I think my (non active?) cruise control is braking on downhills. I'm not sure I like this-I'd prefer to do this myself. Plus, are the brake lights illuminated?

Any thoughts/opinions?

 

Yes, m'y 2016 F54 is like that too. It is the standard cruise control now for Minis. And yes, brake lights do come on whenever the car slows down by itself (safety feature for cars following you)

 

I saw a Mazda yesterday with that behavior. I'm thinking, 'who's the bozo putting on the brakes on a slight grade?' Can't be good for the brakes or fuel mileage. I'm going to see if people have coded it out on their BMWs.

 

Personally I like it. If I want to reduce the braking on a long downhill like coming out of the mountains I drop down a gear or two and let the engine do some of the braking. On my Suburban, and every other car I've owned with cruise control you can easily end up getting a speeding ticket on a long downhill run. I figure, what's the difference between the car braking or me? Just another thing to keep an eye on. If I accelerate while in cruise I turn it off just in case it tries to apply the brakes. My rear brakes are looking good with over 20K miles on them.

 

Yep. It's a total non-issue in my book. And I just learned something about cars turning on brake lights when using computer-controlled engine braking when going downhill.

 

i don't follow the brake light thing. You aren't slowing down, simply maintaining speed. What next throw the brake lights when I downshift a manual??

 

Did a search on coding it out and found nothing; no interest either. So I guess I'm the bozo.

 

No, the cruise control just fails to disengage when you push the clutch pedal so that when you downshift, the car still tries to maintain speed. Only car I've driven that does this. It's super dumb.

 

But... On the downhill the engine takes over more of the braking vs the brakes handling it alone. I use it a lot coming home from my girlfriends home in the mountains around The Dragon. The LEO's are pretty strict on the 55 mph on the downhill side of Black Mountain. If you want the cruise to cut out all it takes is a flick of your left thumb.

 

When I lift off from gas pedal suddenly it will brake to prepare for emergency braking.
Does the light come on briefly in that case also?


Either way the brakes get used a lot unintentionally. It is a good thing the brakes are covered under the warranty.