On many new cars, from Kia’s to Mercedes, you can purchase various Driver Assistance packages that include items such as collision avoidance, blindspot detection and adaptive cruise control. On one of our cars, a 2016 Jeep Grand Cherokee Overland, we have all of the above packages. I’ve never been one to use any of these types of “Assistance” packages before. However, we decided to take a vacation, and drive to our destination, roughly 7 hours away. While I was driving, I decided to test out the adaptive cruise control, and see how good it really worked.
Here is a video produced by Mopar, that explains how the Adaptive Cruise Control works on the Jeep Grand Cherokee.
I initially set the Adaptive Cruise Control at the farthest setting, unsure of how it would handle braking. Setting the speed at 75 mph, a little over the 70 mph limit, I was off. As the Jeep neared an upcoming car, about 40 yards away, the Jeep started to decelerate, settling on a speed of 72 mph, which apparently, was the speed the car ahead of me was travelling. I applied my turn signal, switched lanes, and the Jeep accelerated back up to 75 mph.
About 30 miles down the road, all was good, until a car decided to switch over into my lane, quite close ahead of me. The Adaptive Cruse Control reacted, quite quickly, slowing the car down and applying the brakes. I was quite nervous at how the Jeep would handle the transition, however, it worked marvelously.
I varied the distance of the Adaptive Cruse Control, between the farthest and second farthest settings, as I didn’t quite fully trust the electronics to take over in an emergency. However, I must say, I used the ACC almost the entire 7 hour drive to our destination. After an hour of so of getting used to having it adjust the speed and distance, I was quite pleased with its performance. While not the autopilot of the Tesla, the Adaptive Cruse Control in the Jeep is a welcome addition to a long road trip. In addition, I believe it saved quite a bit on the gas mileage side as well, however I’ll have to crunch some numbers when we return to tell for sure.
