Adaptive Cruise Control problems of the 2015 Ford F-150

When using adaptive cruise control sometimes the truck will unexpectedly brake when passing large vehicles (semi-tractor trailers, dump trucks, delivery trucks). Has only happened when passing large commercial vehicles on the left (us style, driver side left; my passenger side/other vehicle driver side facing each other) but not passenger vehicles. Happens in both night and day, and at random (doesn’t occur all the time). Has happened multiple times since buying vehicle used in 2019.

I was driving down the road like I always do, the cruise control just shut off. I tried to re-engage it and it would not respond, about 15 minutes later I engaged the cruise control successfully. This has happened numerous times over the last three weeks and now in order to engage the cruise control, I lift with my fingertips, the top left and the bottom left of the button and then it will engage. One occasion, the dash lights in trip 1 mode flashed. Then the control began working again.

My adaptive cruise control system still malfunctions and slams on the brakes automatically because it thinks it sees a vehicle in front that I am about to collide with. This only happens when I am passing large vehicles (semis, fuel semis, etc. ) to my right when driving on highways. And it does not happen all the time (maybe 10-20% of the time I pass a semi on my right). But, when it does brake it scares me and then I have to press the gas hard so the person behind me doesn't rear end me. This is part of an issue I reported previously in 2015, where my truck would slam on brakes when passing large semis and also when passing under bridges at certain times. A recall was issues for this, which took care of the braking when passing under bridges, but did not completely fix the issue when passing large vehicles. I followed up with NHTSA again in late 2015 and 2016 that the problem is still happening. I will upload the emails below as attachments.

A)when using the adaptive cruise control on interstate, the cruise control periodically resets to a much lower speed for no apparent reason. I have had the cruise set to seventy-five miles per hour on interstate highways and suddenly the cruise resets to thirty-five or forty-five miles per hour. This could become somewhat dangerous if someone is following me and does not notice the sudden reduction in speed. B)I have encountered problems when using the combined systems. For example, in a long line of vehicles approaching a stop sign, the autonomous systems operated efficiently. When the vehicle immediately in front of me leaves the stop sign, my vehicle attempts to accelerate through the stop sign. C)the lane keeping seems to pull hard to the right at various times. It may be due to the striping at interstate highway exits where to right hand lane marking follows the exit and the vehicle seems to attempt to remain centered between the lane markings. The lane keeping feature is very tiring to operate. The system seems to require operator intervention every minute of two so that the system may assure operator vigilance. This continued need to move the steering wheel slightly is extremely tiring. D)speed sign recognition identifies school zone speed signs and reduces the preset speed of the vehicle even when the school zone is not active, such as off hours or holidays. This could become somewhat dangerous if someone is following does not notice the sudden reduction in my speed. E)law requires the vehicle to be at the reduced / posted speed immediately upon passing the sign. Since the vehicle requires a few feet to recognize the change in speed limit and slow down, a traffic ticket may result. This has been reported to Ford and as a result the local dealer aligned the cameras with no resulting change in performance.

Tl the contact owns a 2015 Ford F-150. While driving 73 mph with the cruise control activated, the adaptive cruise control was activated and the vehicle stopped abruptly on its own. There were no warning indicators illuminated. The contact was able to continue driving to his destination. The contact associated the failure with NHTSA campaign number: 15v614000 (forward collision avoidance). The vehicle was taken to billingsley Ford inc. (located at 3804 w broadway st, ardmore, ok 73401, (580) 226-3300) where it was determined that it needed recalibrating. The vehicle was not repaired. The manufacturer was notified of the failure. The failure mileage was 58,000.