Steep drive, Electric handbrake & Autohold

[whiskywallah]

Just had an interesting experience. Was reversing down a steep drive. Misjudged the angle and needed to go back up drive. Auto hold wouldn't hold against the gradient so needed to use foot brake. Applied handbrake and found clutch bite point but then can't release electric handbrake without foot on brake.
In danger of rolling back into side wall and by now the seat belt has decided to lock with me pinned back to seat and unable to release it which meant I couldn't see how close which meant we rolled back more and so the knot tightened!
Almost a complete farce!

My wife had to clamber out and guide me to roll back and just prayed!

I think the top few atoms of paint may have exchanged electrons with the rock wall but we survived apparently unscathed.

Anyone else had a similar experience and found out how to make the technology work for rather than against you ?

[MGV]

I think auto-hold holds at the same pressure as was being applied when you come to a stop. Not sure about how it works in reverse, though... I've nosed up a driveway on a few occasions to do a 3 point turn, haven't used the brake at all until gravity has me in reverse. When i touch the brake pedal, rolling backwards in neutral, the auto-hold emits a hideous 'unhappy' sound.
Probably not helpful, just a related personal experience!

[203132]

I'm not sure if manual is different to Automatics but what I do is come to a complete stop, turn on Auto hold and then accelerate off. I've never heard of Autohold not working due to a gradient being too steep?

[team_v]

I'm not sure if manual is different to Automatics but what I do is come to a complete stop, turn on Auto hold and then accelerate off. I've never heard of Autohold not working due to a gradient being too steep?

I thought auto hold had to be activated before you stopped for it to function.

Either way i have never had mine give way to a steep gradient however the most i have had would be about 15 degrees.

[blutopless2]

you can activate it at any time. We have the 6M so not sure if its different for Autos but would assume not. I also thought it was related to applied brake pressure at the time it activates, didn't think the system would do any sort of calculations in order to know how much brake pressure to apply as there would be too many variables etc...

[TDZ]

yup manual explains how auto hold works.

Basically, last brake pressure when your car came to a halt provided you have your selt belt on etc.
If you were quite soft on the brake on the steep incline then yeah gravity will force your car down hill.

Questions you might want to ask yourself are, did you accidently flick off auto hold in your crisis? As even if you turned ebrake on, if your autohold feature is enabled you should still be able to automatically disengage if you put your foot on the gas. I've got a 6M and provided i've got my seatbelt on and auto hold enabled it will always disengage when i reach friction point and accelerate a little. You should only need your foot on the footbrake if you manually release the handbrake. So if youre faced with the same sitation again do the following. Press brake harder for autohold to do its job properly, if youre concerned put ebrake on. Make sure your seatbelt is on and autohold light is on. Bring clutch to friction point and accerate. Try it on a flat surface, you'll find the right combination of clutch and gas for the ebrake to release automatically.

I've done a few steep incline reverses and manoeuvrs and to be honest auto hold causes me to cringe all the time, just by the noise it makes and the shudders when it releases. So i often would only use it as a last resort, ie stalling multiple times or if theres other cars behind me.

[203132]

To be honest my auto hold makes a jerk when it unclamps on flat ground whereas on a steep gradient the jerk is less profound.

[kaanage]

Applied handbrake and found clutch bite point but then can't release electric handbrake without foot on brake.

Hmmm. Sounds like a situation needing the old heel-and-toe technique

[whiskywallah]

OK so tried this again a bit more scientifically.
As has been said and the manual tells you, the auto hold works based on last pressure.
So if this is the first pressure it won't hold at all.
Auto elec Handbrake release does work but I obviously wasn't giving it enough beans to release and was merely stalling, which seems to auto start the engine and apply handbrake.

Interestingly auto hand brake release does not happen from cold/first start, nor apparently in reverse which is probably in the manual but who reads that?!

I'm coming to the conclusion that Autohold is less useful. It jerks too often. I prefer to manually engage Elec handbrake and use that instead, but that's just my opinion.

And I would prefer both buttons to be closer to the steering wheel.
One day we'll have 'Fn' buttons that we can assign to our favourite controls.

New toy and tool.... New tricks to learn