Can my car “auto brake” when on cruise control?

[PrivateHireGuy]

Hi,

On my previous car (Hyundai Ioniq electric), there was a setting/feature where you could activate CC and happily cruise along at X speed, but it would also keep you a minimum distance from the car in front.

So, if you were at 70 and approaching a car doing 60, it would brake and keep you that minimum distance away from the 60mph car and when they moved over/sped up, my car would then move back up to 70mph.

My car is a September 2019, E300 E SE (with MBUX if that helps?).

Cheers.

 

[E55BOF]

Does your car have Distronic (radar cruise control)? I suspect it does. One way to find out is to be on cruise control on the motorway and come up behind another car in the same lane; if you have Distronic, your car will slow down and keep station behind the other car well before you start to feel uncomfortably close unless you're a pretty nervous driver. Whether Distronic actually applies the brakes, though, as opposed to simply lifting off the throttle, I don't know.

 

[markjay]

What you describe is called Adaptive Cruise Control and it's a very common feature on many cars these days. Just check the online manual to see how it's activated.

 

[markjay]

See also:

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[Robbranch]

I don't think it's standard on the E Class is it? My W213 just has standard cruise control unless I've missed something.

 

[BTB 500]

As an aside our 2019 C Class has Active Brake Assist (which will apply emergency braking if it thinks you are going to hit something), but only standard cruise control. This does brake (gently) if you engage CC when driving faster than the set speed ... something none of our other Mercs have done.

As mentioned though maintaining a set distance from the car in front needs Distronic / adaptive cruise control.

 

[mioba]

look on the front grill for a shiny black plate.

 

[BTB 500]

See also:

Interesting, thanks for posting that! I didn't know about the ability to set the cruise control to the detected speed limit (no owner's manual to browse through ) ... will have to try it.

 

[BTB 500]

look on the front grill for a shiny black plate.

Don't know about the E Class, but as above on the C Class you can certainly have Active Brake Assist (which uses the RADAR sensor in the grille) without the car having Distronic.

 

[PrivateHireGuy]

**Update**
After watching one of Nick O’Leary’s videos, turns out I don’t have it.

On the E Class, this is the steering wheel control that means you don’t have ACC:

 

[Ted]

Another giveaway is that active cruise control will show an image of your speedo with a car next to it whilst normal CC shows a speedo with an arrow.

 

[Spider10]

Distronic looks like this

https://postimg.cc/tn3wGkX7]

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[BTB 500]

Distronic looks like this

The camera mounted just above the grille star? Our car has the same star (RADAR) but no camera, and no Distronic.

 

[Spider10]

The camera is 360°camera ,if you have the same star you have distronic

 

[BTB 500]

if you have the same star you have distronic

Nope, just the standard cruise control with Speedtronic. As mentioned though the car does have Active Brake Assist, which uses RADAR to warn and then (eventually) apply emergency braking if it thinks you're going to hit something.

 

[markjay]

Don't know about the E Class, but as above on the C Class you can certainly have Active Brake Assist (which uses the RADAR sensor in the grille) without the car having Distronic.

Interesting that MB chose to fit a car with both Cruise Control and Active Brake Assist.... but no Distronic? The only missing bit will be the software to link the first two, I would have thought.

 

[Spider10]

The wife's 2018 cla 200d shooting break had normal CC and active brake assist but I thought the radar for the active brake was behind the rear view mirror as hers never had the solid star

 

[BTB 500]

Interesting that MB chose to fit a car with both Cruise Control and Active Brake Assist.... but no Distronic? The only missing bit will be the software to link the first two, I would have thought.

On the video posted above the steering wheel controls are slightly different with Distronic, so although the main components may already be there it's not just software. Distronic might also use a different (or additional) camera to the one ours already has for Adaptive Highbeam Assist Plus.

 

[nas2021]

Active Distronic Assist is an optional extra which costs around £1600. It's not that common but I would highly recommend it if you ever have an option in the future.

As mentioned by others a few give away signs that your car has it:
-shiny printed MB star logo on front
- on newer cars the steering wheel has a option which shows distance lines (button to set distance to car in front) instead LIM and a Steering wheel picture. Older Mercs will have a rotatable button on the cruise control lever to set the distance to the car in front.
- you will see a picture of a steering wheel on your dash/ turns green when you activate. This auto steers the car.

 

[Diesel Benz]

The collision prevention assist (option code 258) radar is not behind the grill star but at the bumper.