Hi Roadtripper, can I just clarify with you Lane Assistant is just like Lane departure , ie just steers you back to the centre of the lane?
The feature you can buy at build time is "Lane Assist" and intervenes at the point it believes you are about to depart the lane but not during normal driving.
The undocumented feature (at least on the T6.1) in the system that can be enabled through aftermarket systems like VCDS is the "Adaptive Lane Guidance" mode in "Lane Assist" and this recognises you are in a lane and intervenes near continuously to keep the vehicle in the centre of the lane.
If you have "Adaptive Lane Guidance" active and the systems cannot recognise both sides of the lane then it falls back to the lane departure mode on the side it can see.
When driving the small pictogram shows you what state it is in. If you have green dashed lines ( 1 or 2 ) then it has recognised a lane edge and lane departure is active for that edge. If you have 2 bright white lines it has recognised both lane edges and determined you are in a lane and now adaptive lane guidance is active and will hold you between the two recognised edges. If you just have grey lines then no edges are recognised.
I have "Lane Assist" from factory and have enable "Adaptive Lane Guidance" through OBDeleven, some thoughts on having used it for a few months for those thinking of trying to get "Lane Assist" retrofitted mostly to get this additional option:
It's not self driving at any level.
Yes combined with ACC on a dual carriage way in good conditions you can briefly experience what that would be like if you loosely hold the wheel and let the van "drive" - however the steering input it gives is definitely a "guidance" level of torque in Adaptive Lane Guidance and overridable by human steering input - as such it would not be able to intervene in situations where your are diverted from your course with something like a pot hole or other road surface issue that needs rapid and positive intervention. The system does not operate at low (town) driving speeds - I don't have an estimate but it feels about the same threshold as the High Beam assist so around 30mph
It can be very annoying.
The system ensures you are not trying to "self drive" but the only way it has to do this is to feel the drivers steering input, it doesn't have something smarter like capacitive sensing of hands on the wheel. What this means in practise is that when you naturally adapt your driving style to the way it works... you are not in conflict with it so it doesn't sense your steering input. So paradoxically the more you drive the way it guides you to drive - the more you will get alerts. You get a warning chime level and white icon message alert about a minute after it senses no input, very rapidly followed by the bright red icon and alarm chime level (like the auto brake) if you don't respond with steering input. Very shortly after that the whole of "Lane Assist" will disengage leaving the steering free.
It can be remarkably good but also wrong.
The system is actually remarkably good at spotting edges and then recognising it as a lane. In some ways this is actually a bad thing as it means that when it get's it wrong (and it will) it's more unexpected. It seems to work remarkably well in low light as well, to the point where I wonder if the camera has the ability to also operate somewhat in the infra red. Where it get's it wrong is where it can see an edge that isn't, for instance it can spot tar sealing lines on long repairs as an edge or a painted out line (especially in roadworks). Where the Adaptive Land Guidance additionally get's it wrong is where lanes diverge or merge; there is a limit where it can recognise edges but realise they are too far apart to be a lane and it drops back to lane departure. What this means is that if you are in a situation where 2 lanes merge into one there is a risk it will recognise the "wide" section early and try to position the vehicle across 2 lanes of traffic merging, likewise where lanes diverge you may end up it positioning you in the centre and then suddenly straddling the point they diverge. In practise most lane marking is rational enough it copes but...
What does it feel like?
When working well the best way to describe it is that it feels like a worn bit of road where the trucks have pressed a couple of ruts into the surface and the van wheels are following the ruts. When it get's it a bit wrong it can feel like you've hit a bump or there is something loose in the steering.
Do I still use it?
Yes mostly. There are situations (like roadworks) where I turn the whole Lane Assist off, but when it's on currently I leave it in the Adaptive Lane Guidance mode. It is annoying that I have to give the wheel a little wiggle every so often to respond to the times it thinks I'm not holding the wheel and this may get annoying enough I stop using it. Mostly this happens on long dual carriageway driving where most of us adopt a lower looser hold on the wheel ready to tighten up and respond if you need to - Adaptive Lane Guidance really hates that. But it has been reassuring especially with the distractions having a young family in the back can cause. I will certainly leave it on when MrsRT decides she has the confidence to drive it.
Would I recommend it?
If you have Lane Assist already and have the ability to enable it I'd definitely give it a go. If nothing else it gives a glimpse into the future of what self driving may become.
If you are considering retrofitting Lane Assist just to get Adaptive Lane Guidance then I don't think I would. It's a nice feature but it's likely not worth the journey. If you want the basic lane departure function then go for it,but if you specifically want Adaptive Lane Guidance I'd recommend trying to find someone who has it enabled and seeing if you can have a drive first. You may find the way it intervenes unsettling or the constant reminder to steer highly annoying.