Adaptive Cruise Control problems of the 2023 Nissan Frontier

The Nissan Frontier (and perhaps other Nissan vehicles employing the same system) equipped with the 'intelligent cruise control' (icc) exhibits dangerous behavior when a followed vehicle comes to a complete stop with icc enabled. When this occurs, the Nissan will come to a complete stop, then a warning chime will sound and the vehicle will immediately start moving quickly forward. Since the icc brings the vehicle to a stop very close to the followed vehicle, if the driver is thinking the icc will hold the vehicle in a stationary position, it is possible that this behavior could result in the Nissan rear-ending the followed vehicle. This is the result of a flaw in the design of the Nissan intelligent cruise control that releases the brake with little warning when the traffic in front of the vehicle is stopped. A proper design would hold the brake until some manual driver action is taken such as physically pressing the accelerator or the brake. My personal experience was that I was on an interstate freeway in very slow traffic. This was the first time I had the icc enabled in slow and go traffic. It was working fine and, when the traffic came to a complete stop, it properly stopped behind the vehicle in front of me. Then, to my shock, my Nissan beeped and started to accelerate forward nearly rear-ending the vehicle in front of me. Luckily, I was able to press the brake in time to avoid a collision, but this is a flawed design and represents an unnecessary danger to the Nissan as well as followed vehicles.

The cruise control on the vehicle is dangerous. When driving through rolling hills the vehicle does not keep a consistent speed. When it loses speed it puts the vehicle in overdrive accelerates to 4500 rpm to speed the vehicle up to the cruise setting. The danger is while on back roads while cresting a hill or rounding a curve the vehicle feels totally out of control. The problem is not limited to back roads, it also occurs while driving the interstate highway. The only way to stop the vehicle during this process is to cancel the cruise control. The acceleration is so violent that it pushing you back in your seat and your head is pushed into the headrest. Ive been on Frontier forums and many people have experienced the same condition. Seems to lie in the newer 9 speed transmission trucks. Seems Nissan does not acknowledge the problem. Needs a firmware update.

Easily repeatable issue. When at highway speeds adaptive cruise control detects a slower vehicle in my lane. My Frontier slows as expected. When the necessary lane change is made, my engine will suddenly accelerate rapidly until it reaches about 6000 rpms. This also will occur when climbing a moderately steep hill in either cruise mode. This is a safety hazard in that it is extremely distracting, because you have to divert your attention to cancel the out-of-control cruise control manually with the cancel button or brake pedal. I have contacted Nissan customer service, as well as had two dealer service calls. They both said that they could not duplicate the issue. According to the in and out milage they didn't drive it. They did say that Nissan is working on this issue.

When setting remote control and the vehicle needs to speed up there are times when the vehicle will lunge forward. When in lower gears there are times when the vehicle is like trying to find a gear. No accident at this time. I have asked if there have been any recalls on this through the company and they said no.

I was driving in the right hand lane on interstate 95 with my cruise control on. My speed was approximately 65 mph. In the distance I could see a tow truck stopped in the breakdown lane with it's warning lights flashing. I proceeded to move into the next lane to my left. All of a sudden my vehicle began to brake hard by itself and a message that included "25 mph" began flashing on my dash in the middle. I had to make a split-second decision to put my floor on the accelerator pedal and press to maintain a safe speed since cars in front of and behind me were going close to 60 mph or more and I was afraid I could be rear-ended. I shut off the cruise control. The message including the words "25 mph" continued to flash for about a minute or less and then went away. I cannot find any information in the owners manual that would indicate why this all happened but it could have resulted in a rear end collision if I had not reacted as fast as I did. I've never experienced this kind of thing in all my years of driving. I'm 63 years old and I've been driving since I was 16.

Vehicle will surge and downshift multiple times just to catch up to speed setting, often times getting very close to other vehicles in front of truck.

Yes it’s available for inspection. Sudden increase in speed under certain condition could be a safety issue. This problem has been identified by another owner and taken to Nissan (apple) york, PA. The problem happened after leaving the Nissan lot on the way home, less than 200 miles. During use of intelligence cruse control, set at 70 mph, came up on a vehicle doing 60 mph and the system slowed my vehicle down to 60 mph, when I was able to move into the passing lane my vehicle down shifted hard going to 6,000 rpm’s, my truck surged in mph until it caught up with the set speed. The amount of down shift is excessively too much, this happens on small hills and the rpm’s go to around 4,500 rpm’s.