Owners/Test drivers: How's the brake feel on the G70?

[Slides]

I heard one earlier review mention that the brakes were too grabby. This is a normal problem with German luxury sports sedans, so I wonder if Hyundai copied the over boosted brake feature from them too.

I'm a bigger fan of progressive brakes (and throttle). Makes driving much easier.

 

[mcornett]

I heard one earlier review mention that the brakes were too grabby. This is a normal problem with German luxury sports sedans, so I wonder if Hyundai copied the over boosted brake feature from them too.

I'm a bigger fan of progressive brakes (and throttle). Makes driving much easier.

I only test drove the car once, but I did not notice anything unsual (or at all) about the brakes -- they just seemed to work normally. I am coming from a Mercedes C300, and I don't find those brakes particularly grabby either, just functional. I drove my mom's Tiguan and I found those brakes slightly soft. It might be a matter of what you're habituated to / personal preference.

 

[SVTong]

This is my third car with monoblock brakes, and I will say that they feel like very similar to the brembos on my last car. I don't find them grabby at all, but I do find that most other brakes feel mushy to me. It all depends on what you're used to. I really like the brakes in the G70 - they are very solid feeling and confidence-inspiring.

 

[ACCHRM]

I sure hope they are not grabby as a BMW for example, I have big 6 piston brembos on my car right now, and you'd expect them aggressive, but they are very normal, have decent progress across the pedal and don't have that on epoint where with the slightest move, brakes are almost locking on you.

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[devellis]

Aggressive and progressive, as I think of them, shouldn't be contradictory. Good brakes should have a very progressive feel and enable you to modulate braking force. They should also be capable of pulling the car down quickly from high speed but still with a feeling of control. The "aggressive" part is the ability to perform well under extreme circumstances. The "progressive" part is smoothness and a firm but not jumpy action when applying the pedal. At least that's how I see it.

I remember when "power brakes" were a relatively new thing. On a lot of cars, the slightest touch and you felt that you were going to fly through the windshield. Part of that was brakes that were too sensitive. But also, part was that people were used to non-power brakes where you customarily stomped the pedal pretty hard to slow the car down. Think of the force and relative travel you have to use on bicycle brakes. At speed, it takes a pretty good squeeze to slow down. Auto brakes were analogous but with your whole leg applying the pressure. Both brake designers and drivers had to learn some stuff to get us to where we are now with power-assisted auto brakes.

 

[Edmguy]

^ good description. I personally find the Brembo's not to be the smoothest brakes I have used (referring to your reference to progressive above). Especially with the cruise control, it seems grabby and not smooth to when braking to a stop. Part of that is the cruise, but even when braking myself, I find it isn't the smoothest coming to a complete stop. That said the performance of the brakes is impressive the few times I have really used them. This is me being quite picky though. I had asked my wife what she thought of the brakes on the G70 and she replied with "they are brakes, they stop the car"...

 

[GenesisYEG]

I find the brakes are pretty smooth and progressive in normal use. If you absolutely, positively need to stop, the Brembos will definitely stop you with authority.

 

[TOGuy242]

I find the brakes are pretty smooth and progressive in normal use. If you absolutely, positively need to stop, the Brembos will definitely stop you with authority.

I had a situation this week - two lane left turn. I was in the right lane of the two (with no one in front), and the guy in the left who was stuck behind a slow moving truck decided that it would be a good time to try to pass, on the right, at barely a crawl and apparently without looking. I had to come to almost a complete stop pretty quickly, and was really impressed by how well the Brembos did their job.

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[Edmguy]

So for the first time yesterday the car actually braked (hard) to a complete stop (not while using the cruise, but the forward collision avoidance) and not once, but twice within about two minutes! It didn't actually save me from an accident, but it does work well so I will try to explain:

Traffic in left lane is stopped, I am driving in right lane which is a long turning lane and I am at least 500 feet from the turn so driving about 40km/h (60 zone). Car that is stopped in the left lane, pulls out right in front of me. Car flashes warning on HUD, I brake, honk, car doesn't think I braked hard enough and brought the car to a complete stop which causes the car behind me to almost hit me and honk at me as now the other car is two car lengths up. lol

Then I floor it to catch up to the guy as for some reason I feel riding his ass around the corner will make me feel better. As I catch up, he slams on his brakes and signals left to get back into the lane that goes straight, just blocking my turn. I lay on the horn and the guy behind me does the same. (we both feel better now )

So the idiot in front (Honda Accord driver if that helps the story) decides to give up getting back into the left and and turns into the residential area. I follow but at a distance as I realize he is going to try make a u-turn. This road is a typical residential road that is basically 4 lanes wide, but only has a center line and then room for parking on the sides. He is now ahead of me and goes to make a u-turn by pulling to the right and then making a wide turn to the left. Here I decide to be a bit of an ass and speed up and give a little honk with the intention of just getting close to his back bumper as he leaves me lane. Car didn't like it, flashed warning on HUD and immediately braked the car to a stop even though I wasn't close enough to hit him, but it hadn't registered the car as gone yet. Once again, same guy behind me almost hits me and honks at me. lol So in the end he was probably more upset with me than the other guy lol

Anyway, yes it wasn't my finest moment, but I just finished 50 minutes in bad traffic and was getting close to home and this guy was a real idiot. (it is almost daily at this same spot that I see people do the same thing and hold up people in the turning lane, this time it just happened to be right in front of me). But I thought the story was worth sharing because even if the system is a little over excited, it does seem to work.

 

[Edmguy]

Also, lets not get into a big thing about "this is how road rage starts and people get shot". I am in Canada and that doesn't happen. Plus our horns are basically how we say "sorry".

 

[Beefer]

Also, lets not get into a big thing about "this is how road rage starts and people get shot". I am in Canada and that doesn't happen. Plus our horns are basically how we say "sorry".

Funny you say that. When I moved to the States...I would get blasted by friends for using my horn...saying essentially it leads to death...LOL. People drive like utter shit where I live.

 

[devellis]

So for the first time yesterday the car actually braked (hard) to a complete stop (not while using the cruise, but the forward collision avoidance) and not once, but twice within about two minutes! It didn't actually save me from an accident, but it does work well so I will try to explain:

Traffic in left lane is stopped, I am driving in right lane which is a long turning lane and I am at least 500 feet from the turn so driving about 40km/h (60 zone). Car that is stopped in the left lane, pulls out right in front of me. Car flashes warning on HUD, I brake, honk, car doesn't think I braked hard enough and brought the car to a complete stop which causes the car behind me to almost hit me and honk at me as now the other car is two car lengths up. lol

Then I floor it to catch up to the guy as for some reason I feel riding his ass around the corner will make me feel better. As I catch up, he slams on his brakes and signals left to get back into the lane that goes straight, just blocking my turn. I lay on the horn and the guy behind me does the same. (we both feel better now )

So the idiot in front (Honda Accord driver if that helps the story) decides to give up getting back into the left and and turns into the residential area. I follow but at a distance as I realize he is going to try make a u-turn. This road is a typical residential road that is basically 4 lanes wide, but only has a center line and then room for parking on the sides. He is now ahead of me and goes to make a u-turn by pulling to the right and then making a wide turn to the left. Here I decide to be a bit of an ass and speed up and give a little honk with the intention of just getting close to his back bumper as he leaves me lane. Car didn't like it, flashed warning on HUD and immediately braked the car to a stop even though I wasn't close enough to hit him, but it hadn't registered the car as gone yet. Once again, same guy behind me almost hits me and honks at me. lol So in the end he was probably more upset with me than the other guy lol

Anyway, yes it wasn't my finest moment, but I just finished 50 minutes in bad traffic and was getting close to home and this guy was a real idiot. (it is almost daily at this same spot that I see people do the same thing and hold up people in the turning lane, this time it just happened to be right in front of me). But I thought the story was worth sharing because even if the system is a little over excited, it does seem to work.

Can't say I'm thrilled by this description. The system sounds a little jumpy to me (although there may be ways, I suspect, of adjusting it). I really don't like my car making decisions for me. Yeah, I guess if one of those decisions saved my bacon, I'd forget about its occasionally getting things wrong. But thus far, I've kept myself out of trouble. If I end up getting the car, I'll likely leave the system off by default (as I do with the lane assist and adaptive cruise control on my current Infiniti) and consider turning it on if I'm taking a long trip or driving in some particularly challenging setting (like very close traffic running at substantial speed). For day-to-day, I think it would drive me nuts.

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[Slides]

^ good description. I personally find the Brembo's not to be the smoothest brakes I have used (referring to your reference to progressive above). Especially with the cruise control, it seems grabby and not smooth to when braking to a stop. Part of that is the cruise, but even when braking myself, I find it isn't the smoothest coming to a complete stop. That said the performance of the brakes is impressive the few times I have really used them. This is me being quite picky though. I had asked my wife what she thought of the brakes on the G70 and she replied with "they are brakes, they stop the car"...

My Audi S5 has good brakes but they're not as progressive as I would like them to be or what I'm used to. They take some practice to get used to and even then I feel like sometimes I'm braking too soon or too late when stopping since I can't get the precise control I want. Audi has a tendency to over boost their brakes to make them appear to be better and "sporty".

 

[EdP]

Can't say I'm thrilled by this description. For day-to-day, I think it would drive me nuts.

No, it won't if you are a normal driver. In 50,000 miles it has never braked the car. It has alarmed a few seconds maybe a half dozen times. Why turn off a safety feature that may save you a big crash? If someone is setting it off every day, it is not a problem with the sensor, but the driver.

 

[devellis]

No, it won't if you are a normal driver. In 50,000 miles it has never braked the car. It has alarmed a few seconds maybe a half dozen times. Why turn off a safety feature that may save you a big crash? If someone is setting it off every day, it is not a problem with the sensor, but the driver.

That makes sense. If I had a system like this and it wasn't constantly intruding, I'd have no reason to turn it off. Cars I've driven with such systems, including my main driver, do seem to get the spacing wrong, though, relative to approaching a car ahead. For example, when they see brake lights ahead as cars come to a stop for a light, they slow the car down at a much greater distance than I think most drivers would. This can leave the driver behind you wondering what's going on and might actually result in his rear-ending you. I think it just has a harder time judging what the driver ahead's intention is than a human has. Some systems may have an adjustment buried in the system that controls that.

I guess another issue is, how much of the advantage it offers is theoretical versus actual. In 55 years of driving, I've never rear-ended someone but once, a mere touch, on sheer ice. No damage to either car, not even close. And I applied the brakes plenty early. There just wasn't any traction to be had. I'm confident that one of these systems would not have done any better. Even after coming to a full stop, cars were sliding sideways.

Antilock brakes, on the other hand, have demonstrated their utility on countless occasions. Of course, there's always the "next time," when automatic braking could save my bacon. As I said, if it doesn't do anything I dislike, I'd keep it on for safety's sake.

Even with antilock braking (as with other safety features like airbags and seatbelts), the epidemiological data suggest that their impact on the avoidance of mishaps has diminished over time. People learn that they can brake later and thus do. This is called "risk homeostasis." The edge of safety has moved but drivers aren't less likely to take things to the edge. Something similar seems to have happened with airbags, according to a 1995 paper in the Journal of Law and Economics. Air-bag-equipped cars tended to be driven faster and more aggressively. While the equipment offset the risk for the drivers of those cars, other people on the road whose cars didn't have airbags were actually at greater risk. Hopefully, now that airbags are everywhere, people are less aware that they reduce risk and are less likely to offset their behavior as a result.

Collision-assist systems, however, don't seem suffer from this to nearly the same degree, perhaps because the drivers' awareness of their presence is generally much less. That is, they (should) only kick in when actually needed and, hopefully, that isn't very often. So people are less likely to "adapt" by simply taking greater risks in the belief that the system will offset those risks. As people get more experience with these systems, they might undermine their utility as has happened with other safety systems but that doesn't appear to have become an issue as of yet.

A fairly recent NHTSA paper (2012) that compared annual accident rates for new cars with and without various safety technologies found a 5% reduction in accidents and a 3% reduction in injuries. (The report includes all safety technologies, which would include things like improvements in structural integrity as well as things like crash avoidance systems.) That's a substantial improvement from a policy perspective, because there are so many drivers in the US. Collectively, lots of injuries are avoided. From an individual perspective, a 3% reduction in injury likelihood isn't really that substantial, especially because this figure is for all injuries, not just severe ones. Obviously, any reduction in injury likelihood is a good thing. But a 3% reduction is pretty small and there are lots of lifestyle changes that could produce comparable benefits for individuals. The key, I think, is for these systems to be as unobtrusive as possible. Then they're far less likely to be turned off or "adapted" to in ways that reduce their effectiveness.

Of course, all of these safety measures do work. It's just that they work best when first introduced, before risk homeostasis comes into play. We still benefit from them, to be sure. But the benefits initially observed are an overestimate of the enduring gains. And in transition periods when some cars have them but most don't, there may be unforeseen consequences, like the airbag drivers who put others at risk by driving more hazardously or the risk of getting rear-ended when your car abruptly stops to avoid hitting the car in front of it. Human/machine systems are complicated.

 

[mcornett]

To get back on topic about the brake feel, I picked up my G70 yesterday (so brand new brakes) then went on a long drive to a cottage. I am coming from a C300. I do not find the brakes grabby whatsoever. I find I can depress the pedal more than on the C300 before I feel a real bite and as a result my braking is actually more gradual. When ACC is on, the braking is slightly less smooth, but still not harsh at all. Overall, I think they’re well balanced, normal brakes.

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[PD705]

To get back on topic about the brake feel, I picked up my G70 yesterday (so brand new brakes) then went on a long drive to a cottage. I am coming from a C300. I do not find the brakes grabby whatsoever. I find I can depress the pedal more than on the C300 before I feel a real bite and as a result my braking is actually more gradual. When ACC is on, the braking is slightly less smooth, but still not harsh at all. Overall, I think they’re well balanced, normal brakes.

Pretty much my thoughts. If anything, I'd like a little more bite at the very top of the pedal, but this is the calibration that leads many to call brakes grabby. The way they're tuned, it's extremely easy to modulate, you just need a little more pressure to get the brakes into "WHOA" territory.

 

[savemoresaveoften]

The brembos are strong brakes but I wont call it grabby. If you find urs too grabby, chances are you are jumping on the brakes too hard. Squeeze the brake pedals is proper braking techniques, not slamming or jumping on it. Keep in mind some car manufacturer makes their brake pedals "softer" to press then others, and same force from the feet may feel one car being more grabby than the other too.

 

[ashmostro]

If anything, I find them too soft, ie too much travel per braking force. Feels akin to air in the lines so I will probably do a bleed to see if it improves, but my guess is they are more a consequence of the high compressibility of the low-operating temp oriented pads, given more than one pro reviewer reported the same complaint.

Once more pads are available I plan to try something more to my preference. It may well be tuned-in to the feel of the system through booster and piston sizing, in which csse I don't expect it to improve much. That's ok though, I knew that was a possibility going in.

-Ash