I-ActiveSense Test drive / review

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K2500 Diesel Suburban; 2016 CX5 GT
Still was trying to decide if I want this package. I had the opportunity to test drive yesterday and this is what I learned. It's hard to test drive a car to test the safety features. :) Knew this going into it but wanted to verify or validate some of my suspisions. The best safety features IMHO are the blind spot monitoring, smart city brake support and rear vehicle monitoring. Found out that these are all standard options on the GT models. With the I-Activesense package you get the Auto High Beam control, the Lane Departure monitoring and Smart Brake Support. The Lane Departure monitoring gave me at least 6 false positive alerts before I decided to turn it off. To be fair I was on a highway with no other cars around and switched lanes a couple times without using my blinker. My bad, yes but I was driving the car like I do without thinking about the features and it became annoying. I was really concerned about the Smart Brake Support. The typical fear that you are doing 60 and switch from the left lane to the middle before going to the right BUT in the middle lane you are too close to the car in front of you and the SBS decides to save you and jams on the brakes. OK, so that was my fear anyway.. turns out it doesn't work that way which was a good thing. I even tried to hold out a little longer before stopping at a light to see if it would warn me or do anything but my comfort and common sense made me stop before any alarms or action happened. The SBS was not an issue at all during my test drive. This is one of those options that you won't know if it works until it does. All in all the car comes with all the best features I really wanted so I decided I wasn't going to get the package.
 
I turned off lane departure. Too many false positives regardless of how I set it up. Blind spot is cool though. Still need to play with high beam control. Not sure if that is working for me.
 
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