Hill Hold Assist - Is Mine Working?

[geoffbland]

I got a V6 manual Emira several weeks ago; I am not sure hill hold assist is working at all?

From my understanding, from the manual and reading this forum, if I have clutch in and foot on brake, then when I release the foot brake the electronic hand brake is meant to come on for 2 seconds or until I apply throttle.

In normal driving I’m always on the biting point to hold the car so it’s not really an issue. But when I try to test it, the car never seems to hold, on any hill I immediately start rolling back once I lift off the brake.

Also, three times I’ve had the car seem to unexpectedly brake as I pull away but this has only happened on a flat road, possibly I just stalled the car but I’m sure I’ve seen the handbrake light flicker when this happens.

I’m not sure what to make of all this.

Does the handbrake light come on when hill-hold is active?

Is there a setting that turns off hill-hold assist that I am missing?

What type of steepness of hill does hill-hold need to activate?

 

[netsinah]

My V6 manual "hill hold" works just fine, on steeper grades, as others have mentioned.

One thing I now routinely do: when stopped on a steeper incline, with clutch in and pedal brake pressed, just before I go forward, I'll briefly "punch it" (accelerate; taking my foot off the brake pedal) to disengage the "hill hold", then I slowly let the clutch out, while accelerating normally forward. I find this creates a smoother and more in control forward motion, when coming from a stop on an incline.

I practice this every work day, when leaving my office parkade exit ramp, which is quite steep. I learned to do this, after stalling once when trying to accelerate forward when the "hill hold" stubbornly refused to disengage, making me feel like an idiot.

 

[nsmith27]

OK I went out testing today and found a steep hill to test it on - and found my hill hold assist is working fine.

- It needs to be a fairly steep hill
- You need to be in 1st gear, clutch in and foot on brake
- You need to be stationary
- Take your foot off the brake
- The car is held on the brakes for 2-3 seconds or until you press the throttle & release the clutch enough to start moving.
- There is no light indicating hill hold assist is active

So it seems to be working as advertised (on a V6 manual), I'm not sure why it didn't seem to be working on my previous testing as I can get it to happen now with practice - I guess I wasn't doing one of the above or I was too quick to balance on clutch and throttle to notice it before; in practice it is quite subtle and I think in "normal" driving I would rarely use it.

Hi Geoff, All, with regards to the Emira Hill hold assist feature , is there a setting to turn this on in a V6 manual?
I’ve tried testing and can’t get it to work on hills where my Ford Focus Hill hold functions .
Thank you

 

[geoffbland]

Hi Geoff, All, with regards to the Emira Hill hold assist feature , is there a setting to turn this on in a V6 manual?

Not sure - as I mentioned I thought I had seen a way to turn this off in the car settings but I can't find it in the Owners Manual now so I may be imagining that. I don't have my car to check. Does anyone recall if Hill Start Assist can be turned off in the Settings for the V6 manual?

 

[Nick Sticks]

Not sure - as I mentioned I thought I had seen a way to turn this off in the car settings but I can't find it in the Owners Manual now so I may be imagining that. I don't have my car to check. Does anyone recall if Hill Start Assist can be turned off in the Settings for the V6 manual?

The only setting regarding anything like this is turning off the auto handbrake.

 

[NSXer]

As state it needs to be on a fairly big incline for it to work. can confirm mine was working y'day on 23 plate v6 manual

 

[Anothernimbus]

There is no function to turn off. Mine only works if I’m on a hill and press firmly on the brake. If I come to a stop and don’t press firmly on the brake it does not work which is good because typically I don’t like the function of the hill hold as you lose all feeling of the normal bite point.

 

[hkomori]

OK I went out testing today and found a steep hill to test it on - and found my hill hold assist is working fine.

- It needs to be a fairly steep hill
- You need to be in 1st gear, clutch in and foot on brake
- You need to be stationary
- Take your foot off the brake
- The car is held on the brakes for 2-3 seconds or until you press the throttle & release the clutch enough to start moving.
- There is no light indicating hill hold assist is active

So it seems to be working as advertised (on a V6 manual), I'm not sure why it didn't seem to be working on my previous testing as I can get it to happen now with practice - I guess I wasn't doing one of the above or I was too quick to balance on clutch and throttle to notice it before; in practice it is quite subtle and I think in "normal" driving I would rarely use it.

Push clutch really all the way in to activate it. Sensor there.

 

[geoffbland]

Push clutch really all the way in to activate it. Sensor there.

In my testing, the clutch position didn't seem to matter much as long as the clutch was fully disengaged. It was the slope of the hill (or rather how fast I would start to roll back) that mattered as to whether the hill hold would activate or not.

 

[hkomori]

In my testing, the clutch position didn't seem to matter much as long as the clutch was fully disengaged. It was the slope of the hill (or rather how fast I would start to roll back) that mattered as to whether the hill hold would activate or not.

Yes. And I was told by the dealership that two factors control the activation which are clutch fully disengage and incline angle of the road.

 

[geoffbland]

Yes. And I was told by the dealership that two factors control the activation which are clutch fully disengage and incline angle of the road.

There's five factors involved as detailed above.