Attention '18 Owners: Auto Brake System False Alarms??

There's thread on here about people deactivating the auto-brake system. People have reported erroneous auto-braking. Where the vehicle brakes hard for no legitimate reason. Some of these have reportedly occurred in 2018 Tacomas. Others have had this happen in other vehicles. They all report that the experience is terrifying and could clearly cause a vehicle behind to slam into the braking vehicle.

"18 owners: have you had this happen to you?

I'm strongly considering buying an '18 Taco. I want to learn whether this is an experience that more than one or two people have had? Is it likely to happen once in a while?

On the flip side, I'm well aware of the potential safety benefits of having such a system.

Thank you for your input!!

 

Exactly!I have an 18 and to be honest with you if I were to do it over again I would find a low mileage 15.

 

I have a 18 and have seen the brake light come on the dash but I was coming up on the car kinda fast so it was doing it’s job. It never hit the brakes for me tho I guess I was still in the warming stage still. The BSM is awesome. I totally love that and the auto cruise control. If you don’t like any of the new high tech stuff u can turn them all off with a few clicks.

 

Smart

 

Was that with cruise control one or off?

 

Really sucks when your driving an 18wheeler in those lovely nj jug handle, your on the inside lane and it picks up the car in the other lane. Locking the brakes up hard making you look like an idiot. That garbage really sucks in big trucks, and forgot about using cruise control.

 

Totally sucks!! What about the '18 Tacoma?

 

If you really are curious, you need to use google and find out how this tech is working in general. The thing is, pretty much any new vehicle is gonna have it so if you want a new vehicle of any type you are going to have this from now on.

 

Couldn’t tell you, but if you could turn it off then it would be great. Only way to turn it off in a big truck is don’t use cruise control.

 

Off

 

It can be turned off but it's an operation. Not totally simple. And needs to be done after every start.

 

No false alarms if you turn the system off.

 

That may be. I never tried to turn it off. If your worried about it I would try to find a 17 but it’s going to be hard to find a new car 3 to4 years from now without it. I think this stuff is going to be standard equipment like airbag from now on. Everyone is doing it.

 

Buy a 17

 

Turning it off is pretty easy. It can be done by scrolling through the menu used to monitor gas mileage and reset your odometer. Same with lane departure alert. You can also adjust the sensitivity of both features.

The only PITA is that there is no easy way to get pre-collision to “default” to off. You have to actually turn it off every time...

You can turn the sensitivity down and it will stay there, though.

 

Also, I have not experienced any false alarms as of yet (500 miles)

 

Say you dont like it, just turn it off. Didnt realize you could. Take that back on my first comment.

 

I have had a few alarms, one trigger and one false alarm.

ALARMS - these have all been legitimate warning zone notifications where it thought brakes were necessary. I was already hovering, but had not applied yet. Typical traffic, where you are anticipating moronic behavior and they don’t fail to disappoint. I think you can now get a drivers license from Amazon with Prime delivery. The system worked as expected.

TRIGGER - this was legitimate and necessary. In standard traffic, car changed lanes into my gap and slowed down abruptly. I was headed for the pedal, but the system was faster. It promptly released once the distance setting was reached and the threat was abated. I’m good with the overall experience.

FALSE ALARM - I was in a multi-lane hard sweeping left turn. I was in the left (inside) lane with other vehicles in the other lanes making the same turn. Because it was a very sharp turn, the vehicles to my right appear to be somewhat in front of me. Especially if the rear of the vehicle to the right is ahead somewhat and is large, like a Suburban/Yukon. The system picked it up and just warned braking was necessary. It was only momentarily, but not needed. Therefore false alarm. I have mine set one level down from full, so I would imagine that full would have perhaps triggered sooner.

At this point, I can see very few cases where I would turn it off or not trust it. But then again, it does warn you first to take action. If you are already partially braking, I don’t think it acts further.

 

Posted this on a similar thread. The reason I went with the 18' was that Toyota was the only company to add these TSS features to a vehicle with a manual transmission. Almost got a new 18' WRX but learned that they don't come with their TSS version (eyesight) in manuals. So far I love it, especially cruise control. I did a 5hr road trip and didn't have to use the brake or gas with the adaptive cruise control.

About 4k miles on my 18' with MT. One time on the freeway it told me to brake, never applied brakes though and I was not in cruise control. I had cars merging in front of me and it seems like it either anticipated the cars in front of me merging at a slower speed or who knows maybe just got confused due to dirty sensor cover. In cruise control, the TSS is awesome! I love it and no issues so far. This past week, I thanked my 3rd gen. Driving on the cajon pass at speed when the cops stopped the freeway in other direction. They had one car pulled over making some type of scene, which naturally made everyone driving in my direction to look over and slow down to be lookielooloos. Well I was curious just as much as everyone (we are all guilty of it i'm sure as curiosity gets the best of us sometimes), my eyes looked over at the scene the cops had going on and although I didn't turn away for more then a second, the car in front of me braked hard to get his/her glimpse of the action. I looked forward and saw the vehicle in front slamming it's brakes, before I even hit my brakes the truck was already braking. Once it felt me engage the brakes hard enough to know it could stop fully before a collision it stopped and gave me full control. Scary experience, wife looked at me and said "the truck hit the brakes before you did huh?". I couldn't put in words how grateful I was for the TSS at that moment, as that extra fraction of second of braking made all the difference. All my fault, i'll admit, shouldn't have focused on the show across the highway, but comforting knowing the truck was paying attention nonetheless. Again TSS is not a guaranteed fail safe, it's the drivers responsibility for all situations, but system can indeed save your butt sometimes. When offroading, I will turn it off, super simple to do. But for everyday driving, it says on for me.

 

Some people are having a hard time adjusting, even young drivers. One told me just a few days ago the lane departure is too aggressive, and scared her enough to turn it off and not use it in a new '18 Rav4.
Pretty soon we'll have autonomous vehicles with a whole new set of fears, and the current ones will be long forgotten as fond memories as the current of change keep flowing. And who knows where they will take us next