Anyone else noticed that radar portion of DRCC stops working in moderate rain conditions? it was strange that detecting the preceding car is so sensitive to any precipitation.
Mine has worked fine in pouring rain, I was following a semi when I was raining so hard that I could barely see the semi, but DRCC kept me a safe distance from him.
Mine stops working in the rain as well. Rain drops are about the same size as the wavelength so they scatter the radar.
The drops may scatter the EMF field but they DEFINITELY -absorb- it. But Pearl S' DRCC works just fine in rain. Which surprised me. And I will say again for the benefit of others, pay attention. The system is controlled by a micro-processor and can become confused. The one in Pearl S got confused one day and went to full throttle and wouldn't release it (even though the car was bearing down on another vehicle). A quick "off" then back "on" fixed that problem. Only happened once, but if you aren't paying attention, it only takes once!
Yes, it happened to me too. It seemed to be especially confused if a car merged into my lane. It felt like it wanted to ignore the new car in the lane and continue to follow the previous one.
Wish I had first-hand experience, but no meaningful rain in the past 3 months, nor expect anything for another ~ 4-5 months, so best i can do is show what Toyota says in the manual:
My Ford does the same thing......only the cruise stops working completely when the rain is REALLY heavy. Maybe a reminder here is in order: ONE SHOULD NOT HAVE CRUISE CONTROL ENABLED IN THE RAIN. For anything heavy enough to require constant wipers that is.
Agreed. I have never had it happen to me because I never use CC in rain, even if it's just wet pavement, but what does cruise control do when you hit a puddle and start hydroplaning? I would assume it would let off and engage stability control, but I don't ever want to give it the chance. The sensor issues concern me. In winter around here the road salt can coat the car with a very thick layer of gray slop, and in a snowstorm, ice can build up pretty thickly on the bumper. So echoing the PSA above, no cruise control in bad weather.
Yes, but DRCC is not CC. The radar part of it should add another layer of safety by controlling the distance/speed in addition to the Driver. Eventually Prime's DRCC radar stops working as intended in the rain and DRCC becomes just CC. Therefore I agree with above quote. BTW The conditions I was testing the DRCC behavior in rain were under well under control : ow speed, easy Sunday traffic, decent visibility, good road surface with no water accumulation etc. I was expecting the DRCC to work to maintain safe distance, but it simply became CC (useless). The worst part was that it sometimes worked and sometimes not (I guess depending on the size of preceding vehicle and the level of distortions created by rain) and after few tries I gave up and waited for rain to stop before engaging DRCC again.
We don't find rain slippery here, but perhaps that's because we don't get oil buildup on the roads. We do get ice though, and I would NEVER even think of engaging CC or DRCC if there is even the slightest chance of ice! And when it's below 0F car exhaust will freeze to the road, giving "black ice" you can't really see because it's so thin. That's when it gets "fun".
I've always been told to not use cruise control in the rain or when there is water on the road due to an increased risk of hydroplaning.
Is there no asphalt on the roads "up there" ? It has oil IN IT you know. And then there are the wide lines painted on the pavement; slick as glass with a little moisture. I think your statement is a bit short sighted......if for no other reason than hydro-planing works the same everywhere.
