smartmadness installed my new cruise control today, and it includes some sort of sprint power booster. What an improvement! The shifting lag is all but gone, and my smart now comes off the line crisply, and with no lag. Best aftermarket add on I have ever experienced. Their service was awesome as well...
I seemed to remember you were a hypermiler. Or was that someone else I'm confusing you with?
Yeah, that's me. The thinking is that you get better MPGs without CC. It's counter-intuitive, but Pulse & Glide'ing between 55 and 65 seems to work better than leaving the speed at a constant 60, even if you arrive at the same time. In my limited experience this does seem to work. And then there's the fatigue issue that I brought up. I think that over all, I'm better off sans CC, but I think it's a great option for most people.
Yes, you get better mileage on hills if you are willing to drop to 55mph at the crest and get up to 65mph near the bottom. Cruise will raise RPMs and fuel consumption to keep you at the set point no matter what it takes. I think most stock CC's will even downshift one or two gears and darn near redline if you hit Resume doing 35 and your setpoint is 65. I did that in my Grand Am once. Only once.
I don't know how the 451 or other Smart CC's are like, but I wonder how they work with the Smart's manual mode - do they still shift or just operate within a manually set gear?
Both the Area451 and MDC cruise controls work beautifully with manual or automatic modes and with the switch between them. The Transmission Control Unit is independent of the CC and will keep the engine from going past redline or from stalling in at too low an rpm. If you know the hill will lose revs and require too much power before a late shift, a quick touch of the paddles to downshift and your cruise is pushing you up the hill effortlessly.
I don't know how the 451 or other Smart CC's are like, but I wonder how they work with the Smart's manual mode - do they still shift or just operate within a manually set gear?
Both are just pedal pushers... They don't tell the engine when to shift (up or down). The system determines when to do that the same way it always does. In Manual mode it uses user input and/or it's red-line protection protocol. In Drive mode it uses it's common shift points.
I don't use my cruise too much unless I'm on a vacant road that has a speed limit of 45-50mph OR if I'm going on a trip where I don't care about mileage since I can get better mileage not using cruise.
All that being said - a MDC unit will be my next cruise control.
One spot where I like to use my cruise is in school zones. I'm not used to driving at 20ish mph so maintaining speed is difficult in this typically 40mph+ town. When I brake into the start of a school zone and hit the speed I want - pop - I turn on the cruise, watching for kids the whole time. I prefer to watch for pedestrians in this situation than watch my speedometer needle.
For me it's much more about maintaining a constant speed than an issue of fatigue. If pulled over, I'd like to know at exactly what speed the officer should have seen me going even if the spot I'm pulled over is a half mile down the road. After the cross-country trip that passed through Wyoming in my other car (now sold) I'm thinking a radar detector might be a good thing.
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smart - aka Smurf
Or was that someone else I'm confusing you with?
1 - Kermit
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