Have had the thing 3 days. Preferred it to both the Frontier and also Colorado, even though I had an S10 for 20 years. I think it drives better than either, partly due to the 10 speed tranny, and has much better visibility than the Frontier. Seats in Colorado were like sitting on a big round rock... not good. So I am not dissing this vehicle. But these seem not right.

Problem 1: Maybe I just do not understand, but the collision warning seems to do absolutely nothing. Yes the feature is listed on the window sticker, with "AEB", whatever that is.. System is turned on, that was done at the dealers, and I confirmed plus set it to max sensitivity. But so far, with folks close ahead of me slowing suddenly to turn, etc, I have not seen any reaction whatever. And I cannot find the sensor on the front. I have TRIED to set it off, and nothing has happened so far. I have no problems dealing with menu driven settings etc, I have been designing things with embedded computers for a long time I am quite sure it is turned on and set to work..

Under what circumstances is that system supposed to work? Range is supposedly 85 feet in normal, and the cars were much closer than that.

Problem 2: A LOT of things that one would not think should do that, act to restart the engine after a stop. For instance, opening the passenger side door restarts the engine. That makes no sense. Switching on the ventilation fan to a low speed restarted the engine, that also makes no sense. And putting the vehicle into park restarts the engine. I can almost understand that one, but did not expect it.

These seem to be faults, are they actually normal or is this vehicle just electrically snafu?

 

AEB is Autonomous Emergency Braking, or Automatic Emergency Braking

You should get a beep and/or message on the dash if you are closing on a pedestrian or obstacle too fast, but if your foot is already on the brake then it may assume you see it

Not sure how you test this system
It wouldn't slow you down it would SLAM on the brakes hard, so not designed for self driving, just emergency braking


Not sure on the software used for auto stop/start engine function, its main purpose was to pass idle emissions, very hard to do now-a-days, idling engines are big polluters, because idling engines have to run rich or will over heat
You can turn it off but need to do that every time you start vehicle

I would think any change in electrical usage would cause engine to re-start, don't want to drain the battery, so door open or fan on or change in speed, should re-start engine

I did read about an add-on device that plugs into the vehicle that allows you to turn that function on and off but long term, seen here: https://www.autostopeliminator.com/c...SAAEgJhrvD_BwE

Never used it just saw it

 

Increase in electrical use, could be. Sure is odd and counter-intuitive considering only the various actions. You would not save much gas if it is in park and idling..... which is very possible in extended delays as with jams due to highway accidents etc.. And the engine coming on when a door is opened is just plain weird if you consider only the action va what triggered it. Who wants the engine on when the door opens? Doors are opened without the engine on all the time. And they may stay open while people and stuff is loaded in.

As for the warning stuff, I expected that if a car suddenly decelerated ahead of me, within range, that it would at least light the LED bar on the dash top. Generally stuff that causes you to need to step on brakes quickly. I see the icon stuff in the manual, but the manual does not seem to apply to some of the things in this model, despite being a base model with only a diff lock option. No idea where the icon would be, and it seems pretty lame as a warning. The big red lights are better.

There may be an icon, but there is also a row of in-your-face red LEDs right on the dash directly ahead of the driver that are supposed to come on first. If things have to be even closer than what they have already been, then it will only function as a warning that you are about to crash. Supposedly works at any speed over 3 mph. Have not seen it do so yet. Might just not be working right in which case it goes on the warranty squawk sheet...

 

The collision warning works. It actually went off, in a situation that I did not like and was already on the brakes about. So it DOES work. But there hav been other cases which were as bad or worse, and it did not go off.

I believe it is "too smart". Those things work best in the mode of "kill them all and let St Peter sort them out". I suppose the counter-argument is that it might be "crying wolf", but......

 

This, I think, is one of the problems with "partial" automation
Electronics and software is extremely predictable, only deviations are those allowed by the engineers that made it

People are the unpredictable part, whether its goofs the designer made or the people using it

It reads like the designers in your case are the problem if its not reacting EXACTLY the same way in the same situations, there is a variable they didn't predict, and you should report it, that's the ONLY WAY it can be corrected
Real world is way different than simulations, lol, I know DUH

 

Well, they DO road test these things, or they used to anyhow. As an engineer myself (not automotive) I am aware that the product cycle becomes a real issue, Testing is apt to get cut short, and some changes are not tested, with a risk of things turning out wrong when a change is made and never checked, because "it is so simple a change"..

I have always wondered how the old S10 I had before managed to have the lighted numbers on the dash, like the odometer, DIM during the day, when they become invisible, and are made brighter at night, when they became eye-ball burning bright green-blue lights. One would suppose the brighter would be best in day, and dimmer at night, but the makers seem to have got that exactly wrong. . Seems like they messed up, and by the time that was known, too many were already made.

That stuff happens with rushed testing, when the schedule becomes the king.