We bought a Lexus Hybrid a few months back, because our old car was totaled in an accident. Since then we have been fighting the various settings in the car.
Default Sensitivity for Adaptive Cruise Control
A nice feature that came with the car was called Radar Adaptive Cruise Control, which seems to be a common feature for newer cars these days. It uses the onboard radar to detect how far it is from the car in front and will automatically accelerate/decelerate while in cruise control mode to keep a safe distance from the car in front, whether that car is accelerating or decelerating. It is really a useful feature in busy traffic, so the driver doesn't have to step on gas or brake again and again just to follow traffic.
However, every time the Adaptive Cruise Control is on, the Vehicle-to-Vehicle setting is always set to Long (3 bars), and I always have to manually adjust it to Medium and then Short (1 bar). This gets super annoying if Adaptive Cruise Control is turned off because my speed is too low or because I hit the break. Then every time I re-enable cruise control, I have to manually set it to low each time.
Why do I always have to change it from Long? Because at Long, my car will keep a distance of 160 ft. (50 meters) from the car in front of me. And guess what happens if I do that in busy traffic? People behind me will hunk at me, and cars by my sides will for sure cut right in front of me, significantly increase the risk of a collision.Default Sensitivity for Adaptive Cruise Control
A nice feature that came with the car was called Radar Adaptive Cruise Control, which seems to be a common feature for newer cars these days. It uses the onboard radar to detect how far it is from the car in front and will automatically accelerate/decelerate while in cruise control mode to keep a safe distance from the car in front, whether that car is accelerating or decelerating. It is really a useful feature in busy traffic, so the driver doesn't have to step on gas or brake again and again just to follow traffic.
However, every time the Adaptive Cruise Control is on, the Vehicle-to-Vehicle setting is always set to Long (3 bars), and I always have to manually adjust it to Medium and then Short (1 bar). This gets super annoying if Adaptive Cruise Control is turned off because my speed is too low or because I hit the break. Then every time I re-enable cruise control, I have to manually set it to low each time.
There seems to be a default sensitivity I can set to Short while I am parked. However, as soon as the engine starts and when I turn on cruise control, sensitivity goes right back to Long. Turned out Lexus want to make sure the default sensitivity is reset back to Long each time when cruise control is enabled for the safety of the driver, even though they also designed a UI where the driver is deceived into believing the default sensitivity setting can actually be changed.
So what is the solution? There is none! (Confirmed by experts in the dealership.) So just suck it up and re-program your brain to always hit the manual adjust button twice whenever you use cruise control. 😡
Default Display Screen for Fuel Efficiency
Another nice feature of a hybrid car is that you could be driving off battery or charging the battery while you drive. Under the Info screen, you can choose to look at a screen that shows you in real time if the car is charging the battery or running off the battery. You can also choose to look at a bar graph that shows your gas milage for the current trip in 5 minutes bins. These two screens, naturally, became our favorite screens and we really wanted to make them the default screen whenever we start the car. Well, turned out there is no way to set a default screen for the display.
What about just go back to the previous screen when the car was last turned off? Under Settings - General, there is actually this setting called Auto Screen Change. If you set it to Off, it should stay on the last screen you were on when you turned off the car.
But guess what? That works with the Media screen, the Radio screen, the Map screen, the Weather screen, but not anything under the Info screen. (Again, confirmed by experts in the dealership.)
The only thing I eventually found is that I could leave the bar graph screen on the smaller side of the split screen, and it actually stays. Guess that's just what I have to live with.
Full Screen vs Split Screen
The car comes with this nice big display screen where you can see the current configuration for climate control, audio, map, weather, text messages from your phone, and many more. Naturally, I prefer to see things in full screen, instead of a split screen where information seemed to be cluttered. Many Lexus support web sites also clearly indicated that a driver can switch between full screen mode and split screen mode at will.
But guess what? Turned out you can only switch between full screen mode and split screen mode for the following: the Initial screen (the warning message screen), the Menu screen, and the Map screen. (Confirmed by reading the 800-page owner's manual.)
Conclusion
The UI design for Lexus cars leaves a lot to be desired. Just accept that fact that life is not perfect. Some battles you just can't win.
Moving on to my next daily battle!
BTW: The easiest way to remember my blog address is http://lanny.lannyland.com
This is helpful except I can't drive!
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