Lane Departure Warning

I never had LKA but I disabled LDA on my Gen 4 because t seems to server no useful purpose other than deceptive marketing.

 

Hmmm... At least based upon what I see my P.Prime, the lane-departure warning is useful; it has caught me a couple times, usually when I’m fumbling around with something on the 11.6” screen. The “steering assistance” part of that function, however, I’ve found to be only marginally helpful.

I too find it a bit surprising that they would have had something kinda like Tesla Autopilot’s lane-centering capability, and would then replace it with this feature. Still, I’m glad to have it over no lane-departure warning.

My *guess* as to why the removed it would be liability - people mistaking it for self-driving feature.

iPad ? Pro

 

Tideland thanks for your input, but let me be clear, Toyota and their authorized dealers sell the "Toyota Safety Suite" as the same product across their model line up, there is nothing in their advertising or their marketing or their salesperson (i.e. independent dealer sales representatives) presentations that states that the Toyota Prius Prime Advanced or whatever Prius model with this feature differs in any way from the other Toyota models in operation or expected performance. The fact that the operation of the "Toyota Safety Suite" differs was freely admitted by the Toyota Representatives that I have spoken with. This is obviously an engineering/design problem with the Prius. I have driven other Toyota models as I stated in my detailed explanation and they do not function the same way that the Pius Prime Advanced functions. If the Prius system differs from other Toyota models then there should be a clear differentiation in the corporate marketing literature and the salesperson presentation so that the customer is not misled into thinking as well as being told that the system operation is the same in all Toyota models. This is at best a misrepresentation at worst a much more sinister activity.

I will mention something else also I visited other dealers in differing geographic areas once I realized the problem existed. None of the multiple salespeople that I took test drives with were aware that the "Toyota Safety Suite" differed on the Prius vs. other Toyota models. As far as correcting the problem I told another sales person after pointing out the problem to him that I would buy the Prius Prime Advanced we were driving immediately if he could correct the LDW with Steering assist to work as it should, He was quite excited and said "I'll go right to our service manager and get it adjusted." after waiting for him to get beck to me for a week I called him and the salesperson told me there isn't a way to correct the steering assist to keep you in the lane.

One last point, this is the third Prius we have owned and the 5th Toyota and this is the first time I have found that Toyota has a major shortcoming and misrepresentation in one of their vehicles. It is also the first time that Toyota has told me basically go pound sand when there was a problem. In the past Toyota has gone a long way to make things right when necessary. So I am not a chronic complainer, but I am very disappointed in the fact that they misrepresented the Pius Prime Advanced safety features.

 

This is the difference. The Prime doesn't have Lane Keep Assist, it has LDA with Steering Assist. Now, maybe you'd like it to have LKA instead of LDA/SA, but it doesn't.

The fact that dealers don't know the difference is par for the course with dealers - they tend to know little or nothing about Prime.

LDA/SA does work on my Prime. But it doesn't function as LKA.

 

LDA/SA:

LKA:

Listen to those carefully.

LDA/SA: "...if the system determines that the vehicle is on a path to depart from its lane, the system will provide small corrective steering inputs to the steering wheel for a short period of time to help keep the vehicle in its lane."

LKA: "...the Lane Keep Assist function applies a slight steering force to help the driver keep the vehicle in the center of the lane."

See the difference? LDA/SA only helps if you are departing the lane, and the inputs are for a short period of time. LKA applies slight steering forces all the time to help keep you in the center of the lane.

 

All I can say in regard to this discussion is the the Toyota corporate reps I spoke with who should know how the functions work admit the “steering assist” doesn’t work as it should. Steering assist should assist the steering and it doesn’t.

 

It does on mine, just not the way you (or they) expect. It's very small which means it's much more active when you are going faster. At 55mph it works such that it bounces you from lane marker to lane marker.

 

And then you get the coffee break sway alert, right? That sounds like it helps you drive safer...NOT

 

I've sent an E-mail to the 2 individuals you suggested, but am wondering if the NTSB is really the best place to complain about something that really amounts to false advertising. I would think the NTSB would not want to get involved unless they were convinced that the lack of LKA had directly contributed to a number of accidents. Hopefully at some point in the future, auto manufacturers will be required to equip their cars with an LKA system, at which point we could go to the NTSB to report any failures of the system, but for the time being I would think our complaints would be better directed to our state Attorney(s) General, if we can make the case we did not get what we were promised.

 

Yes.

It does...without the Steering Assist, the car would have been off the road or in the opposite lane by then.

To me, both systems are about protecting you from getting in a crash after falling asleep at the wheel. Nothing more. They are not like adaptive cruise which reduces the workload on the driver.

 

Lee Jay at 55 my Prius goes into the next lane unfailingly. The Camry and the RAV4 did “bounce” from lane marker to lane marker.

 

Mine bounces from lane marker to lane marker just as shown here:

 

I will admit that I've never been brave enough to let my car get as far out of the lane as the person in the video. That is certainly a lot less effective than it seems to be in the television ads I've seen for the Corolla version of TSS-P, for example. If that's the best it can do when set to maximum sensitivity, I would call that deceptive advertising.

 

You've seen an ad for Prime Steering Assist?

 

I have not, but the press releases implied that the same set of safety features would be standardized across the Toyota lineup. If that were not the case, Toyota should have made that clear.

 

Look, this feature seems to me to work as claimed by the Owner's Manual and the official Toyota video I posted above, which is to say not that well. If you can talk them into retrofitting these cars with LKA as first implemented in the 2010 Prius, more power to you. I'm not sure why they went away from that, though I've posted hypotheses about it elsewhere. Some people loved that feature and were expecting it on the Prime, only to be disappointed.

Like I said, I find the feature works but it's only a last-resort to help keep an asleep driver safe while the car wakes him up with beeps.

 

I absolutely agree, provided that we don’t lose focus on the road. Unfortunately, that can happen, from what I’ve seen talking with Tesla drivers, at least.


iPad ? Pro

 

Maybe this is the reason.