I have a 2018 Nissan Maxima SV which comes standard with an emergency automatic braking system called EBS (Emergency Braking System). Other Nissan's have a similar system called "AEB" (which are now known to have an issue that made the news for 2017-2018 Rogues).

The system which is "On" all of the time, uses sensors in the front of your car to sense a car or similar in front of you and I have to guess a formula of speed versus distance. If it senses you are in an impending crash situation, it first warns you, then if nothing is done to remedy (brakes applied, car is no longer in front of you, etc...) it will then apply brakes on its' own. I mean, it slams on the brakes and you have no control over it.

So my specific issue is that I was driving down the road, no car in front of me and my car suddenly displays a red alert across my digital dash (with loud sound) and a millisecond later, slams on my brakes (I was going 40 miles and hour) and brings me to a complete stop. The problem with this instance was that I had a school bus behind me with children in it and the driver had to veer hard left to avoid rear-ending me. I had NO reason to stop so I am sure that the bus driver was not expecting me to slam on my brakes driving down the road for absolutely no reason. Luckily the children were all ok. Both I and the bus driver were understandably shaken up.

As I discovered the next time I was driving down this same road, and the same thing happened in the same spot, my car was sensing a metal plate laying on the road. The type that are used in construction zones to cover a hole or such in the pavement. So the plate was laying flat (it is about a 1" thick 4' x 8' plate). Ones that you see and drive over all of the time.

So I went to my Nissan dealership where I purchased the car and explained the issue and asked the service department to turn it off or disable the system. I was told there was nothing they could do and they told me to call Nissan customer service. The service manager said " yeah, this can happen to people when they drive over or near metal bridges, or other non-car items that the car senses" Huh? That is the response? I just bought this car and am "stuck with it" not knowing when I am driving anywhere if it will all of a sudden decide to stop? What kind of a SAFETY feature is that? I could literally cause a severe accident or death.

So I looked it up on the internet to see if anyone else had complained and I found a Nissan produced video on how to turn the system off... which wasn't told to me at the dealership. So YEAH, I can turn it off. Well...it can be turned off, but you have to do it EVERY time you start your car. 7 button pushes to navigate through the menu system of the car to turn it off and then get back to where your dash display was.

So here is the problem with that, I have to remember every time I start the car to do this or I put myself and anybody unlucky enough to drive behind me at great risk for my car to randomly slam on its' brakes. Also, I can never valet my car or borrow it to anyone because how are they to know how to disable it (or that it even needs to be).

I then called Nissan customer service. The first person I spoke with had to "escalate" the ticket because he couldn't do anything for me. So they called me back after a couple of days and said there was nothing they could do and will keep the matter "internal". What does the mean anyway?

I asked if there was a way, at the very least that the car could have the default of the system to OFF and only if I chose to activate it, would I need to get into the menu. The answer was there is nothing we can do.

I honestly did nothing after that. Every time I start my car, I have to turn the EBS off and be reminded how poor Nissan was with testing a system that is faulty, but still release it on their vehicles and put the general public at risk.

This is my 3rd Maxima by the way, and I loved them up and until this. I didn't do anything after the dismissal by Nissan customer service but then I heard that the Rogue AEB (same thing) is having enough problems with accidents that it has made the news. So I felt it was the time I told my story.