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I found it only works if the road is practically empty, otherwise you're constantly engaging and disengaging it. Another disadvantage is that you need to hover your foot near the brake pedal anyway in case you need to do an emergency stop.
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I used it extensively on a V6 Shogun auto when on French autoroutes. Set it to 65 mph, and got 25 mpg in return, a very relaxed drive and an excellent way to make holiday progress.
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Another disadvantage is that you need to hover your foot near the brake pedal anyway in case you need to do an emergency stop.
Not sure I agree. I had my foot lightly resting on the accelerator - where it was most comfortable. If you had no cruise your foot would be planted on the accelerator and nowhere near the brake pedal...
I travelled mid-evening on the way there and finshed my journey back mid-evening, when traffic was light. Did Babury-Oxford at a steady 76 mph indicated, CC all the way. Nice!
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I think CC can be used quite often when the circumstances are right. I travel most of my driving on CC BUT I drive at about 70MPH, slower than the majority. I rarely have to disengage as I don't catch people up. If I was driving at 80-90 MPH, I think it would be very different, on and off all the time as you catch up slower traffic and wait for them to complete their overtake.
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i always find if you travel at 70ish, usually middle lane you get the lorries pulling out on one of their 10 mile overtakes (slight exageration, but a personal peev. Been discussed elsewhere im sure, but they do irritate). Cruise off.
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I use CC most of the time driving around Herts, with occasional excursions elsewhere. I rely on it as a more efficient throttle controller than a right foot could ever be; there is analysis on the Web backing this up. Flicking it on an off is very easy with a VDO Tempomat/Tempostat stalk, although I appreciate that other control levers aren't as well designed. It's part of the general strategy of keeping safe space around me and judging speed; if the safe space isn't there, switching it on and off gets tiresome.
As confirmed in earlier discussions here, it is not efficient in hilly areas, but it does not require miles of flat motorway to prove its worth in terms of better fuel consumption and less stressed driving, and of course it is a good way to stick to speed limits.
In terms of the value of optional extras on a car, it's right at the top of my list, above air conditioning for sure.
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In terms of the value of optional extras on a car it's right at the top of my list above air conditioning for sure.
It's number 2 for me on my list of options.
1 Climate Control
2 Cruise Control
3 Auto Dipping rear view mirror
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The 'trick' as previous posters have noted, is to travel slighlty slower than your species.
I even set CC to just below the HGV restricted speed sometimes - if it's a heavy (HGV) traffic
environment - let others do the work of keeping up with the fastards.
Hills are interesting - I often notice while on CC, overtakers don't expect a constant speed from
you uphill & seem to misjudge their overtaking arc. On empty roads CC @ indicated 78mph seems to leave
most behind, though still keeping legal.
Do drivers of manual cars find CC such a boon? (I've always driven autos with this feature)
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All my cars with CC except one have been manual. As my 6th gear is useable from 50MPH upwards, I get full use of the CC on the motorways and select 5th when travelling on single A roads with the CC on.
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Do drivers of manual cars find CC such a boon? (I've always driven autos with this feature)
My car now is manual with CC, the 'resume' function is less entertaining than on an auto but it still works well.
On the motorway, if traffic is light enough to use CC, there is rarely a need to change down from 5th gear.
Also I often set the CC when driving through SPECS cameras near where we live - 30mph in 4th gear or 40mph in 5th. Saves having to watch the speedo all the time.
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I'm another recent convert - but seeing as my own cars don't have it, I only get to use it when I hire a car on holiday.
I first used it last year in the USA - in an automatic, of course. It works pretty well on a lot of American roads, but particularly on interstates.
This year I used it in France in a manual (Citroen C4 1.6 Hdi 110), though only on autoroutes. I found it worked very well. Perhaps that particular engine suits cruise control?
Anyway, I'm a definite convert, and I don't usually like bells and whistles.
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I have cruise control and a speed limiter on an automatic and I find the limiter more useful of the two. Set the limiter to just above the speed limit and forget the need to check the speedo again. Any of the problems with CC never arise, if you have to slow down or brake there is nothing to reset. You can speed up again knowing that you cant exceed the speed limit.
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I use my CC virtually every time I go on the motorway. I find it makes me drive with a good deal more anticipation and awareness of traffic both in front and behind. If I'm catching up quickly to a slower line of traffic I can either hit RES to turn it off and use the throttle, or tap the - button once per mph of speed I want to it decrease by.
It doesn't work in very heavy traffic where the speeds are very variable. I also find you catch people up very quickly on any sort of significant incline.
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I'm a CC convert too - my manual Volvo D5 came with one as standard and I use it more than I was expecting to. (Curiously, CC is now on option on a new S60, whereas as the useless-toy fuel computer - see other threads - is now standard.) My general rule though is not to use it unless I can drive almost entirely in the nearside lane - great in France, not so easy on a weekday M40.
There are some slightly alarming comments here, though:
A900SS:...travelling on single A roads with the CC on.
Presuming that means single carriageway, that doesn't sound very safe to me. There aren't many such roads where you can truly cruise, and subtle modulation of the car's speed is an important aspect of control, which you lose by handing the car over to CC.
OldBuffer: Set the limiter to just above the speed limit and forget the need to check the speedo again.
So the speedo's only purpose is to show whether you're exceeding the limit?
David Horn: Another disadvantage is that you need to hover your foot near the brake pedal anyway in case you need to do an emergency stop.
If there's any possibility of having to do an emergency stop, then driving on CC is entirely inappropriate.
No sanctimony intended - opinions offered in the spirit of discussion as usual.
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Off the top of my head I cant think of another use for a speedo other than to know how fast I'm going. I think possibly the only time anyone looks at the speedo is for that reason.
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There are some slightly alarming comments here though: A900SS:...travelling on single A roads with the CC on. Presuming that means single carriageway that doesn't sound very safe to me. There aren't many such roads where you can truly cruise and subtle modulation of the car's speed is an important aspect of control which you lose by handing the car over to CC.
I use it on A Roads that are without bends and low traffic levels. I do a lot of driving very early in the morning when the roads are empty. I agree that with bends and other traffic, CC could be a very bad thing to use. Hope that clarifies it.
a900ss
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I'm not sure about the CC on different cars, but the VaG ones let you 'fine-tune' your speed with the CC on so you dont have to keep disengaging it.
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CC on 2000 Focus 2.0l manual is OK.
CC on 1998 2.0l Mondeo auto.
Unlike the Focus the control buttons make a loud click which IMO unsettles some passengers as they wonder what I keep fiddling with.
The CC is an old type.
It only ensures the car is kept up to speed so down hill it can exceed the set value thus it is not certain to stay within selected legal limits in some circumstances.
The pedal is auto depressed which was a bit disconcerting at first and so leaving my foot there is not really an option.
With cruise control selected, in the case of the driver suddenly becoming unwell, does the passenger know how to switch it off? Operating my handbrake does NOT disenguage it.
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I always use it to stay just over the speed limit or just under the SPECS threshold.
If you use it all the time as part of your driving routine, it becomes a semiconcious task delt with in the different part of the brain.
I accelerate up to speed the click.....keep my foot on accelerator, but at a position less than the actual speed requires, so I can increase speed if I like, or disengage while my foot is still on to slow down.
Maybe it works best like this with automatics, I have never had a manual with it.
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Not my favourite add on, on the Omega.
Can't find too many opportunites, so rarely do I bother.
VB
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I only really use it in Europe and in Specs controlled roads.
But I found on my E-class that when you 'resume', say after a French toll booth, the car wants to accelerate almost flat out to get back to cruising speed - hardly the most economical way of resuming?!
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"I'm not sure about the CC on different cars, but the VaG ones let you 'fine-tune' your speed with the CC on so you dont have to keep disengaging it"
On my Mondeo it has CC which can be fine tuned but there is a but....
On my two VWs with cruise it was very easy to decrease and increase speed using the control without looking at any buttons. It was on the indicator stalk back then and might be now too. On motorways I could vary speed easily to cope with slowing traffic etc.. However. on the Mondeo it's about 5 buttons on the hub of the wheel - yes you can do the same but now 5 buttons vs. one at end of stalk plus a slider/switch on the VW. So no I have never managed to use it in the same way without looking at the buttons too much. End result is I rarely use it now.
I recall hiring a car in the States with CC and it was a Ford and found it to be similar to the Mondeo in operation. I had a Golf GTI 1.8T at the time with cruise - must have been one of very few in fact with cruise/sunroof/air-con and yet never found after being stolen ;-(
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I became a CC fan in 1990 when I was stationed out on the edge of the Australian desert 3 hours of absolute boredom to the nearest city. I fitted an after-market CC to my 3.8 l Ford company car which made life much more pleasant, and reduced my fuel consumption by a good 10% { mainly because I suffered speed-creep on long flat straights}. Took the unit with me between cars, until I was allowed a car with factory-fitted unit. I also found them extremely useful as a tourist in France, Italy , and Switzerland recently, but, as per earlier comments, not so much use in UK because of heavier traffic and variable speeds. In France I found running on CC a bit soporific, but having a very large T.I.R heading for the windscreen at a relative speed of some 40 mph does tend to wake one up rather quickly.
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>>In France I found running on CC a bit soporific, but having a very large T.I.R heading for the windscreen at a relative speed
>>of some 40 mph does tend to wake one up rather quickly.
Yikes!! No doubt global warming means we'll soon those bloomin' great T.I.R's here too!
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1990? Oz outback? Surely a requirement for vMax and watch out for the marsupials?
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>>On my Mondeo it has CC which can be fine tuned but there is a but....
My normal car doesn't have CC (and I've never had a car with it despite doing lots of long motorway journeys) but I recently had a Mondeo on loan and I was quite excited to try it out. When it was on and working it was excellent, particularly in SPECS areas, but I thought the controls on the Mondeo were really hard to use and not intuitive at all, and it was a real pain to get it on and working properly, and then a pain to adjust.
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