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Active Steering drives like a drunken sailor sometimes, very 'straight and narrow' other times?

Sarge

Well-known member
How is everyone else's experience with the Active Steering system?

I'm both impressed that it works at all, and annoyed with its sporadic drunken driving. I drove it home 1500 miles from the dealer and on the same highway surface it would start 'driving drunk', weaving gently back and forth in its lane. Stop the car and restart it and it drove normally again (same highway surface/line paint).
 

jeepdriver

Well-known member
I doubt this is your issue, but there are two modes to it. There is aggressive lane keeping when the steering wheel icon is not yellow or green, but the lane line indicators are. It'll just keep bouncing off of the lines. Active Steering will try to stay centered in them and in that case, the wheel is green or yellow.
The more simple mode is good enough that it can feel like it's the active steering, honestly.
 

JJangle

Well-known member
I see the same thing @Sarge . It will be in ACC and active steering doing great, then start to drift a bit, then just cross the lane lines and turn off. Works maybe 85% of the time, but 15% failure at 70+ MPH makes it useless since you can't ever not be 100% alert. Might as well just use ACC. Very disappointed. Also noticed by Uconnect and systems crash soon after the lane departure. Have had it in service for 30+ days and they havent figured it out. They ordered a new controller, but its been on order for 2 weeks and keeps getting pushed back. I am done with the Jeep and asking for a buy back or a 2022
 

Silver_Jeep

Active member
I notice the exact same thing. Most of the time it works pretty well. But sometimes it bounces back and forth. I tell myself that if a cop noticed it I would almost certainly be pulled over because they would think that I'm drunk.
 

Sarge

Well-known member
I see the same thing @Sarge . It will be in ACC and active steering doing great, then start to drift a bit, then just cross the lane lines and turn off. Works maybe 85% of the time, but 15% failure at 70+ MPH makes it useless since you can't ever not be 100% alert. Might as well just use ACC. Very disappointed. Also noticed by Uconnect and systems crash soon after the lane departure. Have had it in service for 30+ days and they havent figured it out. They ordered a new controller, but its been on order for 2 weeks and keeps getting pushed back. I am done with the Jeep and asking for a buy back or a 2022
I feel like a beta tester. It does work most of the time, and it was still a big help on my 1500 mile road trip bringing it home (I'd rather have it than not), but it's not fully dialed in. The roads were clear, the car was clean, so it would seem conditions were tip top for it to be working great. The weird thing was the roads were equally good/clear/lines well painted, but sometimes it was straight on, and then it would start to drift back and forth in the lane.

Other times, it would start trying to hug the passenger side line and fight me if I tried to bring it back to the middle of the lane, and if I stopped fighting, it would drive over the passenger side solid shoulder line and then give up and turn off when it realized it was wrong. I felt like I was arguing with my wife.
 

Sarge

Well-known member
I notice the exact same thing. Most of the time it works pretty well. But sometimes it bounces back and forth. I tell myself that if a cop noticed it I would almost certainly be pulled over because they would think that I'm drunk.
That was my thought. One of my friends jokingly calls it 'drunk driver assist' (which is an obvious but dangerous use of it), but the truth is I too felt like 'if a cop was behind me, he'd think I was hammered'.

I'm just hoping they update the software and it gets better over time. I didn't even know it had this capability when I bought it (I just wanted the night vision because of all the massive wildlife on my local roads). But if I had ordered this expecting it to work as advertised, I'd be pretty disappointed.
 

Shoschette28

Active member
It’s not perfect yet. The thing I don’t like about it though, is if you’re on a two lane road and try to dodge something on your right (animal, car, etc) obviously it tries to over correct you. Or when on a curve going to the right, I generally hug the right lane or have my right side tires slightly over to give the oncoming driver more room. It doesn’t like that either. We ended up just turning it off. I don’t trust it enough to rely on it anyway.
 

Sarge

Well-known member
Yeah, it would be nice if you could set a preference to favor being further right, especially on two lane roads. I noticed the same thing. I did use it for most of my initial 1500 mile drive home (mostly on interstates, but the last few hundred miles on two-lanes) and it was still helpful, although a bit disconcerting at times. Hopefully they update the system software (without needing to upgrade hardware) to make it a better experience.

As far as I know this system is totally new for Jeep with this vehicle? It seems like it, anyway.
 

Sarge

Well-known member
Reading this article in Motortrend, it sounds like the system will get better in 2022, but it's not clear if that's going to be 'upgraded' for existing models, or if the '22 models get additional hardware.

From the article:

"In 2022, when the driver monitor cameras of so-equipped Grand Cherokee Ls become active and allow for Hands-Free Active Driving Assist to come online, the Stellantis system will surely work very much like GM's Super Cruise and Ford's BlueCruise. Extended hands-free cruising will be permitted for as long as the driver keeps their attention focused on the road ahead."
 

eleceng1979

Well-known member
My experiences with are mediocre. It hugs the centerline and crosses it regularly, swerves hard, turns late every time. On straight freeways is ok, but is horrible in traffic with semis in adjacent lanes. I don't use it. It is an accident waiting to happen.
 

Sarge

Well-known member
My experiences with are mediocre. It hugs the centerline and crosses it regularly, swerves hard, turns late every time. On straight freeways is ok, but is horrible in traffic with semis in adjacent lanes. I don't use it. It is an accident waiting to happen.
I found it liked to be really close to semis when passing them (in the passing lane, on the left, peroperly/lawfully), but when in the right lane it liked to sometimes hug the right side, particularly in corners, but even in straights it would hug the right shoulder and go over the line and turn off. If I fight it in the latter scenario, it fights back. If I quit fighting it, it veers over the right line and gives up anyway.

Then on the two lane roads, it sometimes liked to hug the center line too much but would fight me to stay too close to the centerline.

In freeway construction zones it followed the 'jogs' back and forth, but it would always respond too slowly, like you would expect a drunk person to do, almost going off the road and getting too close to the lines on both sides as the lanes moved left and right.

Surprisingly, it does still work on my local rural two lane roads that only have a center line (no shoulder stripe). In that case it still drives pretty close to the centerline, but it's appropriate. Which makes me wonder if it is just programmed to find one line or the other, and not use both the shoulder and center line on other roads to position itself in the middle of the lane.

As for my, my spatial orientation has tested in the 99th percentile, I also drive a 45' diesel pusher RV (I can parallel park it on city streets), have spent lots of time at tracks with car clubs, have never had an accident in over 3 decades of driving, and I'm very aware of my vehicle dimensions and position on the road. So, if anyone at Jeep is reading this, I can promise you my perception of how the Jeep is 'driving' and positioning itself is quite accurate, and mirrors what everyone else here is observing. (We're not just bad drivers who don't know what we're talking about, although those types of drivers certainly exist).

It's still nice to have on long trips, as it relieves a it of the muscle stress of actively steering, but it adds a different kind of stress via 'uncertainty'.
 

JTaylor62

Well-known member
For what's worth, our other vehicle is a 2021 GLE -- Mercedes does the same thing. I too get baffled why the vehicle gets close to one line, then corrects, goes to the other line then corrects and so on. I.e, giving one the drunk driving feel. Even the Tesla's (my brother-in-law own one - and I have drove it) do it, but they are a tad better. This is an industry wide problem. One would think they'd have built-in algorithms to steer the vehicle in between the lines with little swerving. The cure for this issue is still a few years away -- my two cents...
 

Sarge

Well-known member
That's kind of what I figured. Tesla is leading the charge and seems more competent with self-driving tech, but all of it is in its infancy.

I wish Jeep would clarify what they meant by 'improvements coming in 2022'; Does that mean our '21 models will be getting more/improved capability, or do we have to buy a '22 model to get the improved system (b/c it requires better hardware?).
 

JTaylor62

Well-known member
Did we buy the GCL to have autonomous driving? I didn't. Even if the 2022 have it (where you don't have to grab the wheel after 20 seconds or so), I'm sure the 2022 autonomous driving drive just like the 2021's - where it drives like a drunk driver. And another thought - what if it fails? This isn't a dealer breaker for me. Yea, it's nice if you want to check a text and take your hands off the wheel. But then again, is this a habit anyone wants to develop? The semi autonomous driving is a nice trick to show those who haven't experienced it -- otherwise, as of now, with today's technology - it's worthless (my opinion of course).
 

Sarge

Well-known member
Well, the underlying point is it still has a long way to go, so it would be nice if Jeep provided software upgrades to make the hardware work better, or offered a hardware upgrade if they're changing it after less than 8 months in production. If they want to build a reputation for a good system, they shouldn't want to have '21 models out there 'drunk driving'.
 

TampaHoosier

Well-known member
Much of the tech depends on the conditions of the road and whether or not the camera can spot the lanes. Food for thought… the drunken sailer times could be poorly marked lanes and/or dull or old paint markers.
 
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