 1 exception when vehicles merge out of your lane or one merges in the truck is pretty aggressive with closing the gap at times. Which can give the impression you're trying to not let someone in your lane.

When taking another trip traffic went from 65-0 and it seems like blue cruise was NOT going to break I gave it up to my comfort level to react but it did not so I braked for it and even got the preclusion warning.

Latest trip I was in the passing lane and it just seemed like it hugged the dashed line to close. It really needs to center better particularity around an 18 wheeler. I tried pulling it left but no luck just drifted back over. In the right lane I don't mind this so much as it keeps me away from center line.

Sometimes I get ping pong effect not sure what is causing that.

Unless it improves I wont be buying it in 3 years.

@Ford Motor Company
I hug the right feels unsafe particularly when near 18 wheelers and other trailer vehicles.

would be nice to be centered.

bluecruise IR cameras remain on after exiting and locking truck.

 

[hturnerfamily]

some of us may be confusing 'Blue Cruise' with the CoPilot 360 2.0 'ACTIVE' automated driving features.

Blue Cruise is simply, and only, the 'hands free' aspect of the steering - EVERYTHING else is included in the 'ACTIVE' features, which requires 'holding' the steering wheel periodically. That's really the only difference between the two, 'hands free' versus 'holding'.

Blue Cruise is also only designed to work on 'pre-mapped' roadways, but the 'ACTIVE' features can work almost anyplace, if it can 'see/read' the road stripes.

Adaptive Cruise Control, Following Distance settings, and Automated Braking are also already part of the 'ACTIVE' features. They have nothing to do with BlueCruise, which is the steering feature only.

BlueCruise, and it's associated HARDWARE scanners, are really just an additional feature within the 'ACTIVE' automated software system, though Ford's 'branding' of the term 'Blue Cruise' has made this a muddy mess.

 

[cvalue13]

Went through this thread, and surprised I haven’t seen anyone else mention the problem with exit ramps.

If on blue cruise and in the right lane , an exit ramp will 2 out of 3 times cause the truck to begin sort-of exiting the highway. The “sort-of” being the alarming part, as it would feel like the truck might decide to just split the difference and neither exit nor stay on the highway - of course, I say feel like because I never let it complete it’s intended maneuver, whatever it was.

this exit ramp behavior was the corollary to the on-ramp behavior mentioned by @beatle in the OP (for me, probably 2 out of 3 on-ramps would cause BC to give up)

 

[hturnerfamily]

yes, I experienced this in the Model 3 long-range on the trip to TX from GA - it was very nerve-racking to have the car 'decide' that it could not 'decide' which way to go, and DID try to exit, ON IT'S OWN, on a few occasions - that's just crazy at 75mph!

Now, what I suspect is that the software tends to 'prefer' the right stripe. When it sees none, or the stripe begins to move away, it thinks the road is moving that way, when it's really just an 'unmarked' exit ramp. If the road does not provide a set of 'dashed' striping at the exit, like many don't, the car just could not figure out, warbled for a second, and took one way or the other. Not good.

The system really should 'prefer' the LEFT stripe instead, meaning that when the right stripe moves away or disappears all-together, the vehicle doesn't sway from it's 'straight' path. There's very few times when the LEFT stripe disappears, and therefore should be the 'default' path to follow.

 

[beatle]

I actually don't remember having a problem with exit ramps. I know what you're getting at though. Back in 2019 I drove my friend's Model 3 and used autopilot. The car would start to creep towards the ramp as if the lane were simply getting wider instead of recognizing a new lane was forming. That experience is better as it now uses the lane markers to the left as the reference point for the lane. I think this should be "easily" fixable behavior.

Regarding BC vs lane keep assist, they both seem functionally the same with regards to how well the truck tracks the lane and keeps pace with the vehicle ahead. Though I figured the truck would perform better on a mapped highway, that wasn't my experience. I think that's actually a good thing since it shows the system is capable of tracking the lane okay even in unknown areas. Hands free is just a bonus and really only a big deal on longer stretches of highway anyway IMO. I just didn't want to start a thread with the topic "How is lane keep assist, traffic aware cruise control, and Blue Cruise hands free for you?"

 

[Tony Burgh]

Although I like having the active features, Blue Cruise is just a gimmick as far as I’m concerned. How tough is it to drive at 70-75 on interstates? If there is heavy traffic I’m paying attention anyhow.

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