Hill Starts

[ian103]

OH should get her new company car in 2-3 weeks time, a ct200. We have a sloping drive that we have to reverse onto. She parks at the top but effectively has to do a hill start to get off the drive. Her current Audi always rolls back a bit as it has the electronic handbrake.

Can anybody give us an idiots guide to how the hill hold works on a ct200 as the dealer seems to think we won't need to use it.

[Steverally]

Start the car, put into drive and press hard on the brake pedal(centre pedal) until the traction control light flashes, you then have a couple of seconds to release the handbrake and apply pressure to accelerator, the brakes will be released automatically when you touch accelerator.

I'd have a practice on a slight slope on the road, so you can get a feel of the process.. it becomes quite normal once you get use to it.

[Exdee]

[Sethyhead]

I was wondering about that. Thanks, very useful. I'll try that.

Seth

[PAULV]

I read elsewhere in this forum that IS250 hill starts can involve operating the footbrake with your left foot. An SC430 owner told me that he also used this method when he stopped on hills / bridges. Paul.

[Wass]

The hill start facility is whatever you want to make of it. I have used it once just to prove that it works, however, I have driven quite a number of the older american cars in the past and am quite accustomed to using the foot operated parking brake with an automatic gear box. I once had a Chevrolet K5 blazer with a manual gearbox and foot operated parking brake, hill starts were quite tricky until I had mastered a style of heel and toe in order to hold the car on the foot brake while I released the parking brake.

The main advantage of using the parking brake is that I dont dazzle the drivers behind me with brake lights when I would prefer that they were paying attention to whatever indicators I may be operating.