# “Apply the Brakes” Warning while Cruising



## Savvv (Apr 22, 2009)

Just this morning, I’m cruising along at 80mph on the freeway using ACC. No one is around me or ahead of me. The cluster displayed a red “Apply the Brakes” message with an audible beep. I tapped the brakes for a second and the message went away. Resumed my ACC. Any ideas what that would have been for? Could it have detected any sort of buildup on the rotors and wanted me to apply the brakes to clean them off?


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## [email protected] (Apr 18, 2013)

My guess is some sort of "are you awake" check.


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## jimothy cricket (Jul 9, 2008)

Huh, very odd. Yeah maybe it was some kind of gut check? How long were you cruising before the warning came on?


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## theACN (Oct 20, 2017)

Happens to me every now and then too. It's not the most reliable system, definitely not a planned thing. When it rains it's worse.


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## nottusyor (Apr 4, 2016)

This usually happens when you are following too closely to someone but since noone was in front of you, maybe some sort of debris was recognized by the sensor. Just a thought.


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## Savvv (Apr 22, 2009)

I’m surprised no one responded with a “slow the f**k down” :laugh:

I read the manual and it says it’s a warning that would pop up if it needed driver intervention to slow the car enough to avoid a collision. Obviously there wasn’t anything in front of me. Maybe it was just an error since I lowered the vehicle and never had the sensor realigned but that’s been almost 6 months ago and this was the first time it happened. Oh well.


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## inv4zn (Jan 10, 2018)

I'd chock it to freak incident. 

This car is remarkably good at not giving false alarms visa the front collision system. My old Civic was insanely sensitive.


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## christophe15 (Nov 12, 2018)

I remember seeing when scrolling through several options on one screen something about "max speed" maybe this setting is enabled and car went above it briefly causing it to alert??? maybe wrong on the function of this area, i did not explore what the feature did or what it was for, just caught my eye...

link here but mentions visible and audible alerts

http://www.vwgenuineparts.co.uk/VW_speed_warning.shtml

also my adaptive never provides an audible or visual when engaged, car just simply starts to slow.. so not sure (maybe I need to set this up??)


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## inv4zn (Jan 10, 2018)

christophe15 said:


> also my adaptive never provides an audible or visual when engaged, car just simply starts to slow.. so not sure (maybe I need to set this up??)


ACC doesn't provide any signals...only when you're about to hit something lol, which is what OP was describing.

eg. you were cruising on ACC, when somebody immediately cuts riiight in front of you. The car would then make a very jarring BEEEP, flash a red !!! in the cluster, and (possibly) slam on the brakes.


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## Zabes64 (Aug 29, 2018)

I had this happen for no reason 2x on Friday. At 30mph and 20mph with the chance of hitting anything on par with winning MegaMillions 2x in a week


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## christophe15 (Nov 12, 2018)

inv4zn said:


> ACC doesn't provide any signals...only when you're about to hit something lol, which is what OP was describing.
> 
> eg. you were cruising on ACC



cool, ok then nothing missed 

Like I mentioned then, I don't think there is any audible nor visual alerts for ACC then, only thing I found similar to that type of alert was around speed warning, also front assist but now that someone posted they got same alerts at low speeds, man, maybe flying debris, some sort of radar interference?? 

FWIW, I owned a 2012 Volvo XC70 and sitting at same stop light almost weekly, the stupid proximity alarm would start going off. I would look behind me, no car or not close enough to set it off... only thing I could think of is there is a dentist office very close to where I would be waiting for light to change, maybe the x-ray machines were setting it off, or maybe another car lose to me with some sort of radar system was setting it off... weird though.. :banghead:

maybe it was the 50hhh hitting you with radar gun and sending you a message to slowwwwww your..... down....


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## scirockalot8v (Sep 16, 2006)

Just head the RED warning today. Doing about 40mph and about 50ft into a tunnel. It beeped at me. Nearest car was easily 100ft.

Sent from my SM-G935V using Tapatalk


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## Mendozer18 (Jul 26, 2018)

Could dirt or debris on the car/car sensors not be culprit to this?

I mean, when the front of my GSW is covered in snow, the sensors simply go "nope, I'm out" and they have to be turned off. Dirt/grime on a sunny day could technically do the same thing...no?


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## 04trevor (Feb 22, 2007)

2018 GTI with ACC.. Hate it..
Cruise control is on, car entering or exiting the highway or even side roads and the brakes come on.
system is set for the lowest car distance, if a car in front does not move over fast enough the car brakes itself. I have had 4 close calls with the car auto braking and people behind me start beeping horns/flashing lights.
The only way I have found to stop this is to "NEVER" use cruise control.
have asked 2 local dealers, I get the shrug?????
It never tells you it is applying the brakes it just does. I can tell if it applies the brakes even slightly by RPM's and feel.
dislike ACC.

like inv4zn stated, it only lets you know when you are about to hit something.


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## Ivoryt (Aug 11, 2010)

04trevor said:


> 2018 GTI with ACC.. Hate it..
> Cruise control is on, car entering or exiting the highway or even side roads and the brakes come on.
> system is set for the lowest car distance, if a car in front does not move over fast enough the car brakes itself. I have had 4 close calls with the car auto braking and people behind me start beeping horns/flashing lights.
> The only way I have found to stop this is to "NEVER" use cruise control.
> ...


Sounds like the ACC sensors need alignment or something.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk


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## nipp0n (Nov 21, 2018)

We got a "Snowflake" warning (Big snowflake on the cockpit), a loud beep, and indication the temperature was a balmy (for Montreal) 39 degrees F. I could understand and appreciate a warning that we were temp was dropping and approaching freezing, but the temp direction was rising.

Too many fale emergency indications will result in none of them being taken seriously, even the real ones.

n


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## gerardrjj (Sep 4, 2014)

Living in Phoenix, AZ I don't get that alert much but I used to get it in my Audi A4 occasionally. They are set so come on below 40°F as evaporation/sublimation will cause water to freeze locally below that temperature.
The Tig seems to have it's alerts a little backwards. The washer fluid low is a loud warning with a master caution light, as it seems is is the low OAT alert. Meanwhile the low tire pressure warning, which I experienced after a blowout, is a subtle icon in the dash with a mild chime and no master caution.

So minor alerts scare the **** out of you and put up an annoying bright yellow indictor but the things that could cause you to loose control and die are subtle icons.

I do recall while perusing the vagcom that you can set the low temp warning temperature and perhaps even disable it. Again I don't expect to see it so didn't really pay attention it it when there were other more exciting things to change like traction control and auto-steer.


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## 04trevor (Feb 22, 2007)

will look into that

thanks


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