redman042

Can anyone speak with hands-on experience as to how well this system works in freeway driving and on the roadway in both high and low speed scenarios?

I don't expect something akin to Tesla's Auto Pilot, but I do see value in a system that can intervene if I doze off at the wheel (hope it never happens but you never know) and can relieve some of the monotony of long freeway drives by handling the throttle on its own. But I'm only interested if it works well most of the time. I don't want a lot of false alarms, overreactions, etc.

I'm interested in any real-world experience with these systems on the latest models.

mrgold35

It really depends on others driving habits, your driving style, and where you like to drive to determine if the Acura watch is useful or not.

My 11 MDX has most of the current Acura watch systems and it is extremely useful when I travel to LA, Houston, Denver, New Orleans, or Jacksonville, FL. The driving styles are so different in every city, road conditions change at every county line, and traffic flow changes also depending of distance to city center. The added features are like having a extra driver watching the road 24/7 giving you a heads up to potential problems. It feels a lot less stressful knowing you have this safety back-up when you are trying to worry about 5-10 other things before the next exit during Houston rush hour.

The extra features do work best in light to medium traffic flows (like ACC and CMBS). Anything above medium to heavy (up to bumper-to-bumper) can alarm the system so much to becoming useless. Using ACC in heavy traffic will slow the vehicle down to created proper vehicle spacing and then another car will shoot into that space and slowing your vehicle down more to create more space and so-on... You end up being the slowest person on the hwy and you have to turn the system off and fly manual.

I get almost zero-to-20% use from the same features in my home town because I'm so familiar to the driving styles and traffic flow. The BSI is a good double-check before merging; but, the other features I do not use or they don't alarm within my hometown city limits. I've used every single one of the ACC, CMBS, seat belt pre-tensioners (Adv model only), and BSI outside of my city limits (don't have lane departure warning).

accord1999

I have a TLX with the same driver assistance features as the 2016 MDX.

I don't use the ACC too much but the few times I've used it, it seems to work pretty well though it's not quite as smooth as when I'm controlling the throttle.

The lane keeping works quite well and can handle relatively tight curves at highway speeds. It's also great at damping the effects of high wind gusts and works with light snow fall and moderate amounts of rain and water spray.

The CMBS hasn't needed to activate yet but there were a few times where the vehicle in front of me suddenly slowed down and it warned me moments before I noticed it. I haven't seen any false warnings.

The blind spot monitoring works very well with virtually no errors. The related rear cross traffic monitor also works well and is very helpful in backing up as it warns about oncoming vehicles dozens of meters away and even pedestrians.

And as it stands today, Acura Watch is better than Tesla's Autopilot as many features, like lane keeping are not yet available while its lack of rear/side facing radar means that it has less advanced blind spot monitoring and can't do rear cross traffic.

redman042

Sounds better than I expected. Can you actually let the car fully drive itself on the freeway under most conditions? Obviously very close supervision is required, because it's not intended to be a true autopilot and could disengage at any time, but I'm wondering if the car can actually speed up, slow down, brake, and keep the car centered in the lane under a range of freeway conditions with these systems enabled. Could you truly take hands and feet off for say 10 miles on the freeway, if you were so inclined? If the car encountered sudden heavy traffic, would it brake all the way to a stop?

accord1999

I've tried it a few times on the highway portion of my commute:


The TLX does pretty well, once I get into the middle lane it can pretty much drive itself for the entire way at 100-100 KPH, taking some pretty tight curves that a lot of drivers drift over the line and responds very quickly to speed changes by the vehicle in front of me (perhaps a bit too responsive), including slowing to a stop. This highway's lane markers are in pretty good shape so the lane keeping still works with light to modest rain and light snow fall which melts on the road.

It does take a lot of time to "trust" the car to drive and it still feels very strange with ACC and lane keeping turned on. On the other hand it does make driving less tiring and I can see how it can be really helpful on long cross-country trips.

Otto Macnab

as a new owner of a '16 mdx who had to drive it 300 miles (at night on an interstate) for its maiden voyage, i was very impressed with awp. road departure mitigation was accurate yet not too sensitive to be annoying. lane keeping assist also helped me adjust my bearings on centering the new vehicle, as i was (apparently) favoring the left half of the lane. it took a few times to get used to the vehicle's acc response when someone would cut in front of me at a slower speed, but i adjusted by anticipating the slowdown and changing lanes in advance. fwiw, i had acc set to use the maximum following distance.

again, this was on a texas interstate with the cruise set between 70 and 80. i don't imagine that acc/lka would be very useful during a rush hour commute in the city.

csmeance

I had it in a Loaner TLX and I got annoyed only once when I was tailgating someone, but other than that the system was flawless!

I would totally get a car with acurawatch rather than navi.

neoshi

AWP is useful for me when I'm cruising back to my hometown 400 miles away on a relatively clear highway. In traffic, it is not (I prefer to drive myself in those situations anyway), as it does not operate under ~40 mph. One stupid thing is that it seems like the blind spot warnings also suffer from not operating under ~40 mph (or at least not well). I've been in gridlock traffic moving about 15 mph and the warning just doesn't light up.