As a licensed tree hugger and GREEN person, to save expen$ive fuel and reduce air pollution I drive very GENTLY - accelerate gently and coast up to red traffic signals as much as possible.
Then, in stark contrast, during emergency medical transports the vehicle is more aggressively accelerated - but still never floored.
Sometimes, a very slight pressure on the accelerator applies the throttle much more than I wish.
Example: On level pavement Idle speed is 3 mph. Traffic is crawling at 5 mph. I press the accelerator as little as possible to go 5 mph but the Expedition goes to 7 mph. I catch up to vehicles ahead so must brake.
Is this from the ‘adjusting to the driver’ feature in the computer?
Can such be defeated?
Thank you.
I don’t think so. Every vehicle that I’ve ever owned would crawl along in traffic. Congested traffic takes a keen eye and maximum concentration and neither one of those is the vehicle’s responsibility.
I doubt that what you are experiencing has anything to do with the “adjust to driver” feature in the computer. My understanding is that this has to do with shift points in the automatic transmission.
Some electronic “drive by wire” throttles are better modulated than others. Mine is a little touchy when the engine is cold, but mellows out once it warms up. There are “recalibration” procedures for these that probably don’t actually do much of anything. You’d have to ask Ford engineers if the Expedition is set to “learn” your driving style.
My problem with cars that learn these things is that I often vary my driving style and would prefer my car to be a known variable that I can work around, always returning the same results every time, not trying to think for me. (and Microsoft could learn something from that statement too–I hate it when a piece of machinery presumes to know what my intent is–for every time it gets my intentions right, it seems to get them wrong twice more.) I have a handheld tuner that lets me “reset shift adaptations” (transmission) among other things, and that helps somewhat if I’ve driven like a grandmother for a few days and the tranny decides it wants to shift ultra early. Probably pulling the fuse for the ECU would do the same thing, but then the ECU would have to “relearn” managing the engine, not just adjusting to the driver’s proclivities.
If you don’t have “drive by wire” on your Expedition, or the car is surging as well as being touchy, it probably needs some maintenance.