[dstedman]

Hi all - my 2000 Outback is on it's last legs and I am going into the dealer this afternoon to order a new one. Probably a 3.6 Limited with sunroof/nav/eyesight, though I am wondering - day to day is it beeping at you a lot as you drive busy areas, change lanes, get up close to other cars at lights, etc??? I really love the idea of a non-obtrusive system and also the adaptive cruise control, but don't want to be driven crazy with it beeping all the time.

thanks so much!
dan

 

[fun2drive]

All depends where you live. I have a certain mailbox that is on a cornor and ES sees it everyday and beeps. Usually it is pretty silent and doesn't cause many false alarms either in my driving. Lane departure comes on once in a while when moving out of your lane for a pot hole or something in the road. As long as you signal it too is silent.

I would rate ES for my use as spot on. I am closing in on 1900 miles and I have seen it come to a complete stop, beep when someone cuts you off and also when you get a car in range and out of range you will get a blue car display and beep each time it does see and when the car gets out of range. Not a problem at all since you can just cancel the cruise control and it will still be monitoring. You can turn either off, Lane Departure and or Distance monitoring with the overhead buttons but so far I have seen need to never turn either off.
One opinion down many more to come...

 

[imwjl]

It doesn't beep at all some days because I don't drive the car every day.

When it does beep I find it perfectly acceptable. It locking on a car is not as in your head as it is with wandering from lane.

The beeping works well in a few ways. You know when or what it's locking onto and you can consider it a reminder that something is close enough for it to be on your mind.

You mention busy areas. The system makes that less of a pain and helps your fuel mileage.

One warning. Adaptive cruise will put the brakes on where other cars will roll faster going down a hill. I've been flipped off by somebody who didn't like that. I also had it keep the money in my pocket when somebody passed me at a downhill speed trap - they got pulled over.

I can be easily bothered by a lot of noises and very pleased with my purchase. I didn't plan on a loaded car but my wife wanted EyeSight and the phone's display taken to the large screen. I think 6 cyl vs 4 cyl is the only feature we didn't go for and we have no regrets with that choice either.

 

[nagarjuna]

The only beeping I dislike is the lead vehicle acquisition sound, which plays during adaptive cruise control each time the vehicle in front gets too close or if the car loses acquisition of it (e.g., while traversing a bend in the road).

It's simple to turn off that specific alert sound using the buttons on the bottom left of the steering wheel.

The manual advises not to use the adaptive cruise control except on limited access highways, where I doubt this would be as much of a problem.

It's a fantastic system overall. Very glad I got it.

 

[dstedman]

One warning. Adaptive cruise will put the brakes on where other cars will roll faster going down a hill. I've been flipped off by somebody who didn't like that. I also had it keep the money in my pocket when somebody passed me at a downhill speed trap - they got pulled over.

Interesting - does the braking happen at highway speeds? I guess I am used to my manual transmission and the fact that engine braking keeps me from going too fast downhill with cruise on...

 

[Tom28]

Interesting - does the braking happen at highway speeds? I guess I am used to my manual transmission and the fact that engine braking keeps me from going too fast downhill with cruise on...

It will indeed use the brakes when it needs/wants/has too. Engine braking is very good. But I've had it use the brakes going down hill. Or, if I've mashed the gas to get around someone. It'll put the brakes on then, too.

Though, I'm finding one annoyance with Adaptive Cruise (AC). You're riding along, say 65 in at 60. And you come up behind someone who's doing, say 55 in a 60.

You'll slow down and follow them until the cows come home. So, you're just sitting there and all of a sudden you think, why the heck am i staying here going so slow?

So if you whip it out to go around them, you're going too slow and AC takes awhile to get you back up to speed. So then you have to mash the gas to go.

I dunno. Not a large annoyance. Just something I've observed. I would certainly buy ES again in a heart beat, though.

 

[foxrider68]

I agree with the others who have it and would buy it all over again. The only time I get beeped at every day is pulling into the driveway as it thinks I'm going to rear end my Suburban but I veer right into the carport at the last second. Its never hit the brakes though. It only beeps changing lanes if you don't use your signal. If you're in a construction zone being bounced around lanes its annoying so you can turn it off until you're out of the construction zone.

 

[mtbutler]

Very happy with ES, beeps only when necessary and lane change alert forces me to use my turn signal like i should.....Adaptive cruise control is my favorite feature and subaru is pricing ES really well versus similar less capable systems from BMW, Merc, Lexsus, etc.

Defiantly would buy again

 

[imwjl]

Interesting - does the braking happen at highway speeds? I guess I am used to my manual transmission and the fact that engine braking keeps me from going too fast downhill with cruise on...

It has to be fairly steep for this to happen so that usually means secondary roads or some metro area 4 lanes. The instance when those passing me got nabbed in the concentrated traffic enforcement and me at a constant speed did not made me rethink this being a pain.

I join those here saying they would buy the package or equivalent again. Add up the time and experience and there's no way I'd buy the special appearance package without it.

 

[dstedman]

Just ordered a red 3.6 limited with moonroof/nav/eyesight after driving one with it - it's pretty **** cool! Now the wait begins...hope my 2000 with 205k miles, leaky head gaskets, and a bad exhaust can make it that long...

 

[djz]

I find that some days I love the system and others I want to rip it off and throw it out the window. On the highway it is awesome and I would not want to be without it, but around town, the collision avoidance feature sometimes drives me nuts.

A specific example would be at a 4 way stop in a congested area by a junior college near my house, you pretty much have to start through the intersection as soon as the cross traffic goes otherwise people in the cross traffic lanes feel entitled to just go. As I start through the intersection, the ES system picks up the back end of the car that just crossed in front of me, beeps at me, applies the brakes and limits the throttle. If I was to wait for the car to go by far enough to not upset the ES system, I would never be able to leave the stop sign.

Granted this seems to be a fairly rare situation where the system is an issue, I am sure it would not bother me as much if I did not have to pass through this intersection twice a day Monday through Friday.

One other time that the system freaked out was on the freeway on the way to work when an empty garbage bag blew out of the bed of a truck ahead of me. The ES cameras picked up the large object in my path and applied the brakes as I was driving down the freeway.