So how "SMART" IS our car?

[Crusty Old Shellback]

You always hear of people talking about how the "car" will learn your driving style and make corrections, etc to the systems. So is our car really that smart?

I ask this in all sincerity.

I've noticed that when I drive the car in a normal, soft footed manner, it is well behaved. The gas pedal is smooth on take off and the shifts are smooth and unnoticable.

But when I'm in a go fast mood, it seems that the car changes, like a Jeckle and Hyde. I'm serious here. When I nail the pedal from a stop, it will launch and the shifts seem quicker and harder. And the more I do it, the better, more responsive it seems to be. Even to the point that I have had some hard, slam you back in the seat, types of shifts, even though I was not in manual shift mode. As a matter of fact, the other day when I was driving in such a mood, I got a second gear chirp out of the tires. And all of this is with the ESC on.

When I'm done being in a go fast mood and try and go back to normal driving, for the first few times I leave a stop, I notice that the car still launches and the gas pedal is very sensative. But after a few times at driving "normal", eveything seems to settle back down.

So is it true? Can our cars "learn" our driving styles and adapt to them? Be a true Dr. jeckle and Mr Hyde? Mine seems to be. Or is it all just a placibo effect in that I want it to be a Jeckle and Hyde?

 

[Fast55]

This is true of a lot of cars. There are many "adaptive" parameters that it does in fact "learn" based on how you drive it. Years ago, a trick to clear the ECU/TCU was discovered on AMG cars:

Turn the key "ON", push the gas to the floor all the way to the kick down switch, and hold for 5 seconds. While the pedal is mashed, turn the key off and then release the gas. Leave everything off for at least 2 minutes, and presto, all adaptives cleared and the cars are back to full beast mode. There is probably a way to do that to our cars, but I couldn't tell you what it is.

The problem with that is I have no idea what the "base" settings are. It could be that "soft and slow" is where you start, and the car must learn "haul-ass" mode. In that case, your only option is to drive it hard to get the best performance.

 

[Mark_888]

Most modern transmissions have a learning mode where they adapt to your driving style. Even my 1998 Camry had one like that, and if battery got disconnected, it had to learn all over again.

 

[Crusty Old Shellback]

I know that car systems have a "learning" mode and that in the past, they could be "reset" by disconnecting the battery.

But I've never seen, nor heard of one doing a "Jeckle and Hyde" like I'm seeing/experiencing in this car. I've got an '04 Chevy truck that dosen't do it. My '08 Pontiac G8 didn't do it either.

 

[EXBMWGUY]

I know that car systems have a "learning" mode and that in the past, they could be "reset" by disconnecting the battery.

But I've never seen, nor heard of one doing a "Jeckle and Hyde" like I'm seeing/experiencing in this car. I've got an '04 Chevy truck that dosen't do it. My '08 Pontiac G8 didn't do it either.

I have definitely experienced the Mr. Hyde side of the car (along with a couple of Mustangs). My wife usually experiences the Dr Jekyll!

 

[Fast55]

I know that car systems have a "learning" mode and that in the past, they could be "reset" by disconnecting the battery.

But I've never seen, nor heard of one doing a "Jeckle and Hyde" like I'm seeing/experiencing in this car. I've got an '04 Chevy truck that dosen't do it. My '08 Pontiac G8 didn't do it either.

Most don't have such a big difference. The supercharged E55's and the V12 cars literally feel like you're driving around with the E-brake on in comparison after a couple of days of bumper to bumper traffic. I can't remember who came up with the "sneaky ECU reset" as it's called. Disconnecting the battery works on all cars, but it's a real PITA with all the problems that causes, so this trick was a big hit. It made dyno testing your mods much more consistent as well.

 

[GenesisCaptain]

I know that car systems have a "learning" mode and that in the past, they could be "reset" by disconnecting the battery.

But I've never seen, nor heard of one doing a "Jeckle and Hyde" like I'm seeing/experiencing in this car. I've got an '04 Chevy truck that dosen't do it. My '08 Pontiac G8 didn't do it either.

I have experienced this, and it falls into my same bucket of Hyundai's bad TCU/ECU programming. I think it is related to the occasional multi-second acceleration lag when you hit the gas in normal mode. It is just way over compensating the next time you call for power.

When you do one hard acceleration run, the car seems to say in amphetamine mode for about the next 10 minutes. Then it settles back down when the caffeine wears off.

Conversely, if you have been driving in sleeping pill mode, then it will not respond when you make that first call for moderate to WOT power.

As a side note, many other cars do the learning thing, it is just they are more subtle about it. Additionally, ZF transmissions do an additional level of learning to adjust for shift times of the transmissions as they age. Those learning parameters are not erasable by disconnecting the battery-- you have to tell it to forget through a proprietary diagnostics computer.

 

[Crusty Old Shellback]

The acceleration lag I beleive is due to the tranny being in a high gear and having to downshift thru several gears. Case in point was my lunch run. Was doing about 35 and coming up to a left turn light that was laready green and cars were in front of me. So in preperation, I switched to manual mode so that I could quickly downshift if need be. When I got in manual mode, the tranny was in 7th and I had only been doing about 35. So if I had stayed in normal mode and just nailed it, then it would have taking some time to downshift thru 5 gears to get to a lower gear for acceleration.

But the Jeckle and Hyde split personaility seems to be a lot different that this.

 

[GenesisCaptain]

The acceleration lag I beleive is due to the tranny being in a high gear and having to downshift thru several gears.

I think that there is a different lag problem in addition to downshift activity. There are many times when I make a moderate acceleration call, and nothing seems to happen. Then after a pause of what feels like two to three seconds (it may be quicker, but the sight of oncoming traffic speeds up time), either the engine will rev or the downshift will begin.

In every other car I have every driven, regardless of the number of gears, power onset is instantaneous with the push of the gas pedal. Some may downshift, but the power hit is always immediate.

It feels like the ECU & TCU logic are trying to decide what to do, and the ECU holds off juicing the throttle until the two decide what action they are going to take together. In other cars, I bet the ECU takes precedence unless there is a rare call from the TCU to cut power.

 

[WowCool]

The other night was amazing"" I was driving, my wife was in the Co-Pilot seat and that was what i thought, I popped inside to get something, came out, jumped in & off we went.. Suddenly this voice said "This is Cool, Lovely"
I nearly jumped out of my seat, I looked at the screen and Toby K was playing,
No warning Lights On...My wife was laughing" whats going on, I thought?
I found out whilst I was inside my house the MIL had decided to accompany us..
she jumped in the back, being nigh-time I did not even think to look..
Anyways she was one happy traveler... A touch of hard acceleration on the freeway and I heard a long ooooooo" from the rear seat..
This Is Good ~~~~~~~~~~~~

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[DRS]

I agree with the posts above on the learning of the ECU and tranny. My battery decided to lose half its cells and not recover. After it being flat bed to the dealer from my garage, who within 20 minutes replace the battery (with new redesigned Hyundai battery) and checked the car, I was on the way. And I noticed something. It was in "caffeine" mode (to use above analogy.. Not as smooth working leisurely traffic. Also, went out of town twice this week with highway driving.

What I found... Gas Mileage was a mess in town. Lower than I ever got. And, I did not drive differently. On the highway, for the first trip, the mileage was just below 26MPG.. Which is 5MPG lower on the same route normally. Also, the second trip, same thing. Then, on the way back, mileage went back up to 31mpg+ (76-77mph except on construction zone traffic slow down). And throttle response, shifting, seem to go back to before. And that is actual mileage...

I drove as a "fast hyper miler".. Which means, smooth, yet going with traffic or faster and no granny acceleration. With the obligatory "blow out the lungs" routine to keep this 5.0 TAU lungs clear. This is my normal routine.

In my experience, there is a adaptive nature to all the CPUs. It still will "wake up" when needed, but my style tends to go with the flow smooth. Response, shifting, grace.

Oh, the "felt downshift" when slowing to a stop at a light is still there in the mode it has learned. When the battery has changed it, the felt downshift was more pronounced when slowing.

FYI..